Mrs. Balfour’s Christmas Eve Ball

The weather was nasty, cold windy, and rainy in Vicksburg, Mississippi on Christmas Eve, 1862. The Civil War – supposed to last only 90 days – had dragged on now for 21 months. Despite the inclement weather, Mrs. Emma Balfour was determined to celebrate the season by hosting her annual Christmas Eve ball.

Forty-four-year-old Emma Harrison Balfour tried to convince her husband, Dr. William T. Balfour, that despite the war, they should have the party. She reasoned, hadn’t the Confederate forces been successful? Didn’t they save Vicksburg from Maj. Gen. Grant and his northern hordes by destroying his supply depot at Holly Springs, forcing the Yankees to retreat? Besides, her hope was to heighten the spirits of her friends, and of the soldiers, and also to celebrate the victory and the Yuletide.

Her husband relented and the house was cleaned and decorated. Invitations were sent to all of her friends, all of whom were prominent citizens of Vicksburg, and the senior Confederate officers garrisoned in the city. On the day of the party, the tables were set with food and drink. The evening of December 24, guests began to arrive at the Balfour’s opulent, hilltop home at the corner of Cherry and Crawford Streets.

The two-story brick mansion was ablaze. Light reflected from the crystal chandeliers, and candlelight illuminated each room. With the arrival of the musicians, both music and light filled the house and spilled outside into the rainy night. The guests were attracted like flies, and the home was soon filled with revelers. The ladies, dressed in their finest crinoline gowns, swirled and danced with their partners on the dance floor. Lively conversations and laughter permeated the rooms.

Amongst the soldiers in attendance was Maj. Gen. Martin Luther Smith, Vicksburg’s garrison commander, and his subordinate, Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Lee. All were enjoying the ball and forgetting the war and the cold, wet weather outside.[i]

Not everyone was invited to the party. Maj. Lee J. Daniels, Maj. E.P. Earnhearst, and Col. Philip Hadley Fall of the Confederate Signal Corps were on duty at their lonely signal stations. “After the fall of Memphis, the Mississippi River was open to Union gunboats as far down as Vicksburg,” wrote Gen. Stephen D. Lee. “As early as October 1862, a telegraph station was established at DeSoto on the river bank opposite Vicksburg, with Col. Philip H. Fall as operator. It was connected with a station at the Tibbotts’ plantation, eleven miles south of Lake Providence.”[ii]

Unlike the Balfours, or Gen. Smith and Gen. Lee, these Signal Corps officers spent their Christmas Eve quietly working. “Major Earnhearst, after telling me of the danger of a picket outpost,” Daniels wrote, “asked me to go to Point Lookout, Louisiana, eleven miles below Lake Providence and sixty-five miles above Vicksburg, the terminus of the little private telegraph line owned by that rich planter Horace B. Tibbotts.” Tibbotts’ plantation was three miles from the river, so Daniels and Earnhearst occupied a small cabin overlooking the river where they could watch the river traffic and stay dry.[iii]

“It was Christmas Eve about 8:45pm,” Maj. Daniels recalled. “Dear old Major E.P. Earnhearst and I were in our ‘eerie’ playing ‘Old Sledge’ when a little black girl who lived on the place came in.” She told them that they should come outside as she heard a boat coming. Earnhearst didn’t believe her and said that she must be dreaming. She insisted she had heard the sound, imitating the choo, choo, pat, pat, pat sound of the steam escape valve and the slap of a paddlewheel on the water.

Daniels and Earnhearst stepped outside onto the building’s small porch and listened intently. They soon heard faint sounds. Curious, the two lookouts trekked through the woods about one-eighth of a mile to the water’s edge to get a closer look. Standing in the dark, with cold rain pelting them, they smoked and waited.

