It was November of 1863 and the Civil War was raging across the country. Charles Appleton Longfellow had joined the Union Army in March of that year, much against his father’s wishes. He was fighting in the Battle of New Hope Church in Virginia during the Mine Run campaign on the day he was severely injured to the extent that he could no longer fight and had been discharged and sent home.
Charles’ father was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a noted poet and educator who eventually taught at Bowdoin College and then Harvard. Henry was a fervent abolitionist, but he doted on his son and wished to protect him from harm. Perhaps one reason he did not want to see him join the army was because just two years earlier, a few months after the war started, his beloved wife Fanny had suffered fatal burns in a fire in their home.
It happened in July of 1861 and her young daughters were complaining about their heavy curly hair making them so hot, so Fanny had consented to cut off some of their beautiful curls but she was determined to preserve them in an envelope. She was using a candle to heat the sealing wax when a breeze came through the window and blew some of the hot wax onto her dress. The wax ignited the delicate fabric and she was instantly wrapped in flames.
She ran in terror to the library where her husband was napping. He tried to extinguish the flames with a small rug, but to no avail. In his efforts to save her, he himself was severely burned on his face and arms and upper body. His injuries were so painful that he was unable to attend her funeral and his face was burned and scarred so badly that he was never able to shave again. For this reason he is always wearing the trademark full beard which we recognize in all portraits of him.
Longfellow was left alone to raise his five children. He was no stranger to tragedy. His first wife died as a result of a miscarriage in November 1835, so with his son’s war injury also occurring in the month of November, albeit 28 years later, Longfellow often went through a time of depression over the holidays. In fact, at Christmas time in 1861 after the death of his wife, he wrote in his diary that he could no longer celebrate Christmas and join in the happiness exhibited by others at that time.
It was on Christmas Day 1863 when he was nursing his son back to health and giving thanks for his survival that he heard the church bells ringing through the streets, and he wrote a poem he called Christmas Bells. The poem seems almost melancholy in its opening stanzas and reflects his sadness during the holidays. He was also deeply disturbed about his beloved country and the ongoing war between the states. He was so hoping that by this time there would have been a reconciliation between the North and the South, but that was not to be for several years yet.
So it was in this state of mind that he wrote what I consider to be one of the best Christmas carols ever. His poem originally named Christmas Bells was later set to music and we know it as “I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day”.
It is true that the poem does not mention the Babe in the manger as in “Round Yon Virgin Mother and Child” in the “Little Town of Bethlehem”, nor the “Shepherds Watching Over Their Flocks By Night,” and we need those carols and treasure them each time we sing them in our churches.
But the poem song does mention the angels proclaiming peace on earth, good will to men, and Longfellow is very much aware that in the middle of the Civil War there was no peace, and very little good will between men, and so he writes:
“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. I 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. Til 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. 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.”
But then the song takes a different turn and expresses the hope that is truly Christian and the year long message of Christmas. My church background before preaching ministry was the director of choir and congregational singing, and as I led this beautiful carol each Christmas season, I would ask the choir to sing out with all the breath they had and make the rooftop ring with the joy expressed in the last verse of Longfellow’s beautiful poetry:
“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.”
And that is why I love the carol “I Heard The Bells”.
And if you know me, you know the teacher part of my personality likes to share small details I discover when I research a subject. Here is one about Fanny Longfellow. She was the first woman in the U.S. to use ether during childbirth. Henry had learned about the anesthetic from Dr. Nathan Keep, Dean of Dentistry at Harvard, and he agreed to administer it to Fanny when her third child was born on April 7, 1847. By the way, Ladies, her diary records that she loved it!
©Joan Rowden Hart
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