(Justin
Taylor, PhD. “Crossway” Dec. 21, 2014)
In March of
1863, 18-year-old Charles Appleton Longfellow walked out of his family’s home
on Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and—unbeknownst to his
family—boarded a train bound for Washington, DC., over 400 miles away, in order
to join President Lincoln’s Union army to fight in the Civil War.
Charles (b.
June 9, 1844) was the oldest of six children born to Fannie Elizabeth Appleton
and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the celebrated literary critic and poet.
Charles had five younger siblings: a brother (aged 17) and three sisters (ages
13, 10, 8—another one had died as an infant).
Less than
two years earlier, Charles’s mother Fannie had died from a tragic accident when
her dress caught on fire. Her husband, awoken from a nap, tried to extinguish
the flames as best he could, first with a rug and then his own body, but she
had already suffered severe burns. She died the next morning (July 10, 1861),
and Henry Longfellow’s facial burns were severe enough that he was unable even
to attend his own wife’s funeral. He would grow a beard to hide his burned face
and at times feared that he would be sent to an asylum on account of his grief.
When Charley
(as he was called) arrived in Washington D.C. he sought to enlist as a private
with the 1st Massachusetts Artillery. Captain W. H. McCartney, commander of
Battery A, wrote to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for written permission for
Charley to become a soldier. HWL (as his son referred to him) granted the
permission.
Longfellow
later wrote to his friends Charles Sumner (senator from Massachusetts), John
Andrew (governor of Massachusetts), and Edward Dalton (medical inspector
of the Sixth Army Corps) to lobby for his son to become an officer. But Charley
had already impressed his fellow soldiers and superiors with his skills, and on
March 27, 1863, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 1st
Massachusetts Cavalry, assigned to Company “G.”
After
participating on the fringe of the Battle of Chancellorsville in
Virginia (April 30-May 6, 1863), Charley fell ill with typhoid fever and was
sent home to recover. He rejoined his unit on August 15, 1863, having missed
the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863).
While dining
at home on December 1, 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow received a telegram
that his son had been severely wounded four days earlier. On November
27, 1863, while involved in a skirmish during a battle of of the Mine Run
Campaign, Charley was shot through the left shoulder, with the bullet exiting
under his right shoulder blade. It had traveled across his back and
skimmed his spine. Charley avoided being paralyzed by less than an inch.
He was
carried into New Hope Church (Orange County, Virginia) and then
transported to the Rapidan River. Charley’s father and younger brother, Ernest,
immediately set out for Washington, D.C., arriving on December 3. Charley
arrived by train on December 5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was alarmed
when informed by the army surgeon that his son’s wound “was very serious” and
that “paralysis might ensue.” Three surgeons gave a more favorable report that
evening, suggesting a recovery that would require him to be “long in healing,”
at least six months.
On Christmas
day, 1863, Longfellow—a 57-year-old widowed father of six children, the oldest
of which had been nearly paralyzed as his country fought a war against
itself—wrote a poem seeking to capture the dynamic and dissonance in his own
heart and the world he observes around him. He hears the Christmas bells and
the singing of “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14)
but observes the world of injustice and violence that seemed to mock the truth
of this statement. The theme of listening recurs throughout the poem, leading
to a settledness of confident hope even in the midst of bleak despair.
You can read
the whole thing below:
I heard the
bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on
earth, good-will 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, good-will 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, good-will to men!
Then from
each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on
earth, good-will to men!
It was as if
an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on
earth, good-will 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, good-will 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, good-will to
men.”
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
