In preparation for what was required in the coming weeks, a certain amount of solace was needed. For Abraham Lincoln, there was often no better place than the Soldiers’ Home, a mere three miles from the White House. While there, Lincoln stayed in the cottage. The word cottage was employed here more in the way it might be when speaking of a “cottage” in Newport, Rhode Island. Though the president’s retreat was not as ornate as the palatial homes in that rarefied enclave, it was still quite substantial. Constructed in the Gothic Revival style, it boasted thirty-four rooms and had sweeping views of the capital.
George Riggs, a banker and the original owner of the home and surrounding three-hundred-acre estate, had sold it to the federal government just over ten years earlier, in 1851. In 1857, another building was added, also Gothic in style, and made available to retired soldiers. The institution had been called a military asylum up to that point. Lincoln was only the second president to abscond to this nearby retreat on a hill. Buchanan, Lincoln’s predecessor, had stayed there as well, and had recommended the spot to his successor. Lincoln’s first visit came just days after his inauguration.
In spring of 1863, the White House staff had packed up the family and their belongings and transferred them the short distance to a place that felt worlds away—but was still not far from the president’s pressing responsibilities. Lincoln was not entirely alone on the grounds. More than one hundred veterans lived there, many of them immigrants who had fought for the United States in the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War. Reminders of the current war populated Lincoln’s rides into Washington, DC. His daily route on horseback took him along Rhode Island and Vermont Avenues, through refugee camps, and by the homes of residents. In addition to the people inhabiting the grounds at the Soldiers’ Home, the institution’s cemetery was visible from the very door of the Lincoln family cottage. Dozens of Civil War dead were now being buried there each day. The cemetery at Soldiers’ Home was the first-ever nationally designated cemetery, and the only existing one at the time. The first-ever burial at Arlington National Cemetery would not occur until May 1864.
The prior year, Lincoln had spent June to November in the cottage, far from the often suffocating heat and humidity that hung over Washington, DC. At the time, he and his wife, Mary, were still reeling from the death of their young son William Wallace from what was believed to be typhoid fever, having lost him in February 1862. There had been little time to grieve. But at least there had been time for repose and space to think. It was here at the cottage that he had written the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862.
Now, in October 1863, Lincoln could look back at gains and losses, advances and retreats. But the pall of grief and death—no matter whether a battle had been won or lost—hung heavy over the nation after a particularly brutal battle that summer in Pennsylvania. It was to that solemn space that he would soon travel.
There were two pieces of writing yet to be issued in the president’s name.
One much shorter than the other. Both destined to make a mark on the United States for decades to come.
As William H. Seward, Lincoln’s secretary of state, would later recount, he had gone to see the president in late September; he found the man busy and alone in his office.
“They say, Mr. President,” Seward began, “that we are stealing away the rights of the States.”
The sovereignty of individual states to make their own legislative decisions regarding many issues—key among them slavery—had been a point of debate in America since the time of the colonies, and gained momentum during the debates surrounding the creation of the United States Constitution. It was a more contentious issue now.
“So I have come to-day to advise you,” Seward continued, “that there is another State right I think we ought to steal.”
“Well, Governor,” Lincoln said, “what do you want to steal now?”
“The right to name Thanksgiving Day! We ought to have one national holiday, all over the country, instead of letting the Governors of States name half a dozen different days.”
For his part, Lincoln felt that thanksgiving days themselves were based more in custom than rooted in any law. If governors could choose to proclaim a day of celebration, the president certainly could—and perhaps ought to. He was on board. Seward had already begun drafting a potential proclamation and shared what he had with Lincoln. Together the two polished it and quickly came to an agreement about its final form.
On October 3, 1863, exactly seventy-four years to the day George Washington issued his, President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation for a national day of Thanksgiving. Despite a year that had seen tremendous loss, Lincoln’s proclamation began, and ended, on notes of sincere gratitude:
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 unequaled 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 defense, 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, tranquility 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 Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State
The date chosen and suggested specifically by Hale in her letter to Lincoln and in the pages of the Lady’s Book was Thursday, November 26—also seventy-four years to the day after Washington’s day of National Thanksgiving. Could Washington have imagined that not one hundred years after his proclamation the nation he had seen come into being would be threatened from within its own borders by divisiveness and hatred? Nevertheless, Hale’s tireless efforts, and Seward’s receptive ear and fluid pen, resulted in a proclamation for unity and thanks at a time when few could imagine either.
