The soldiers in the 30th Virginia Infantry - men who grew up in Fredericksburg and the surrounding counties - were not too far from their homes and families for the first Christmas/New Year holiday of the Civil War. They had been on duty around Aquia Creek and the Potomac for the first months of Confederate service and then moved to Camp Holmes in Stafford County for winter quarters.

Dec. 25, 1861 at Camp Holmes was a day of general amnesty for camp offenses. It wasn't a gala but it did mean you couldn't get into trouble with the colonel too easily. Fighting was the exception. One historian concludes that Christmas Day in camp was "long, boring, depressing, and lonely."

New Year's Day brought action. The men of the 30th Virginia Infantry were on the move. They followed the railroad tracks to Fredericksburg, and they were home or almost so. Several spent the night with their families and got a night's sleep in their own beds. Others found comfortable housing with kin, family connections, old friends, and neighbors. For three months the 30th Virginia Infantry did provost duty.

The town at this point was enjoying a festive season despite the war. Robert Krick, the historian who compiled and wrote the history of the 30th Virginia Infantry, noted Fredericksburg was a town that enjoyed the theater. The popular sisters, Sally and May Partington, well known actresses from Richmond, were in town.

Krick says provost duty could be "nasty business" on occasion. But generally those first months of 1862 were an "idyl as soldiering goes."

The following December the story was different. The 30th Virginia, which had been bloodied at the Battle of Sharpsburg on Sept. 17, 1862, was now about four miles from Fredericksburg. In fact they were close enough to see fires burning the town, under siege by Union forces in Stafford County. A few days after the battle, the 30th Infantry was moved to picket duty - closer to home. Krick, the historian, says it probably wasn't too bad a Christmas given that it was war time.

A grisly murder in Colonial Beach resulted in the most notorious trials in the Northern Neck, but the events following were also interesting.

Margaret Eastlake was brutally murdered in the early morning of Friday, September 30, 1921. Before the body was removed, an inquest was held at the scene. Her husband Roger and Miss Sarah Knox were arrested immediately and taken to the Colonial Beach Town Hall where they were questioned, but angry citizens gathered, so the prisoners were moved to the Westmoreland County jail in Montross.

On Saturday night the Montross jail was stormed by a lynch mob of 23 Colonial Beach residents. Prosecutor Watt T. Mayo had become suspicious of some "strange actions" of several automobiles in Colonial Beach, so he went to the home of the Montross jailer, Stanley Walker, and they rushed to the jail, where Mayo shined his car's headlights onto the jailhouse door. The two men stepped into the dark and waited. After a short time, several cars pulled up, and Mayo stepped into the light and asked what they wanted. A voice answered, "We want justice." Mr. Mayo replied that the prisoners would receive justice, but mob violence was not justice. He warned them that he and Walker were armed and that the first person to approach the jail door would get justice; the mob left.

The prisoners were quietly moved to the Fredericksburg jail on Sunday for their safety. To avoid coming over the highway leading through the Northern Neck, they were taken on a ferry to Tappahannock and then driven to Fredericksburg.

If you want to know more about the infamous Eastlake case, come to the Heritage Center and read the many fascinating articles compiled by Wayne Harmon. Just ask to see item 2008-059-002.