1863 – A Proclamation Of Thanksgiving Across America.

***On October 3, 1863 – in the midst of a great Civil War – President Abraham Lincoln declared a National Day of Thanksgiving.*** Did you know that Lincoln’s idea for a national day given over to thanksgiving & prayer just might have been stirred by Iowa’s Civil War Governor – Samuel J. Kirkwood, and Iowa’s U.S. Senator James Harlan?

It all started on November 1, 1862, when Lincoln’s close friend – Iowa Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood proclaimed a Day of Thanksgiving across Iowa for Thursday, November 27, 1862. Below is Kirkwood’s Thanksgiving Proclamation as published in November 8, 1862 edition of The State Democratic Press…

It’s very possible that as the Civil War continued into its third year, **Iowa Senator James Harlan** *(below left)* **picked up on his friend, Governor Kirkwood’s Thanksgiving 1862 proclamation** (above) when he introduced a congressional resolution that asked President Lincoln to set aside **a national day of “prayer and humiliation”. Because on March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared a “National Fast Day”** *(below right)* **and it was well received across the nation.**..

In September 1863, Sarah Josepha Hale – a 74-year-old magazine editor – picked up on Lincoln’s Proclamation and wrote a letter to the President, suggesting that “a day of our annual Thanksgiving (be) made (into) a National and fixed Union Festival.” While our first President – George Washington – had earlier proclaimed the need for a day of thanksgiving, each state was left to schedule its own Thanksgiving holiday, and it was mainly only practiced on varied days throughout New England.

Hale explained, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritative fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”

Unlike several of his predecessors who ignored such earlier petitions, President Lincoln responded immediately to Mrs. Hale’s request. So, on October 3. 1863, Lincoln followed up on his March 30th proclamation – declaring the last Thursday of November to be a National Day of Thanksgiving.

So, without further ado…I turn it over to America’s Civil War President – Abraham Lincoln…

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, 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 theatre of military conflict; while that theatre 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 defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe 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 battle-field; 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, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln