On Saturday afternoon, Dec. 8, the year 1863 returned with Christmas in Camp at Fort Ward in Alexandria. It was the year and season that illustrator Thomas Nast’s Union Santa was featured on the cover of Harper’s Weekly. The Civil War was going poorly for the Union troops and President Lincoln is said to have been looking for ways to lift morale.
On Saturday, re-enactors portrayed Confederate and Union soldiers, while women appeared to take visitors to camp as a batch of Wassail was heating on the open fire.