Proclamation of Thanksgiving

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

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