Picket Stories, Enemies Who Quit For Awhile

So many tales of friendships only to end up shooting at each other within a short time later.

I'm not sure that's always the case. I've read many accounts where soldiers have made an agreement not to shoot, unless a picky Officer came along and even then, they'd give the opposition a warning first. A few accounts where pickets have warned the other side that another Company or Regt is on duty later and their blood's up, so keep down.
 
There was also the first Christmas of WW I

Christmas in the Trenches, John McCutcheon (song)

My name is Francis Tolliver. I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here,
I fought for King and country I love dear.

It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung.
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung.
Our families back in England were toasting us that day,
their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lyin' with my mess-mates on the cold and rocky ground
when across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound.
Says I "Now listen up me boys", each soldier strained to hear
as one young German voice sang out so clear.

"He's singin' bloody well you know", my partner says to me.
Soon one by one each German voice joined in in harmony.
The cannons rested silent. The gas cloud rolled no more
as Christmas brought us respite from the war.

As soon as they were finished a reverent pause was spent.
'God rest ye merry, gentlemen' struck up some lads from Kent.
The next they sang was 'Stille Nacht". "Tis 'Silent Night'" says I
and in two tongues one song filled up that sky.

"There's someone comin' towards us" the front-line sentry cried.
All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side.
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright
as he bravely strode, unarmed, into the night.

Then one by one on either side walked into no-mans-land
with neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand.
We shared some secret brandy and wished each other well
and in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell.

We traded chocolates, cigarettes and photographs from home
these sons and fathers far away from families of their own.
Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin
this curious and unlikely band of men.

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more.
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war.
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night
"whose family have I fixed within my sights?"

It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung.
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung.
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
had been crumbled and were gone for evermore.

My name is Francis Tolliver. In Liverpool I dwell.
Each Christmas come since World War One I've learned it's lessons well.
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
and on each end of the rifle we're the same.
 
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From Harper's Weekly, illustration of pickets meeting half way in a river. Harper's told this story, newspapers seem to have published every one they could get their hands on.


Too many knowledgeable members to have a shot at what picket duty encompassed, would sound like an idjit. Given we're all familiar, these stories seem reflective of how difficult a war we had as Americans, shooting at each other. Forced into proximity, pickets sometimes threw in the towel and went back to being neighbors.

A few famous stories of pickets rubbing elbows come up, thought it would be good to see if it was an anomaly. Kinda convinced it wasn't. You do not have to look hard to find these, cool stuff. There are a lot. Not a short read, sorry. Long threads can be a big snore, this one could be no different- thought the stories worth passing on anyway.


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Most believable when written by soldiers in letters home or shared with local newspapers. Again, a lot of these stories came up, from both sides. That's a Vermont paper.

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May be apocryphal and would have thought so for certain without a ton of first hand accounts. Most are written as part of a letter " Life at War ", not the main topic.

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New Hampshire

I'm sorry but IMO we liked each other, given the chance- no one please go up the wall over how we did not. They sure seem to have proven it. Plenty of stories where pickets were embattled- plenty where they just took a break, back to 1860 or so.

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From a Vicksburg paper, repeating an article out of Richmond, one of the best ( so far )
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Printed conversations are sometimes a little pointed, others, funny and a lot seem like you're listening to buddies.
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1863, story below made various papers- part of a letter

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I don't know. Given the number of stories, have a feeling we liked reading of these small truces.

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Yet another, from someone who was there. Letter snip from NYC paper.
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Have more but will post later- like I said, you just do not have to look hard to find these. It's reassuring, no idea why.

Frank Leslie's published this, pickets at work as the adversaries they mostly were. But not always.
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Not surprising really. Everyone miserable, homesick. Nice to take a break, and it set a precedent for other wartime moments of truce and tranquility.
 
In my readings I've come across many picket stories where tobacco and coffee, among other things, were exchanged. While reading "I Rode with Stonewall Jackson" the author Henry Kyd Douglas mentioned that the enemy allowed him to cross the Potomac River for a short visit with his family at the top of the hill: "Ferry Hill Place." I've crossed the bridge over the river many times and thought about this story and others in Henry Kyd Douglas' book.
 
This is part of the romantic side of the CW.


It isn't meant to be. For every one of these, pickets were killed and killed each other by the dozen. The ' romance ' of the war is largely fictional, authors who did not get shot at riding their pens into the face of the enemy, glorious death minus bereft children, wives, mothers and parents, amputated limbs in small mountains outside field hospitals. Point of these stories is, we survived as humans despite all of it.
 
