In 1863 Thanksgiving Day had been a local or regional holiday for more than two centuries.

Quibbling The Day

Massachusetts has long maintained that a day of Thanksgiving was celebrated a year after the devout Pilgrims landed in Plymouth in 1620. Even today, Thanksgiving celebrations are filled with decorations of Pilgrims and Indians, corn/maize, and of course, turkey.

Virginia, however, midway down the Tidewater peninsula between Richmond and Williamsburg, insists that the first inhabitants of Berkeley Plantation beat the Pilgrims to the punch a whole year prior. And those first inhabitants were not Pilgrims, but people of property, albeit just as devout.  

Giving thanks for one’s blessings is a fine thing, but starting dates are a silly quibble.

And if that quibble wasn’t enough, our Founders quibbled as well. Nobody was against giving thanks of course, but they quibbled about making it a federal holiday, rather than a state occasion. 

Thus the concept of separation of church and state, inherent to the Constitution of the Country, kept the celebrations local, and mostly in the north. If a community or region, or even a state wished to make a holiday of it, nobody objected – but there was no national consensus. George Washington was known to have proclaimed a Thanksgiving Day – but it was not an ”established” holiday.

Sarah Josepha Hale

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788-1879) was a New Hampshire woman, left widowed at a young age, along with five small children. Forced to support herself at a time when women working outside the home was near-scandalous, she turned to writing. She could do that at home.

She produced a fairly successful book of poetry and stories, which included the eternally popular “Mary Had A Little Lamb” that all children know today.

This led her to the editorship of Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1837, a position she held for forty years! Godey’s was the precursor of women’s magazines, and a staple of journalism for decades. By the 1840s, it was subscribed to by practically every woman who could read. While it contained stories and articles from men, it also featured articles written by and for women. As time went on, it included articles/advertisements for products ladies needed and wanted to know about. Recipes. Child-raising. Home-making. And always, the latest feminine fashions, which were regularly featured on the cover. 

While Mrs. Hale was a traditional believer in “a woman’s place,” she was also socially inclined, supported the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument, donated to the restoration of Mount Vernon, and believed strongly in education for women – and their right to own property. 

She also believed that Thanksgiving Day should be a national set-and-fixed holiday, not merely regional, or at the whim of local governments. 

For more than twenty years, she wrote articles and editorials and letters every year to every sitting President, as well as to other important statesmen. The editor of Godey’s Ladies Book, was credible and had a long reach. By the mid-1850, 34 states had Thanksgiving Day celebrations, but the holiday was never “national.”

President Lincoln Signs On

Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth POTUS, had far more on his plate than a turkey dinner in 1863. A horrific Civil War had begun two years earlier, and the casualties and devastation far surpassed even the wildest imagination. The once-United States was split in two, North and South, with no telling when, or if, it could be mended.

But in July of 1863, two coincidental and remarkable events occurred simultaneously. In Gettysburg, PA, following three days of intense fighting-cum-casualties, the Union Army had defeated its Confederate counterpart. And in Vicksburg, MS, after months of intense waiting, preparation, feints, skirmishes and long siege, the southern forces surrendered.

Interestingly enough, Confederate President Jefferson Davis had proclaimed a ”day of thanksgiving” after earlier Southern victories. But each Southern state seemed to celebrate it at their own whim. Lincoln declared a day of thanksgiving a year earlier, following Union victory at Fts. Henry and Donelson, and again after Gettysburg. Nobody opposed the concept, but they managed to quibble over the unifying “when.”

This time, Mrs. Hale’s letter of September 23 reached two pairs of responsive ears. Abraham Lincoln’s, and Secretary of State William Seward’s. They believed that a ”national” Thanksgiving Day (at least in the “national” North) would have a healing effect. Secretary Seward drafted the proclamation. (As an aside, presidential proclamations do not require congressional advise/consent or voting.) Perhaps our POTUSES, whoever they are, need a respite from quibbling.

The event itself was not controversial in the slightest. The fourth Thursday of November was selected for the occasion.

Lincoln Gets the Credit…

…but it was mostly William Seward’s doing. He was the one who actually drafted the proclamation, which seems a little gabbier than Lincoln’s prose. Lincoln’s secretary John Nicolay acknowledged that it was Seward’s composition, and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles recorded in his diary, that he complimented Seward on its writing. The “authorship” is another silly quibble.

The salient points are really thus:

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation…..to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving….

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

And while there are countless reasons for giving thanks, and plenty of prayerful supplications, there is no mention of turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberries, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. People can quibble over turkey vs. ham on their own. And do.

Nevertheless, a year after the proclamation, the original manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops and has never resurfaced. But we celebrate it nationwide today: Fourth Thursday in November..

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sources:

Schultz, Duane – The Most Glorious Fourth Vicksburg and Gettysburg, July 4, 1863 – W.W. Norton, 2003

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/173700

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sarah-hale

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Godeys-Ladys-Book

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm