By Michael Zwelling

For The Sentinel

She said "no" very quietly as Santa Claus asked 2-year-old Shannon Egan if she wanted to sit on his lap and give him her Christmas wishes.

He wasn't the standard shopping mall or greeting card Santa, but instead a Claus born out of a nation divided. He is a Santa designed by a Northern cartoonist as a symbol of hope to Union soldiers.

The Civil War Santa appeared at the Surratt House Museum on Brandywine Road in Clinton this week dressed in a blue coat with 36 white stars all around and vertical stripes of red and white on his trousers. On his feet were black leather boots similar to what a horseman would wear and atop his head a red hat with gold tassel hanging down.

A circular braided rope of gold called a cord, similar to that worn by soldiers, ran over his shoulder and below his arm.

Kevin Rawlings, 50, first debuted as the Civil War Santa Claus in 1989 at the inaugural Antietam Illumination. The event memorializes the bloodiest day of the Civil War, Sept. 17, 1862, by placing 23,000 lit candles throughout the battlefield, one for each soldier killed, wounded or missing during the battle.

"The civil war Santa was the creation of Thomas Nast," said Rawlings of the man who helped illustrate Harper's Weekly from 1859 to 1886.

The German-born Nast was an outspoken abolitionist who drew many pictures for Harper's Weekly. But it was on Jan. 3, 1863 when he drew what became known as the Civil War Santa. Nast's drawing had Santa in a Union camp wearing a suit depicting the stars and stripes and holding a doll purported to be Confederate President Jefferson Davis with a noose tied around his neck.

"It was the North's way of saying we have Santa and you don't," Rawlings said.

Rawlings appeared dressed in a similar fashion in Clinton minus any dolls, Jefferson Davis or otherwise.

Just over a week prior to Nast's drawing, The Richmond Examiner ran an editorial that depicted Santa as many things northern, including calling him a Dutch toy monger, a stranger and Yankee in Virginia.

Nast would also be the first to place Santa in the North Pole in a 1866 drawing.

"He did it, he said, because he didn't want him to live in any one place where people could use him for propaganda purposes as he did," said Rawlings, who has spent the past 17 years also researching the various incarnations of the person and myths that have come together to make up the American Santa of the 21st century.

That has been one of the reasons he has made 15 annual appearances at the historic Surratt House, the home of the first woman ever executed by the U.S. government. Mary Surratt was found guilty of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.

"One of our most enduring and endearing symbols of Christmas is Santa Claus," said Laurie Verge, director of Surratt House. "Our history is tied to the Civil War and this helps to show how Santa has evolved over the years."

One attendee, 4-year-old Daniel Sellin, of College Park, smiled as he spoke with Santa.

His father Erik Sellin also smiled, both in recognition of his son and the lessons taught.

"It was interesting to see how Santa evolved over the generations," Erik Sellin said. "During the Civil War the soldiers needed someone likeable and they looked for something to give them hope."

Barbara Miller of Clinton also spoke of the importance of remembering our history.

"We don't all have an appreciation for our history, we tend to only think of what we know, but there's a lot in our past we should always remember and never forget."

Photo by Marketa Ebert