The spirit of Christmases long past will be present at Wheatland this holiday season, as Santa Claus — Civil War style — takes up residence for the annual Christmas Candlelight Tours.

Portrayed by Civil War re-enactor Walter Bosch, Santa looks like a cross between Father Christmas and Uncle Sam. He wears red-and-white trousers and a blue shirt bedecked with white stars. With white leggings, a white French Zouave-style hat encircled by an evergreen wreath, and carrying a walking stick festooned with bells, Santa is the spitting image of the figure first drawn by caricaturist Thomas Nast in 1862.

"The Civil War Santa was a patriotic Santa," Bosch said. "After two years of war, the Confederates had inflicted heavy casualties on the Union forces, especially after the battle of Fredericksburg that December, and the north was suffering from very low morale."

A Union soldier, Bosch said, took it upon himself to refashion an old American flag into a patriotic outfit to boost the morale of his comrades. Nast, who served as a war correspondent for Harper's Weekly, saw the man and sketched him. The image first appeared in the magazine in January 1863, on both the cover and as a centerfold illustration. The intent was to memorialize the family sacrifices of the Union during those early and, for the north, darkest days of the Civil War.

Nast's Santa was a kindly figure representing Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of Christ, intended to bring some joy and hope to soldiers and their families, separated because of the war.

Later, in the 1880s, Nast was asked to illustrate the book "A Visit From Santa," a lengthy Christmas poem by Clement C. Moore that had first appeared in the late 1820s. Nast created a kinder, softer Santa, than either his Civil War-era figure, or the stiff, stern St. Nicholas in the cowled robe, and dressed him all in red with white fur trim. He also gave Santa a permanent home at the North Pole.

But it wasn't until 1931 when artist Haddon Sundblom, in a billboard for Coca-Cola, depicted Santa as a portly, grandfatherly gentleman with human proportions and a cherry-red nose and cheeks. Sundblom's Santa, with the twinkle in his eyes, has since been the Santa Claus people have come to know and love.

But that Santa, so far as Wheatland's visitors will be concerned, is still in the distant future.

James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, resided at Wheatland for much of his later life, and ran his 1856 presidential campaign from the house. He retired to the home after he left office in early 1861 and stayed there during the Civil War, refusing to leave even as Union militia were burning the bridge at Wrightsville to block advancing Confederate troops in 1863.

"Had they crossed the river, they would have come marching right up the Marietta Pike here in front of the house," said Lisa Bowman, Wheatland's marketing manager.

During that time, many Victorian Christmases took place inside that house.

"A big part of Wheatland's history is the Civil War years when Buchanan was here in residence," Bowman said.

It is that atmosphere Wheatland plans to recreate during its Christmas Candlelight Tours. The house will be decorated in the fashion of the mid-1800s. Guests will be given a brief history of the house, as well as of its famous owner.

Music will be played in the parlor on the grand piano that once belonged to Harriet Lane, Buchanan's niece.

Outside, protecting the former president, Civil War-era Union soldiers will be bivouacked.

E-mail: lalexander@lnpnews.com