Winter Along The Rappahannock River 1862-1863

A scene where Confederate and Union pickets meet on the frozen Rappahannock River just south
of the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia in the winter of 1862-1863.
My Friend The Enemy. Painting by American Artist Mort Kunstler (2008).

This is one of the most often repeated stories of goodwill between friendly pickets during the War Between The States (1861-1865).

During the Christmas season of 1862, Union and Confederate pickets across the Rappahannock River just outside of the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia was the scene of just such fraternization with their opposite numbers. The river was largely frozen over that winter and the gap between both banks was only a few hundred feet across in many places. The lines were so close on the Rappahannock during the winter of 1862-1863, that personal contact between the soldiers of both sides became commonplace.

While the officers usually discouraged such contact, the common soldiers would make their exchanges by small, hand-made boats that the soldiers called "fairy fleets." Using these toy boats, both sides would exchange goods with each other from across the Rappahannock River.

Other times, when the river froze over more, these men and boys would often met together on rocks, or small islands in the river where Confederate troops exchanged Southern tobacco for the coffee ration issued to Northern soldiers. Sometimes they even met to play cards, or just to exchange stories.

These sorts of encounters were reported many times by soldiers of both sides.

In the spirit of the Holiday Season, this writer would like to offer two stories of these encounters told from the point of view of two young men at the time who served on both sides of the Rappahannock near Fredericksburg that fateful Christmas and winter following the major battle that took place there in December of 1862. 

The following account was written by Private John Randolph Paxton (1843-1923), of Company G, 140th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment, a resident of Washington County, Pennsylvania, was originally published in Harper's Weekly, but was later reprinted in newspapers all over the country. After the war, Paxton became a Presbyterian minister. 

The snow still fell; the keen wind, raw and fierce cut to the bone. It was God's worst weather in God's forlornest, bleakest spot of ground, that Christmas day of '62 on the Rappahannock, a mile below the town of Fredericksburg. But come, pick up your prostrate pluck, you shivering private. Surely there is enough dampness around without adding to it your tears.​
"Let's laugh, boys."​
"Hello, Johnny!"​
"Hello yourself, Yank!"​
"Merry Christmas, Johnny!"​
"Same to you, Yank!"
"Say Johnny, got anything to trade?"​
"Parched corn and tobacco - the size of our Christmas, Yank."​
"All right. You shall have some of our coffee and sugar and pork. Boys, find the boats."​
Such boats! I see the children sailing them on the small lakes in our Central Park. Some Yankee, desperately hungry for tobacco, invented them for trading with the Johnnies. They were hid away under the banks of the river for successive relays of pickets.​
We got out the boats. An old handkerchief answered for a sail. We loaded them with coffee, sugar, pork, and set the sail, and watched them slowly creep to the other shore. And the Johnnies! To see them crowd the bank, and push and scramble to be the first to seize the boats, going into the water, and stretching out their long arms! Then when they pulled the boats ashore, and stood in a group over the cargo, and to hear their exclamations: "Hurrah for hog!" "Sat, that's not roasted rye, but genuine coffee. Smell it, you uns." "And sugar, too." Then they divided the consignment. They laughed and shouted, "Reckon you uns been good to we uns this Christmas Day, Yanks." Then they put parched corn, tobacco, and ripe persimmons into the boats, and sent them back to us. And we chewed the parched corn, smoked real Virginia leaf, ate persimmons, which if they weren't very filling, at least contracted our stomachs to the size of our Christmas dinner. And so the day passed.​
We shouted, "Merry Christmas, Johnny." They shouted, "Same to you, Yank." And we forgot the biting wind, the chilling cold; we forgot those men over there were our enemies, whom it might be our duty to shoot before evening.​
We had bridged the river - spanned the bloody chasm. We were brothers, not foes, waving salutations of good will in the name of the Babe of Bethlehem, on Christmas Day, in '62. At the very front of the opposing armies the Christ Child struck a truce for us -- broke down the wall of partition, became our peace. We exchanged gifts. We shouted greetings back and forth. We kept Christmas, and our hearts were lighted for it and our shivering bodies were not quite so cold.​

The second account is taken from the memoirs of Sergeant Berry G. Benson (1843-1923), of Company H, 1st South Carolina Infantry Regiment, a resident of North Augusta, South Carolina, talking about his remembrances from the winter of 1862-1863 when Benson's unit was assigned picket duty several miles downstream from the town of Fredericksburg.

"We picketed the Rappahannock at Moss Neck Church, one's turn to picket coming every few days, 24 hours being the term. We became quite friendly with the enemy's pickets posted on the opposite side, and used to talk with them and exchange newspapers. The exchange was made by taking a piece of board or bark, fixing a stick upright in it as a mast, with the paper attached to this as a sail. By setting the sail properly, the wind would carry it across from one side to the other, as it was wanted to go. Once a Federal band came down the river and played 'Dixie.' We cheered them vociferously, of course. Then it played 'Yankee Doodle,' and the enemy cheered. Then 'Home, Sweet Home,' and the cheer went up loud and long from both sides of the river."

Both Private Paxton and Sergeant Benson were 19 years old and far from their homes that winter along the Rappahannock River. For them, if only for all-too-brief a time, it was the war that was the real enemy, and not each other. The common bond of being Americans; the divine spark of humanity, for all to brief a period overcoming the darkness of human nature.

Both of these men would thankfully survive the war and go on to have productive and meaningful lives beyond the bloodshed.

Reverend John R. Paxton
Co. G, 140th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, USA.
(September 18,1843 - April 11, 1923).

Sergeant Berry G. Benson
Co. H, 1st South Carolina Infantry Regiment, CSA.
(February 19, 1843 - January 1, 1923).

Have a Happy Holiday Season, Y'all!

Sources for this article include the following:

Harper's Weekly Archives, Library of Congress online.
The Abbeville Press And Banner (Abbeville, South Carolina) Wednesday, December 21, 1887, Page 8.
Berry Benson's Civil War Book: Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press. 1991. Page 35.

This article was reposted on this site from December 2021.