What is Thanksgiving

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What is Thanksgiving?

By Joseph Farah
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Thanksgiving, to me, is one of the most important and meaningful holidays on our calendar.

There's a rich tradition for this holiday that dates back, not just through American history, but thousands of years through the history of
the Hebrew people.

It's true. That's where the Pilgrims got the idea for the feast – from the Bible.

I count 28 references to the word thanksgiving in the King James Bible – all but six in the Old Testament. For the ancient children of Israel,
thanksgiving was a time of feasting and fasting, of praising God, of singing songs. It was a rich celebration – and still is for observant
Jews today.

William Bradford, the leader of the Pilgrims, studied the Hebrew scriptures. The Pilgrims took them very seriously. The idea of giving thanks to God with a feast was inspired by that knowledge of the Bible. In a very real way, the Pilgrims saw themselves, too, as chosen people of God being led to a Promised Land.

At the table, they acknowledged "God's good providence" and "blessed the God of Heaven who brought us over the furious ocean." For "what could sustain us but the Spirit of God and His grace?" asked Bradford. He then quoted Moses, "Our fathers cried unto Him and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity" (Deuteronomy 26:7).

In addition to proclaiming a day of thanksgiving, like the ancient Hebrews did before them, Bradford and his flock also praised God's loving kindness, the famous refrain of Psalms 106 and 107 and Jewish liturgy ("Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His kindness endures forever").

The "thanksgiving" idea took different forms in colonial America. It wasn't until George Washington, the republic's first president, proclaimed Nov. 26, 1789, as a day for thanking God for bringing America through its trials, that an official holiday was marked.

Washington, too, was a student of the Hebrew scriptures. He believed with all his heart that America would be blessed only if it acknowledged the source of all blessings.

Here's what he proclaimed Oct. 3, 1789:

      Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor; and whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

      Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the twenty-six of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that Great and Glorious Being, who is the Beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country, previous to their becoming a nation; for the single manifold mercies, and the favorable interposition's of His providence, in the courage and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish Constitutions of Government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in
general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

      And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the Great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private institutions, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discretely and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us) and to bless them with good governments, peace and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science, among them and us; and generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

(By the way, some revisionist historians have tried to suggest Washington was not a Christian, but a deist. You need only read this one proclamation to put to rest such fanciful ideas.)

Later, in 1863, with the nation torn asunder by the War Between the States, Lincoln re-instituted the tradition for two years. Again, in 1941, with a global war threatening, Congress established the fourth Thursday of November as the day for Americans to thank God.

That's right – I said to thank God.

That's what it is all about. That's what it has always been about. It's not about Indians. It's not about turkey. It's not about squash or sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie.

It's about celebrating all that God has done for us. And He has surely blessed America for more than 200 years.

Courtesy of Mark Goldberg . . . Thanks Mark!

November 24, 2004
Grace, gratitude and God

By Michelle Malkin

My 4-year-old daughter recently learned to say grace at mealtimes. I taught her the same little prayer my mom taught me in childhood:

     God is great,
     God is good,
     Let us thank him for our food.
     By his hands we all are fed,
     Give us Lord our daily bread.
     Amen.

At first, my daughter questioned the need for reciting this strange passage. "Why do we have to thank God?" she wondered.

"To show that we are grateful for our daily bread," I explained.

"What is 'grateful'?" she asked.

"Being appreciative for what we have," I answered.

"But I'm not eating daily bread," she argued in between bites of macaroni and cheese.

"It means whatever fills your tummy each day," I clarified.

"Oh."

In typical toddler fashion, my daughter is now absolutely fanatical about her new routine. Not only must we say grace before every meal, but
also before each snack. And anytime we have a drink. And anytime her baby brother gobbles Cheerios in his car seat. Failure to give thanks to
God is met with swift retribution. Our daughter has no qualms about chastising us in public – at restaurants, airports or Starbucks:

"Hey, stop eating! You forgot to say grace!"

Despite the embarrassment it sometimes causes, I love her unrepentant zeal. It reminds us not to take for granted our too-infrequent gestures
of daily thanksgiving. It reminds us to be humble. Following her lead, we must all bow our heads and fold our hands and shut our eyes and shout
a full-throated "Amen!"

The snobs of secularism will no doubt disparage such simple-minded expressions of piety. They call us "Jesus freaks," "Bible-thumpers" and
"fundies." They accuse us of being "weak" and of suffering from a "neurological disorder." They consider us such a threat that they have
sought to expunge even the most innocuous references to thanking God in the public schools.

When Garwood, N.J., student Kaeley Hay wrote a Thanksgiving poem mentioning the Pilgrims' gratitude to the Lord, according to the Newark
Star-Ledger, skittish administrators initially removed the word "God" from her piece:

     Leaves are falling out of the air,
     Piles of leaves everywhere.
     Scarecrows standing high up with the corn,
     Farmers harvest in the early morn.
     Pilgrims thank [blank] for what they were given,
     Everybody say ... happy Thanksgiving!

Here in my home state of Maryland, according to the Annapolis Capital, "Maryland public school students are free to thank anyone they want
while learning about the 17th-century celebration of Thanksgiving – as long as it's not God."

True to the religio-phobic conception of educational "diversity," Maryland public school officials have turned Thanksgiving into a
multicultural harvest devoid of its spiritual essence. Students are taught that Pilgrims had a "belief system," but nothing further. Not to
worry, though. "The Pilgrim Story is read in Spanish and English," Alfreda Adams, principal at Mills-Parole Elementary School in Anne
Arundel County where 70 Hispanic students attend, told the Capital. "We make sure that we celebrate all cultures."

Such politically correct muddle-headedness explains why Maryland students can't learn Pilgrim prayers in public schools while the town of
Hamtramck, Mich., feels free to blast Islamic prayers over public loudspeakers five times a day.

Once an unabashedly pious land, we have been transformed into a nation of historically clueless ingrates – embarrassed about our heritage,
afraid of offending all newcomers, and more committed to inculcating a sense of entitlement over a culture of gratitude. Abe Lincoln's
Thanksgiving proclamation of 1863 rings truer than ever:

     We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, the many years, in peace and prosperity. We have
grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God.

     We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly
imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

     Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace,
too proud to pray to God that made us!

Amen.

> November 24, 2004
> Grace, gratitude and God
>
> By Michelle Malkin

>     We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and
> multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly
> imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings
> were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
>
>     Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too
> self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace,
> too proud to pray to God that made us!
>
> Amen.

And you don't have to be a 'believer' to consider any of that. You just
have to use your insides, your soul, as it were...

Here's once more, the redoubtable Oriana Fallaci, an agnostic, and an
Italian, to remind us of that which is so important as Americans, and
for others who join us in this regard, to remember:

Mark
-----------------

From   'the Rage and the Pride' - Oriana Fallaci

     ...The fact is that America is a very special country, my dear. A
country to really envy, yes, a country to really be jealous of And for
reasons which have nothing to do with her richness, her immense power,
her military supremacy. Do you know why? Because America is a nation
that arose from a need of the soul, the need for a Patria, and from the
most sublime idea ever conceived in the West: the idea of Liberty
married to the idea of Equality. It is a special country also because
this happened when the idea of Liberty was not in fashion. The idea of
Equality, even less. Only certain philosophers called Muminists or
Enlighteners spoke about these things, at that time. Only an enormous
and expensive book in seventeen volumes (which with the eighteen
Tables-volumes would become thirty-five) published in France under the
direction of a certain Diderot and of a certain
D'Alernbert, (the one called Encyclopedie, Universal Dictionary of Art
and Science), explained those concepts. And apart from the
intellectuals, apart from the aristocrats who had the money to buy the
seventeen then thirty-five volumes of the Big Expensive Book or the
books which had inspired it, who knew about Illuminism or Enlightenment
at that time?

   Who fought for the sublime idea? Not even the revolutionaries of the
French Revolution, given the fact that the French Revolution started in
1789. Meaning, fifteen years after the American Revolution which started
in 1776 but had blossomed in 1774. (A detail that the anti-American
leftists always seem to forget or pretend to forget).

    But, above all, America is a special country because the idea of
Liberty married to the idea of Equality was understood by peasants who
were mostly illiterate or anyway uneducated. Ile peasants of the
thirteen American colonies. And because it materialized thanks to
extraordinary leaders, men of great culture and great quality and great
imagination: the Founding Fathers.

