{"id":1676,"date":"2013-12-25T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2013-12-25T04:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.bowdoin.edu\/arch\/civil-war-blog\/?p=1676"},"modified":"2025-05-12T18:36:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T18:36:47","slug":"december-25-1863","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/2013\/12\/25\/december-25-1863\/","title":{"rendered":"December 25, 1863"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is Christmas, the anniversary of the Advent of our Lord and\u00a0 Saviour Jesus Christ.\u00a0 The day has seemed more like the Sabbath than any day I have spent in the army.\u00a0 Of course work has been done, but we have had no inspection nor review, and divine services have been held.\u00a0 This morning Hobbs and I went over to Botts\u2019 woods, from which the guard has been taken and \u201dbacked\u201d some wood into camp.\u00a0 At dinner time our mail due at night came in and I received a letter from Miss Godding containing a Christmas present in shape of a Photograph of Mr. Larrabee of Gardiner.\u00a0 It was kind and thoughtful in Miss G. to send that letter with the expectation that it would reach me on Christmas.\u00a0 Such acts or deeds of kindness render our friends dearer to us than costly gifts, or gold.\u00a0 It afforded me much pleasure to think of the contents of the letter, and to know that friends in the North were thinking of us soldiers in the field.\u00a0 How many prayers ascend today in our behalf from the loving and loyal hearts of our many dear friends in our northern home as they bow with reverence around the family altars consecrated to our God and Father!!\u00a0 And shall we forget to pray for them and ask God\u2019s blessing to rest upon all they do?\u00a0 From the inmost recesses of our heart our fervent prayers ascend to God that all of them may be blessed, and especially, that his spirit may be present and abide with them.\u00a0 Divine services at two.\u00a0 Rev. Mr. Lovering addressed us, calling our attention to the 2d chap. of Luke, 11th<\/sup> verse.\u00a0 The importance of certain days in men\u2019s life remarked about.\u00a0 Long existence of great principles referred to.\u00a0 Custom of the Druids related.\u00a0 Yearly fire.\u00a0 Exhortations to us to kindle new fires on our heart\u2019s altars this day.\u00a0 A very appropriate exhortation.\u00a0 Mr. L. is a very good speaker, and thus far has shown an admirable feature in his discourses.\u00a0 They are brief and pointed.\u00a0 No unnecessary words are used.\u00a0 We admire such discourses when we have to stand in the open air and listen to them.\u00a0 It is a treat to hear a good man utter words of truth and wisdom so seldom have we heard them during the past three months.\u00a0 Dress parade at which Maj. Mattocks first made his appearance in place of our Col.\u00a0 Perhaps more correctly I should say the first appeared at divine services, for there he had command of the regiment.\u00a0 Our Col. is Corps officer of the day I believe.\u00a0 Visited Dr. Colman at the 3d Maine, and enjoyed a happy Christmas Eve with him.\u00a0 Called on Dr. Hersons.\u00a0 Eat two pies at Chaplin\u2019s.\u00a0 Fair and pleasant this morning.\u00a0 Overcast this P.M.\u00a0 Col. West was division officer of the day instead of Corps officer.\u00a0 Had quite a time with an inebriated man on horseback, who had lost his way.\u00a0 He offered me some whiskey.\u00a0 Took none of course.<\/p>\n

Diary of Edwin Emery [Edwin Emery Diaries and Memoir]\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Christmas, the anniversary of the Advent of our Lord and\u00a0 Saviour Jesus Christ.\u00a0 The day has seemed more like the Sabbath than any day I have spent in the army.\u00a0 Of course work has been done, but we have had no inspection nor review, and divine services have been held.\u00a0 This morning Hobbs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[26,74,121],"class_list":{"0":"post-1676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-edwin-emery-diary","7":"tag-17th-maine-infantry","8":"tag-bowdoin-class-of-1861","9":"tag-edwin-emery","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2013,"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676\/revisions\/2013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sca.bowdoin.edu\/civil-war-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}