It had been thirty-six years since Hale had first described her thanksgiving feast in the pages of her novel Northwood. For at least fifteen years in the pages of the Lady’s Book, she had continually waxed lyrical about the virtues of her vision. After constant petitions to governors, territory magistrates, ministers overseas—and yes, now a fifth president—her goal was achieved. With neither pomp nor circumstance and little to no fanfare, the proclamation that Hale had long envisioned and worked to secure could finally be seen in writing. Her long-held dream was becoming a reality, presidentially stamped and broadcast via the nation’s—and world’s—newspapers.
The announcement of Lincoln’s proclamation was in undeniable black and white, though the words could have easily been lost among the reports of souls lost in battle, dispatches from besieged front lines, and pleas for funds and support of a more urgent and desperate kind, as opposed to pleas for a time to give thanks for all that was good. Predictably, the news prompted different reactions. One Virginia newspaper mocked “King Abraham’s” proclamation, while the issuance moved Episcopal clergyman and education advocate William Augustus Muhlenberg to write “The President’s Hymn” in honor of the occasion:
Give thanks, all ye people, give thanks to the Lord,
Alleluias of freedom, with joyful accord;
Let the East and the West, North and South roll along,
Sea, mountain and prairie, One thanksgiving Song.
Whether other citizens throughout the North and South would join in Hale’s enthusiasm for a national day of thanks come November remained to be seen. Considering the schismatic climate, this was definitely the biggest question. Still, now, in the midst of all that was most bleak in the world, there would be a bid to come together to say thank you.
Sarah Josepha Hale was seventy-five years old.
After years of presidents ignoring her requests, it must have seemed almost unbelievable, the speed with which Lincoln’s office responded to Hale.
How was it that this president—this president in particular—of all those leaders to whom Hale had pled her case for grace, had the time or inclination to take her fictionalized feast of gratitude and transform it, by presidential proclamation, into a true day of observance? And could either Hale or the president have known that such a day, rooted in tradition and yet marred by controversy, would grow into the most popular of holidays for generations to come?
The proclamation itself spoke not only of thanks but also of the hardships that had been and were continuing to be endured by all. In that juxtaposition, between the good and evil in the world, a little bit of light emerged from within the litany describing these darkest of times.
In the midst of discord—“of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity”—came a plea for unity. The “bounties” to which Lincoln’s proclamation referred were to be “solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged.” And so, when a country seemed most divided, Lincoln may have sought a reason for people to come together, however briefly. If so, then Sarah Josepha Hale gave him that reason. It was an example of how the press and a president could work together to achieve a moment of unanimity despite harrowing circumstances and cultural and political differences. It was the tiniest glimpse of what America could be.
But the day of observance itself would come on the heels of a more somber occasion.
The words that Lincoln and Seward had committed to the record that October would far outnumber those that Lincoln would speak just over a month later. One occasion had little to do with the other, yet everything to do with how these moments would be connected in years to come. The president’s later words would understandably outshine the proclamation itself. The latter words would set the stage for a coming day of thanks that would herald the virtue of gratitude in these cruel times.
Two days after Lincoln issued the Thanksgiving proclamation, on October 5, 1863, the Confederate ship David attacked the New Ironsides just outside Charleston Harbor. And so the war carried on. Lincoln and the family stayed at the cottage at Soldiers’ Home through the end of that month, as the president worked on a speech that would be roughly half the length of his proclamation of gratitude. Despite its brevity, it would have an impact, both immediate and lasting, of which few—probably even Lincoln himself—could conceive.
Upon returning to Washington and the White House, Lincoln indulged in the occasional diversion, theater being a favorite outing. On November 9, he and Mary went to Ford’s Theatre, where they sat down in their usual box to see The Marble Heart. Lincoln enjoyed the lead actor’s performance so much that he sent a note backstage to the thespian, requesting an audience. The star of the show, John Wilkes Booth, did not respond.
Standing on the battlefield, there seemed little reason to be thankful. How many bodies had lain here, wrecked and bloodied, lungs heaving their last breaths into the air still tinged with smoke and suffering? So many final exhalations had come and gone with no one to hear them over the thuds of cannon fire, screams of anguish, and cries of defiance. The site was infused with suffering. No matter who had ultimately claimed victory in this battle, this earth was steeped in inconsolable loss.
It was Thursday, November 19, 1863. Four and a half months had passed since the battle, and now had come the time to dedicate this ground. The president walked to the speaker’s platform and sat, waiting. He was not, despite his position as commander in chief, the primary speaker of the day. Nor was he the first. The crowd gathered at the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, waited to hear what these men would say, and possibly wondered what words could equal the solemnity of the day. The man from Illinois perhaps knew that. Words could never convey what had transpired here.
Lincoln and a party of nearly twenty—including Seward, Lincoln’s valet William Johnson, personal secretary John Nicolay, and assistant secretary John Hay—had left from Washington to head to the dedication. Hay and Nicolay had been friends since they were boys and served together under Lincoln. Hay, for one, kept diaries of his experiences. Lincoln was not feeling particularly well . . . and had not yet finished his speech.
Upon the entourage’s arrival at Gettysburg, Lincoln left for the home of a wealthy local judge and the organizer of the following day’s event, David Wills. Hay and some of the others wandered the streets, following the sounds of music. Hay observed groups singing and drinking whiskey. Crowds caroused. Buglers blew their horns. The streets buzzed as the night wore on. As for Lincoln, he, too, was up and about into the wee hours, continuing to edit and tweak his address.
The next day, the group made its way out to the cemetery. The procession “formed itself in an orphanly sort of way,” Hay wrote, “& moved out with very little help from anybody.” More than four months had passed since the battle, but the land remained in disarray, littered with the rotting carcasses of horses and the vultures that fed upon them. Scavengers of the human kind gathered up errant belt buckles, scraps of clothing, canteens, and the like, and hawked them as souvenirs. Photographers captured it all.
Edward Everett, a former senator and secretary of state under Millard Fillmore, was the key speaker for the day. A noted orator, Everett was one to draw a crowd. He took his place and began to speak. Once Everett’s two-hour discourse ended, President Abraham Lincoln stood and spoke for approximately two minutes.
Lincoln took ten sentences to speak of sacrifice and the impossibility of honoring the occasion. “We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract,” he said.
The president’s economy of language caught many off guard. “Is that all?” one reporter asked. It was.
Everett himself knew something monumental had happened on that field, saying to Lincoln, “My speech will soon be forgotten, yours never will be. How gladly would I exchange my hundred pages for your twenty lines.”
The president was not having it. “We shall try not to talk about my address,” he said. “I failed, I failed, and that is about all that can be said about it.”
Lincoln’s opinion seemed an outlying one. Writer Ralph Waldo Emerson would later comment: “His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on any recorded occasion.”
While John Hay admired Everett’s oratorical skills, too, he said of Lincoln that he spoke “in a fine, free way, with more grace than is his wont, said his half dozen words of consecration, and the music wailed and we went home through crowded and cheering streets.”
Exactly one week later, on Thursday, November 26, another occasion would be marked, a pause taken, and thanks given for the blessings—however few—that coexisted alongside those horrors.
To be thankful when the sun and rains favor the crops, when the family is healthy and united, when the mood is light and the burdens are few and easily borne. When besieged by death and suffering, and in the face of injustice and horrors, a glimmer of relief struggles to be seen through the gloom. How much darker the days must have seemed a week after the dedication at Gettysburg, how much more poignant a day of thanks in the throes of the Civil War, and how much more welcome at that moment, that touch of grace.
Of all the publications that either commended or criticized the proclamation, one was notably absent that October: the Lady’s Book. The October 1863 issue was packed, to be sure, and featured both the October walking suit and wrap, the cordovan and the Lonjumeau jacket, and some exciting new styles for dress bodices or “corsages”—including a French corsage that cinched the waist with two delicate bows. This month’s tune, “Autumn Schottische,” was written and arranged for the piano for Godey’s Lady’s Book by “Emancipation March” composer George E. Fawcett. The clothing patterns featured in the monthly “Work Department” included a cravate Marie Therese and a crochet purse.
As the magazine had been compiled for printing months earlier, there was no mention of the president’s October declaration. But in its letters to the editress, the magazine did print a note that captured some of that spirit and optimism:
“My Dear Mrs. Hale: For us who believe in a Providence that out of present evil educes future good, it is delightful to look on the bright side of this war, as it has shown some of the best traits of womanhood.”