Christmas stories should be full of sweetness and light.

The subtitle of this book is “A True Civil War Christmas Story.” That “Civil War” part should have been enough to clue me in. However, I still expected something like those stories of opposing armies playing baseball during a lull in the fighting.

There is, in fact, a heart-warming anecdote that I’ll get to in a minute. Also, that first Christmas, in 1861, wasn’t so bad, according to McIvor. The men were still caught up in their cause, expecting the war to be over soon, and receiving delicious packages from home. “That first year, camp life was still a novelty and an adventure for men who had never before ventured far from home.”

Christmas had not always been a holiday for family and home in the United States. The early Puritans had discouraged any sign of “pagan” celebration, while in the antebellum Southern states, the holiday often seemed more like a carnival. By the 1860s, though, Christmas had become a day to spend at home with family, especially children.

By Christmas of 1862, “Americans were killing each other at a staggering pace.” The battles of Bull Run, Seven Days, Shiloh, and Antietam had been fought. The soldiers were tired, often hungry, usually cold. They were still fighters, but they were worried about their families at home and often disillusioned about their officers.

As Christmas, 1862, approached, two armies found themselves near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a small town near Nashville. It was to be the scene of Confederate Colonel John Morgan’s wedding to a local belle, a gala ball, and renewed fighting. On Christmas Day, Union General Rosecrans met with his corps commanders, and the decision was made to attack the next day.

Meanwhile, the Rebel force was also on the move, in miserable weather. On the night of December 28 came the memorable event that reminded the soldiers of their brotherhood, even though they would be killing each other again very soon. There were bands with both armies, and that night they played, as we might anticipate, “Dixie,” “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” and “Hail, Columbia,” “Yankee Doodle.”

However, when one group began “Home, Sweet Home,” bands on both sides joined in, and the men sang along. It is a heart-breaking scene when we know what happened the next day.

After the dreadful battle the next day, men from both armies tended the wounded of both sides. They remained opponents during the many battles to come, but most of them remembered the incident and felt respect for the “enemy.”

It was during those days that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem that became the words to a familiar Christmas carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” One verse begins, “And in despair I bowed my head; ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said.”

The last verse brings the triumphant message of Christmas:

“Then peeled the bells more loud and deep:

God is not dead nor does he sleep! The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men.”