December 24, 1862

December 24, 1862:  Gen. Braxton Bragg, commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, has consolidated his advance position at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, only 30 miles from Nashville, where Gen. Rosecrans and his 80,000-man Federal Army of the Cumberland remains inactive, much to the ire of Sec. of War Stanton and the President, especially when they consider that Bragg has only 30,000 men in his army, less than half of Rosecrans’ number.  Meanwhile, more and more divisions of Northern troops chase after the newly married Gen. John Hunt Morgan, whose raiding into Kentucky is making Rosecrans feel very insecure about his line of communications. 

---Secretary of the Navy in Washington, Gideon Welles, writes in his diary of the Administration’s reputation, and the moral cowardice of the members of Congress:

December 24, Wednesday. Congress has adjourned over until the 5th of January. It is as well, perhaps, though I should not have advised it. But the few real business men, of honest intentions, will dispatch matters about as well and fast without as with them. The demagogues in Congress disgrace the body and the country. Noisy and loud professions, with no useful policy or end, exhibit themselves daily.

Most of the Members will go home. Dixon says the feeling North is strong and emphatic against Stanton, and that the intrigue against Seward was to cover and shield Stanton. Others say the same. . . .

Santa Claus visits the Union Army - by Thomas Nast