George Washington(Letter to James Rumsey)
Mississippi admitted to the Union, 1817
December Eleventh
Mr. Rumsey’s steamboat, with more than half her loading (which was upwards of three ton) and a number of people on board, made a progress of four miles in one hour against the current of Potomac River, by the force of steam, without any external application whatsoever.
(Virginian Gazette and Winchester Advertiser, Jan. 11, 1788)
(Virginian Gazette and Winchester Advertiser, Jan. 11, 1788)
Second trip of Rumsey’s steamboat at Shepherdstown, Va., in boat designed after model of 1784
December Twelfth
I have taken the greatest pains to perfect another kind of boat,upon the principles I mentioned to you at Richmond, in November last, and have the pleasure to inform you that I have brought it to a great perfection ... and I have quite convinced myself that boats of passage may be made to go against the current of theMississippiorOhiorivers, or in theGulf Stream(from theLeewardto theWindward-Islands) from sixty to one hundred miles per day. I know this will appear strange and improbable to many persons, yet I am very certain it may be performed, besides, it is simple (when understood) and is also strictly philosophical.
James Rumsey(In letter to George Washington after construction of steamboat model seen in action by the latter in 1784)
December Thirteenth
On part of the field the Union dead lay three deep. So fearful was the slaughter that our men at certain points on the line cried out to the advancing Federal forces, “Go back; we don’t want to kill you all!” Still they pressed forward in the face of despair, and they fell in the unshrinking station where they fought. In six months Lee had effaced Pope, checked McClellan, and crushed Burnside—June 25 to December 13, 1862.
Henry E. Shepherd
Burnside repulsed at Fredericksburg, 1862
December Fourteenth
Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like a snow-peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with a dignity, constancy and purity which have made him the ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding generations.
James Bryce(England)
George Washington dies, 1799
December Fifteenth
Of late I have opened a pawnbroker’s shop for my hard-pressed brethren in feathers, lending at a fearful rate of interest; for every borrowing Lazarus will have to pay me back in due time by monthly instalments of singing. I shall have mine own again with usury. But were a man never so usurious, would he not lend a winter seed for a summer song? Would he refuse to invest his stale crumbs in an orchestra of divine instruments and a choir of heavenly voices?
James Lane Allen
December Sixteenth
I fill this cup to one made upOf loveliness alone,A woman, of her gentle sexThe seeming paragon;To whom the better elementsAnd kindly stars have givenA form so fair, that, like the air,’Tis less of earth than heaven.Edward C. Pinkney(“A Health”)
December Seventeenth
Her every tone is music’s own,Like those of morning birds,And something more than melodyDwells ever in her words;The coinage of her heart are they,And from her lips each flowsAs one may see the burdened beeForth issue from the rose.Edward C. Pinkney(“A Health”)
December Eighteenth
... Nay, more! in death’s despiteThe crippled skeleton “learned to write.”“Dear mother,” at first, of course; and then“Dear Captain,” inquiring about the men.Captain’s answer: “Of eighty-and-five,Giffen and I are left alive.”Francis O. Ticknor(“Little Giffen”)
Francis O. Ticknor dies, 1874
December Nineteenth
Word of gloom from the war, one day;Johnston pressed at the front, they say.Little Giffen was up and away;A tear—his first—as he bade good-bye,Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.“I’ll write, if spared!” There was news of the fight;But none of Giffen.—He did not write.Francis O. Ticknor
Crittenden’s compromise opposed by dominant party in Congress, 1860
Some of the manufacturing states think that a fight would be awful. Without a little bloodletting this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush.
Z. Chandler(Senator from Michigan)
December Twentieth
The Convention of 1787 was composed of members, a majority of whom were elected to reject the Federal Constitution; and it was only after the clause declaring that “the power granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury and oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them at their will,” was inserted in the ordinance of ratification, that six or more of the majority opposed to the measure consented to vote for it. Even with this accession of strength the Constitution was carried only by a vote of 89 to 79.
