Great Civil War snowball fights!

[hellboy30]

It's that time of year again to bump!

[semperpietas]

From Jeffry Wert's James Longstreet: The Confederacy Most Contraversial Soldier, Page 225.

To provide context, Longstreet's wife Louise had arrived at the Army's winter quarters following the Fredericksburg Campaign. She was housed by the Hamilton family in the Forest Hill manor.

Longstreet had his headquarters about a mile from Forest Hill and visited during the day when duty permitted. He kept the ambulance available for the ladies, assigning a staff officer as an escort. On some evenings, a regimental or brigade band serenaded the general and his wife. Longstreet spent each night with Louise.
Between Longstreet's headquarters and Forest Hill was the winter campsite of the Texas Brigade. Each morning the corps commander passed through under a barrage of snowballs from the playful Texans. He endured the joke "with his usual imperturbability" for several days until one morning when he saw a line of troops with snowballs in hand. Riding up to them, Longstreet exclaimed: "Throw your snowballs, men, if you want to, as much as you please. But if one of them touches me, not a man in this brigade shall a furlough this winter. Remember that." Longstreet was untouched.

[B7B Southern]

Originally Posted by hellboy30

It's that time of year again to bump!

Funny about that snowballing. Seems like even with the snowball they
still tried to kill each other.

[RuselUpsomegrub]

Originally Posted by No_Nickname

I wonder if any of the snowball battles were between the Union and the Confederate troops.

I never heard of that, but I did once read or hear (maybe incorrectly) that one time some soldiers of each side met at a barn and shared some moonshine and food.

[jeffdiv]

these stories thanks for posting

[Duke Maynard]

Originally Posted by RuselUpsomegrub

I never heard of that, but I did once read or hear (maybe incorrectly) that one time some soldiers of each side met at a barn and shared some moonshine and food.

Keegan claimed that such trading of Yankee coffee for Dixie Tobacco and other such soldierly luxuries was in fact extremely common occurrences. After all, the Federals and the Rebels were still countrymen, hardly mortal enemies, and this was in a time before total war and a more (pardon the term) 'civilized' way of war.