A Captured Santa Claus - Illustrated

A Captured Santa Claus: the setting is the countryside around Richmond, Virginia. The time is 1863, the middle of the United States Civil War. The Stafford family is aligned with the Confederacy, and the father, Major Stafford, is away fighting on Christmas Day. The Union Army has blockaded the area around the Stafford homestead, making Christmas shopping impossible. The Major manages to get home before Christmas Day ends, but he has no presents. His three children, however, are unfazed, assuring him that Santa Claus is going to bring them everything they want next Christmas. How in the world will their parents make this happen?

Thomas Nelson Page was a lawyer and American writer. He also served as the U.S. ambassador to Italy under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. Although he was from once-wealthy lineage, after the American Civil War, which began when he was only 8 years old, his parents and their relatives were largely impoverished during Reconstruction and his teenage years. Page wrote many novels and short stories that romanticized the condition of the South after the Civil War.