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 Fredericks and Theodore Kaufmann, and then at the school of the National Academy of Design. In 1856, he started working as a draftsman for "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper". His drawings appeared for the first time in "Harper's Weekly" on March 19, 1859, when he illustrated a report exposing police corruption; Nast was 18 years old at that point. In February 1860, he went to England for the "New York Illustrated News" to depict one of the major sporting events of the era, the prize fight between the American John C. Heenan and the English Thomas Sayers sponsored by George Wilkes,