Daniels remembered: “Waiting perhaps thirty minutes, we could hear the panting and pat, pat, pat [when suddenly] a monster turned the bend, two miles above us, and came slowly as if feeling the way. It was a gunboat . . . then another. Just then some sparks flew out of [Earnhearst’s] pipe and I grabbed the pipe and extinguished the fire, telling him that those [damned Yankees] would fire a volley at the crack of a match. By now the large black devil was about abreast of us in easy gunshot [range].”[iv] Despite each being armed with shotguns, they realized it was suicide to fire, so they began to count the vessels as more loomed out of the darkness around the river’s bend.

The two officers must have been in a state of shock as they watched and counted 7 gunboats and 59 transports loaded with bluecoats. It was the Union fleet, commanded by Rear Adm. David Dixon Porter, escorting Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s 33,040 men destined to land at Chickasaw Bayou and overwhelm the Confederate defenses north of Vicksburg.[v]

As soon as the last transport passed, the two made their way back to the lookout post. Daniels “jumped on my little bay filly and fairly flew” the three miles through the Louisiana woods, arriving at Tibbott’s telegraph station after midnight.

Col. Fall was sitting quietly at the DeSoto telegraph terminus, wishing himself a Merry Christmas when suddenly the keys began to clatter. Surprised, Fall answered the call. “Golly, old fellow what’s up?”

Agitated at the prospect of Vicksburg being captured, Daniels lost all perspective of time. He thought he had been frantically summoning Fall for 30 minutes instead of 30 seconds before Fall responded. Daniels tapped out, “Great God, Phil, where have you been? I have been calling and the river is lined with boats, almost a hundred just passed my lookout.” Daniels implored, “God speed you, rush across and give the alarm.”

Fall responded, “God bless you, Lee, bye, bye. We may never meet again,” and signed off.[vi]

Col. Fall had to get word to the defenders in Vicksburg but there was no easy way. Fall had to cross the Mississippi alone in a small open boat. The intrepid officer jumped into the boat, lit a red signal lamp to signify to the gunners at Vicksburg that he was friendly, and began to row.

The rain and wind whipped the brown water into a frenzy. “I was in dread of my red light being extinguished by the high waves. The Mississippi was very rough; had my light gone out, our batteries would have annihilated me,” Fall remembered. He also worried about being swamped or capsized, “[But] with what information as I possessed, I would have made the attempt in the face of death.”[vii]

It took Fall approximately 30 minutes to row across the almost mile expanse of the river. He arrived soaked. Disembarking, Fall trudged up the Vicksburg bluffs “muddy and woe begone.”

Inquiring of Gen. Smith’s whereabouts, the bedraggled officer set off for the Balfour house. Arriving, he saw the lights and heard the music as the ball was still in progress. The sodden, soaked, and mud-caked colonel climbed the stairs. Entering the foyer, the dripping officer left muddy footprints as he crossed the dance floor toward Gen. Smith. The music abruptly stopped as the horrified guests silently watched, giving the colonel a wide berth.

Smith was startled and irritated by the intrusion. Frowning and critically scanning the unkempt colonel, he gruffly demanded, “Well, sir, what do you want?” Saluting, Fall informed the general of the message he had received an hour and a half earlier. When the words came from Fall’s mouth, the color drained from Smith’s face. Ashen and gray, the general quickly composed himself. Drawing himself erect, proclaimed in a loud voice: “This ball is over. The enemy are coming down the river and all non-combatants must leave the city. All military personnel are to rejoin their regiments immediately.”[viii]

Turning back to Fall, the general softened and apologized to the colonel for his harsh tone and thanked him. Those officers in attendance at the ball bade their partners or loved ones goodbye. Under the circumstances, each and everyone understood that they might never meet again. With that they departed.

On Christmas Day, Gen. S.D. Lee along with six regiments and two batteries marched to defend the Walnut Hills overlooking the Yazoo River. Fall accompanied Smith to his headquarters to telegraph Lt. Gen. John Pemberton in Jackson of the Yankee threat. In response to this, Pemberton dispatched reinforcements to Vicksburg. The following day, Sherman ordered fierce assaults at Chickasaw Bayou which proved unsuccessful. The Yankees re-embarked and left with Porter’s fleet.

