I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day--Based on A Tragic Death,and Civil War

Many of the Christmas traditions we celebrate today came to maturity during the Civil War.  One of America's best known poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), made his contribution to the carols sung each Christmas season, when on December 25th 1864 he composed the words to “Christmas Bells” better known as "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day". Two stanzas have been omitted from the original poem, which contained references to the American Civil War. The remaining five stanzas were slightly rearranged after the war in 1872 by John Baptiste Calkin (1827-1905), who also gave us the memorable tune. When Longfellow penned the words to his poem, America was still months away from Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9th 1865; and, his poem reflected the prior years of the war's despair, while ending with a confident hope of triumphant peace.

By 1863, even the abolitionists were appalled by the amount of blood and violence their cause had created. Even though President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 800,000 slaves outside the Confederacy were not covered under its authority. The War seemed no closer to ending than when it had started, despite Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The summer of Union optimism had turned into its winter of discontent and would end with over 620,000 dead.

Although Longfellow condemned slavery, he was not a fire-breathing abolitionist. He was, however, a close friend of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, a radical Republican.  Sumner condemned “the peculiar institution” whenever and wherever he could, in harshest terms condemned slavery. Sumner delivered his infamous “Crime Against Kansas” speech on the floor of the Senate in May, 1856. This speech was particularly personal and inflammatory. Two days later, Preston Brooks, a Congressman from South Carolina and a cousin of one of the men insulted in the speech, approached Sumner and clubbed him over the head with his cane. Sumner was nearly killed. As a side note, on July 14, 1856 Preston Brooks resigned when he ended his speech by saying, Mr. Speaker, I announce to you and to this House, that I am no longer a member of the Thirty-Fourth Congress. [Brooks then walked out of the House of Representatives.]

Twelve years before, in 1842, Longfellow had published a small book of poems for Sumner’s group, The New England Anti-Slavery Association. Longfellow himself claimed that the poems were “so mild that even a Slaveholder might read them without losing his appetite for breakfast,” but Sumner was satisfied with it, and the group reprinted it for further distribution.

Longfellow followed politics closely and, by 1860, realized that there must be some sort of resolution to the problems which beset the nation. His most famous poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” was written in time for a Christmas publication in The Atlantic Monthly.  He hoped it would be a call for a new Revolution, although he, like so many Americans, never envisioned one so long and brutal.

Longfellow, like many in the country on both sides of the conflict, endured a significant amount of heartbreak during the war. The fall of Fort Sumter, the secession of the southern estates, including Virginia, and Great Britain’s declaration of neutrality were just some of the incidents that brought grief to the poet.

As with any composition that touches the heart of the hearer, “Christmas Bells” flowed from the experience of Longfellow-- involving the tragic death of his wife Fanny and the crippling injury of his son Charles from war wounds.

Henry married Frances Appleton on July 13th 1843, and they settled down in the historic Craigie House overlooking the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They were blessed with the birth of their first child, Charles, on June 9th 1844, and eventually, the Longfellow household numbered five children-- Charles, Ernest, Alice, Edith, and Allegra. Alice, the Longfellows' third child and first daughter, was delivered, while her mother was under the anesthetic influence of ether-- the first in North America.

In 1861, tragedy struck both the nation and the Longfellow family. Confederate Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard fired the opening salvos of the American Civil War on April 12th, and Fanny Longfellow was fatally burned in an accident in the library of Craigie House on July 10th. The day before the accident, Fanny Longfellow recorded in her journal: "We are all sighing for the good sea breeze instead of this stifling land one filled with dust. Poor Allegra is very droopy with heat, and Edie has to get her hair in a net to free her neck from the weight.  After trimming some of seven year old Edith's beautiful curls, Fanny decided to preserve the clippings in sealing wax. Melting a bar of sealing wax with a candle, a few drops fell unnoticed upon her dress. The longed for sea breeze gusted through the window, igniting the light material of Fanny's dress-- immediately wrapping her in flames. In her attempt to protect Edith and Allegra, she ran to Henry's study in the next room, where Henry frantically attempted to extinguish the flames with a nearby, but undersized throw rug. "Failing to stop the fire with the rug, he tried to smother the flames by throwing his arms around Frances-- severely burning his face, arms, and hands. Fanny Longfellow died the next morning. Too ill from his burns and grief, Henry did not attend her funeral. (Incidentally, the trademark full beard of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow arose from his inability to shave after this tragedy.)

The first Christmas after Fanny's death, Longfellow wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." A year after the incident, he wrote, "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace." Longfellow's journal entry for December 25th 1862 reads: "'A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me."

Two years later, their seventeen-year old son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, ran away and joined the Union Army. Initially, the distraught father did not know where to find his son. The young man had gone to Washington, D.C. to seek a friend, Captain W. H. McCartney, commander of the 1st Massachusetts Artillery. Not wanting to enlist the son of a family friend, McCartney wired Longfellow for permission for “Charley” to enlist.  Patriotically, he gave it.

This was not the harebrained scheme of a teenager to get away from home and his father’s preoccupation with the death of his mother. Charley wrote, “I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave, but I cannot any longer. I feel it to be my first duty to do what I can for my country and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good.”

The young man was soon promoted to Lieutenant, and his first combat experience came at Chancellorsville. In June, Charley contracted typhoid and malaria, and was sent home to recover. He rejoined his unit on August 15, 1863.

On November 27, as part of the Mine Run Campaign in New Hope Church, Virginia, he was severely wounded by a bullet that entered his left shoulder, traveled across his back, nicked his spine, and exited the right shoulder. He was carried by ambulance to a field hospital on the Rapidan River, and then sent to a hospital in Washington. His recovery was not at all certain.

Longfellow learned of his son’s injury on December 1, 1863, and left immediately, along with his younger son Ernest, to recover Charley. All during his journey to the capital, the father was not certain if he would be bringing back a wounded son, or a dead one.

In the midst of his sorrows—the War, a dead wife, a young family to raise alone, and a son who hovered near death—Longfellow thought of all the other households in the Union whose holidays were marred, some forever, by the events of the last three years.  He did what writers do: he wrote. The resulting poem was the one we know as “I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day.” The poem was not intended to join the sugary sweet Christmas carols already in place.

Charley survived, and by December 8, he was back in Cambridge to recover at home.  He lived, but the wound was considered too severe to allow Lieutenant Longfellow to return to his unit.  He was mustered out on February 15, 1864.

The Christmas of 1863 was silent in Longfellow's journal. Finally, on Christmas Day of 1864, he wrote the words of the poem, "Christmas Bells." The reelection of Abraham Lincoln or the possible end of the terrible war may have been the occasion for the poem.  Lt. Charles Longfellow did not die that Christmas, but lived. So, contrary to popular belief, the occasion of writing that much loved Christmas carol was not due to Charles' death.

There are two stanzas of the poem that never made it to the song we know today. They describe the effect of the War, and the sadness of the inhumanity it had caused, so contrary to the spirit of Christmas. Here is the entire poem:

“Christmas Bells”

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered from the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned

Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on Earth, “ I said:
“For Hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead; nor doth He sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on Earth, goodwill to men!