On Christmas Day 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem we now know as the song “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

Earlier in the year, Longfellow had unsuccessfully pressured his son, Charles, not to join the Union Army. On Christmas Day, Longfellow learned his beloved son had been critically wounded at the Battle of New Hope Church.

“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!”

“And 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!”

Longfellow’s life had been one........

© The Daily Signal