Back at Tibbotts, Maj. Daniels received a surprise on Christmas morning when Yankee cavalry arrived and took him prisoner. Luckliy, Maj. Earnhearst escaped as he had departed on horseback earlier to alert Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith of the Yankee invasion.

The victorious Confederates would remember the Balfour Christmas Eve ball and compare it to Napoleon interrupting the Austrian ball on the eve of Waterloo, which was made immortal in Lord Byron’s famous poem, “The Eve of Waterloo”:

There was a sound of reveling by night,

And Belgium’s capital had gathered then

Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men who

A Thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again

And all was merry as a marriage ball

But hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes the rising knell!

Did ye not hear it? No; ‘twas but the wind

Or a car ratting o’er the stony street;

On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined;

No sleep ‘til morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet

To chase the glowing hours with flying feet –

But hark! – that heavy sound breaks once more,

As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And near, cleaner, deadlier than before!

Arm! Arm! It is – the cannon’s opening roar!

It was due to the vigilant and intrepid telegraphers – Lee Daniels and Philip Fall – Brig. Gen. S.D. Lee’s infantry and artillery rushed to Chickasaw Bayou to repulse the Federals. Lee stated: “They ran great risks and endured many hardships. They prevented the almost complete surprise of the Confederate Army at Vicksburg on December 1862.”[ix] Their patriotic work saved Vicksburg that Christmas.

Alas, Mrs. Balfour would never host another Christmas Eve ball, as Vicksburg would fall to Grant seven months later.[x]

 

[i] Balfour, Emma Harrision, Mrs. Balfour’s Civil War Diary: A Personal Account of the Siege of Vicksburg, Gordon A. Cotton, ed., 2008. Emma Balfour’s Diary, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson Mississippi. Winchel, Terence J., “The General’s Tour: The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou,” Blue and Gray Magazine, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2009-2010, pp. 53-65. Winschel, Evan, “Emma Balfour, a ball, a siege and a diary,” Vicksburg News, March 16, 2025. Emma Balfour: a ball, a siege, and a diary – Vicksburg Daily News

[ii] Lee, Stephen D., “Details of Important Work by Two Confederate Telegraph Operators, Christmas Eve, 1862, Which Prevented the Almost Complete Surprise of the Confederate Army at Vicksburg,” 13 vols., Oxford, MS, Mississippi Historical Society, 1904, Vol. 8, pp. 51-55.  Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society – v. 8,   (1904)   Smith, Timothy B., Early Struggles for Vicksburg: The Mississippi Central Campaign and Chickasaw Bayou, October 25-December 31, 1862, Lawrence, Kansas, University Press of Kansas, 2022, pp. 296-298.

[iii] Lee, “Two Confederate Telegraph Operators,” p. 53.

[iv] Ibid. p.53.

[v] Smith, Early Struggles for Vicksburg, p. 286. Bearss, Edwin Cole, Vicksburg is the Key: The Campaign for Vicksburg, Vol 1, Dayton, OH, Morningside Press, 1985, p.150.

[vi] Lee, “Two Confederate Telegraph Operators,” p. 53.

[vii] Ibid. p. 54.

[viii] Ibid. p. 54. Confederate Veteran Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 2, Nashville, TN, February 1902, p. 72. Confederate veteran [serial] : Confederated Southern Memorial Association (U.S.) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

[ix] Lee, “Two Telegraph Operators,” pp. 51, 55.

[x] Balfour, Mrs. Balfour’s Diary, ed. Cotton, pp. 40-41. The Balfour house was built in 1835 by James McDowell who sold it to the Balfours in 1850. During the siege, Gen. Pemberton’s headquarters was next door. Following Vicksburg’s surrender, Maj, Gen, James B. McPherson used the Balfour house as his headquarters. During the occupation, Emma and the children lived in Demopolis, Alabama until war’s end when they returned home to Vicksburg.