It's undeniable that there were moments of absolute savagery, fear and misery. But when you count those against the number of days of sheer boredom or static trench lines, they are much, much less.

One of the most hated aspects of life for the men when both armies were in close quarters was the Sharpshooter. It all seemed so meaningless to them and they asked questions like 'What difference to the war would it make shooting a man every hour or so?' 'Why can't a man go foraging for wood or water or to do his business without getting killed?' 'Sharpshooting is nothing but murder.'

This is the overriding reason, I believe, for the relaxation of 'the rules' by the average infantryman of either side, with the added advantage that the Rebs craved coffee and the Yanks craved tobacco and both sides prized opposition newspapers and journals. Line Officers - who were the main sharpshooting targets - if they had any sense, turned a blind eye to the fraternisation and, indeed, profited from it.

I have read tales of men from both sides who absolutely loved sharpshooting and enjoyed picking off fellows who were trading in a temporary truce situation, not only to harm the enemy, but to warn their own side that for them, it was a 'Black Flag' war, ie 'No Quarter'. The Orphan Brigade in front of Kenesaw being a prime example. Every soldier understood the military value Sharpshooters could bring - driving off a battery, shooting Generals etc and during a battle, but I reckon they found it tough to understand the shooting of enlisted men when the two sides weren't actually fighting.
 
I found another story in Sears' To the Gates of Richmond (page 166):
On June 23 Baldy Smith notified headquarters that the captain of one of his picket posts had been invited to a ball in Richmond that night in celebration of Stonewall Jackson's recent victories, at which the hosts "promised to be civil to him & bring him back in the morning." The records do not reveal whether this particular example of chivalry was carried out.
:D This reminds me of an episode in the mini-series The Blue and the Gray where a Confederate private invites his two cousins who serve with the Union to a dance in a barn. The private's brother - an artist for newspapers who follows the Union army - is currently visiting his cousins and decides to come along. All four have a jolly time until a Confederate officer comes along, sees the northerners and is about to arrest them. If I remember correctly, the Confederate private and some of his friends somehow talk their officer into letting the northerners go.

When I watched the series, I had already come across the one or other friendly picket story, but I thought it impossible that something like inviting members of the opposing army to a dance ever really happened. After reading the above today, I suppose it wasn't quite that unlikely. Surely not as often as pickets just meeting to exchange newspapers, trade tabacco with coffee or just talking, but not as impossible as I so far thought.
 
While here on Lookout mountain we did picket duty at the foot of the mountain, on a creek, we called Lookout creek, and near the railroad. While here the two picket lines at many places were not more than forty yards apart. We could see and hear them relieving their pickets, and they could see us. Each party kept fire at the vidette post day and night. We even met half way in the creek, where it was shallow and shoally to swap newspapers, canteens, tobacco for coffee, and I have seen some swap hats and shoes, and talk for half an hour at a time, but this was only when no officer was present on either side. Well, all good times have to come to an end, and easy picket duty shared that fate, for on November 24th, 1863, we were attacked on Lookout
mountain....
["The History of Company K, 27th Mississippi Infantry and its First and Last Muster Rolls," R. A. Jarman, The Aberdeen Examiner, Aberdeen, MS, Allen County Public Library, Genealogy Collection.] https://archive.org/stream/historyofcompany00jarm/historyofcompany00jarm_djvu.txt
 
Habitually clipping and saving these stories, must have dozens ( and I mean dozens ) more. It's a favorite topic not because I'm some unrealistic Pollyanna, it's a human nature interest thing. Across the board we're not actually very good at hate, just seem to get talked into it easily. Given the chance and left alone, we'll consistently swap tobacco and newspapers.
 
Here's an experience related by some pickets with the 27th New York Infantry, who met their foes after Fredericksburg:

Picket story from the 27th NY.jpg


~From "History of the 27th Regiment N.Y. Volunteers," by C.[harles] B.[ryant] Fairchild, 1988
 
Here's an experience related by some pickets with the 27th New York Infantry, who met their foes after Fredericksburg:

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~From "History of the 27th Regiment N.Y. Volunteers," by C.[harles] B.[ryant] Fairchild, 1988
Sometimes makes me wonder if their hearts were really in the conflict. Maybe they were so battle weary, that the issues dividing them could be put to the side, at least briefly.
 
We're getting some wonderful Christmas stories, as usual. Got me thinking how many we have here- Christmas in April or August, any day between 1861 and 1865. These are really displaced December stories- along with quite a few other threads we should bump.

Have a few ' new ' ones, decided to begin by digging up old threads. This stuff never gets old anyway.
 
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