Christmas in the American Civil War circle, and in another circle shows her husband on the battlefield, also in prayer. The same issue's cover started how Santa Claus would be perceived by future Americans, as a white-bearded Santa hands such gifts as socks to Union soldiers, while also holding a Jefferson Davis dancing puppet with a rope tied around its neck to perfectly insinuate a lynching. The Christmas 1863 issue showed the couple back together. The Nast Christmas cartoon for 1864 was a more conciliatory piece, showing Lincoln inviting Confederate soldiers into a warm lodge hall full of merriment. Lincoln called Nast's use of Santa Claus
Thomas Nast Landau, and for a time received Catholic education in New York City. When Nast converted to Protestantism remains unclear, but his conversion was likely formalized upon his marriage in 1861. (The family were practicing Episcopalians at St. Peter's in Morristown.) Nast considered the Catholic Church to be a threat to American values. According to his biographer, Fiona Deans Halloran, Nast was "intensely opposed to the encroachment of Catholic ideas into public education". When Tammany Hall proposed a new tax to support parochial Catholic schools, he was outraged. His savage 1871 cartoon "The American River Ganges", depicts Catholic bishops, guided by