Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

Yes, there was a feast of thanksgiving that autumn of 1621.  The Pilgrims had the harvest of their crops, geese and ducks, and a “good store of wild turkeys,” according to Bradford.  That first Thanksgiving actually turned into quite a celebration of the Natives as Massasoit and a hundred of his tribe (outnumbering the Pilgrims about two to one) showed up with 5 deer.  And so, to their family and faith, the Pilgrims also added friends.

Thanksgiving, however, did not become a national holiday until 1863, squarely in the middle of one of the darkest times in our nation's history, just months after the Battle of Gettysburg of the Civil War.  And yet, America's stalwart and faithful leader, Lincoln himself responded to the campaign of Sarah Josepha Hale.  Known as "The Mother of American Thanksgiving" she worked to convince President Lincoln of the need to proclaim a National Day of Thanksgiving.  It had nothing to do with parades nor football.  It did include a feast, but with an emphasis on family and on deeds of charity.  

Here is President Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation given on October 3, 1863, which bears repeating:

"In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has 
sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace 
has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have 
been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the 
theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the 
advancing armies and navies of the Union.

"Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

"No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

"It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union."

Sources:

Life is a Gift: A Book For Thankful Hearts.  Paraclete Press, Brewster, Massachusetts.  2013.

Philbrick, Nathaniel.  The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World. Puffin Books, New York. 2008.