(From Editorial Article in Charleston “Courier,” 1861)
South Carolina secedes, 1860
December Twenty-First
RESOLVED.... As the powers of legislation, granted in the Constitution of the United States to Congress, do not embrace a case of the admission of a foreign State or Territory, by legislation, into the Union, such an act of admission would have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts.
(Resolutions of Massachusetts Legislature, 1845. Nullification?)
President Tyler urges annexation of Texas, 1844
December Twenty-Second
Bowing her head to the dust of the earth,Smitten and stricken is she;Light after light gone out from her hearth,Son after son from her knee.Bowing her head to the dust at her feet,Weeping her beautiful slain;Silence! keep silence for aye in the street—See! they are coming again!Alethea S. Burroughs
Sherman enters Savannah, 1864
Reconstruction Act put in effect in Georgia, 1869
December Twenty-Third
The glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to animate remote ages.
(President of Congress, to General Washington)
Washington resigns his commission as Commander-in-Chief, Annapolis, 1783
December Twenty-Fourth
CHRISTMAS EVE
The moon is in a tranquil mood;The silent skies are bland:Only the spirits of the goodGo musing up the land:The sea is wrapped in mist and rest;It is the night that God hath blest.Danske Dandridge
December Twenty-Fifth
To the cradle-bough of a naked tree,Benumbed with ice and snow,A Christmas dream brought suddenlyA birth of mistletoe.The shepherd stars from their fleecy cloudStrode out on the night to see;The Herod north-wind blustered loudTo rend it from the tree.But the old year took it for a sign,And blessed it in his heart:“With prophecy of peace divine,Let now my soul depart.”John B. Tabb(Mistletoe)
December Twenty-Sixth
Now praise to God that ere his graceWas scorned and he reviledHe looked into his mother’s face,A little helpless child.And praise to God that ere men stroveAbove his tomb in warOne loved him with a mother’s love,Nor knew a creed therefor.John Charles McNeill(A Christmas Hymn)
December Twenty-Seventh
Hear the sledges with the bells—Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars, that oversprinkleAll the heavens, seem to twinkleWith a crystalline delight;Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.Edgar Allan Poe
December Twenty-Eighth
In the future some historian shall come forth both strong and wise,With a love of the Republic, and the truth, before his eyes.He will show the subtle causes of the war between the States,He will go back in his studies far beyond our modern dates,He will trace our hostile ideas as the miner does the lodes,He will show the different habits born of different social codes,He will show the Union riven, and the picture will deplore,He will show it re-united and made stronger than before.James Barron Hope
December Twenty-Ninth
Slow and patient, fair and truthful must the coming teacher beTo show how the knife was sharpened that was ground to prune the tree.He will hold the Scales of Justice, he will measure praise and blame,And the South will stand the verdict, and will stand it without shame.James Barron Hope
Texas admitted to the Union, 1845
December Thirtieth
I changed my name when I got freeTo “Mister” like the res’,But now dat I am going Home,I likes de ol’ name bes’.Sweet voices callin’ “Uncle Rome”Seem ringin’ in my ears;An’ swearin’ sorter sociable,—Ol’ Master’s voice I hears.······He’s passed Heaven’s River now, an’ soonHe’ll call across its foam:“You, Rome, you damn ol’ nigger,Loose your boat an’ come on Home!”Howard Weeden
December Thirty-First
’Tis midnight’s holy hour—and silence nowIs brooding, like a gentle spirit, o’erThe still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds,The bells’ deep notes are swelling. ’Tis the knellOf the departed year. No funeral trainIs sweeping past; yet on the stream and wood,With melancholy light, the moonbeams restLike a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred,As by a mourner’s sigh; and on yon cloud,That floats so still and placidly through heaven,The spirits of the seasons seem to stand—Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn’s solemn form,And Winter, with his aged locks—and breatheIn mournful cadences, that come abroadLike the far wind harp’s wild and touching wail,A melancholy dirge o’er the dead Year,Gone from the earth forever.George Denison Prentice
Battle of Murfreesboro, Tenn., 1862
Index