Christmas in the American Civil War had a drawing in the Christmas 1865 issue of Harper's Weekly depicting the heads of several Confederate generals at Ulysses S. Grant's feet in an image that centered on Santa. After the war Nast purposely made the North Pole the home of Saint Nick so that no one else could use him for nationalistic propaganda like Nast himself did. Christmas in the American Civil War Christmas in the American Civil War (1861–1865) was celebrated in both the United States and the Confederate States of America although the day did not become an official holiday until five years after the war
Thomas Nast often implicating the Irish as instigators. Nast blamed U.S. Senator James G. Blaine (R-Maine) for his support of the Chinese Exclusion Act and depicted Blaine with the same zeal used against Tweed. Nast was one of the few editorial artists who took up for the cause of the Chinese in America. During the presidential election of 1880, Nast felt that he could not support the Republican candidate, James A. Garfield, because of Garfield's involvement in the Crédit Mobilier scandal; and did not wish to attack the Democratic candidate, Winfield Scott Hancock, his personal friend and a Union general whose integrity