   For Christsake, does anybody remember the names Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Adams, George Washington, etcetera,
etcetera, amen? Nothing in common with the pettifogging lawyers, that
is, the <<avvocaticchi>> (as Vittorio Alfieri contemptuously used to
call them) of the French Revolution. Nothing to do with the gloomy and
perfidious executioners of its Terror: the various Marat, Danton,
Desmoulins, Saint-just, Robespierre and so on.

   They were men, the Founding Fathers, who knew Greek and Latin as our
teachers of Greek and Latin never will. Men who used to read
Archirnedes; and Aristotle and Plato in Greek, Seneca and Cicero and
Vergil in Latin. Men who studied the principles of Greek democracy as
not even the Marxists of my time used to study the Theory of Plusvalue.
(Provided that the Marxists of my time really did).

   Jefferson even knew Italian. (He called it Tuscan). In Italian he
spoke and wrote and read with considerable ease. In fact, along with the
two thousand vine cuttings and the one thousand olive bedders and the
music sheets that in Virginia could not be easily found, in 1774 the
Florentine doctor Filippo Mazzei brought him five copies of a certain
book written by a certain Cesare Beccaria: Dei Delitti e delle Pene
(<<On Crimes and Punishments>>).

    As for the self-taught Benjamin Franklin, he was a genius. A
scientist, a typographer, a writer, an editor, a journalist, a
politician, an inventor. He discovered the electrical nature of
lightning, for instance. He invented the lightningrod, and the piped
stove to warm up the rooms without a fireplace. (In fact the Granduke of
Tuscany, Pietro Leopoldo, bought two of them for his studio at Pitti
Palace in Florence). And it was with these extraordinary leaders, these
men of great culture and great quality and great imagination, that in
1776 the mostly illiterate or uneducated peasants of the thirteen
American colonies rebelled against England and fought the War for
Independence. The American Revolution.

   They fought it, in spite of the blood that every war costs, without
the French Revolution's abominations. Without the guillotine's horror,
without Toulon's and Lyon's and Bordeaux's massacres, without Vandee's
carnages. They fought it thanks to a piece of paper which along with the
need of the soul, the need for a Patria, concretized the sublime idea of
Liberty married to Equality: the Declaration of Independence. <<We hold
these truths to be self-evident... That all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...
That among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness... That
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...>

     And this paper that from the French Revolution on the whole West
has copied,                      from which each of us has drawn
inspiration, still constitutes the backbone of America. Her vital lymph.
Know why? Because it transforms the subjects into citizens. Because it
turns the plebes into people. Because it invites, no, it orders the
plebes turned into citizens to rebel against tyranny and to govern
themselves. To express their individualities, to search for their own
happiness. (Something that for the poor, for the plebes, means to get rich).

    The exact contrary, in short of what the Communists used to do with
their practice of forbidding people to govern themselves, to express
themselves, to get rich. With their practice of installing His Majesty
the State on the throne. <<Communism is a monarchic regime, an old style
monarchy>> my intelligent father used to say. <<As such, it cuts off the
balls of men. And when a man gets his balls cut off, he is no longer a
man>>. He also used to say that instead of rescuing the plebes,
Communism turns everybody into plebes. It makes everybody die of poverty
and starvation, it prevents the plebes from being rescued.

   Well: in my. opinion America rescues, redeemes, the plebes.
Basically, they are all plebeian, in America.   White and black, yellow
and brown, stupid and intelligent, poor and rich. As a matter of fact,
in many cases the most plebeian are just the rich.

Such boors! You realize at once that they never read <<Monsignor della
Casa's Good Manners>>, that they never had any familiarity with
sophistication and refinement. The food they usually eat, for instance.
The way they usually dress. Most of them are so inelegant that, in
comparison, the Queen of England looks as chic as a high-class model.

But they are rescued, by God! They are redeemed! And in this world there
is nothing more vital, more powerful, more inexorable, than Redeemed Ple-
bes, than Rescued Plebes. You always break your nose with the Rescued
Plebes, the Redeemed Plebes. And, in one way or another, all have broken
their noses with America. The English ' * the Germans' the Russians, the
Mexicans, the Nazis, the Fascists, the Communists... In the end, even
HoChi Minh's Vietnamese. After the victory, in fact, they too had to
come to terms with hated America.

   And when ex-president Clinton went to pay them a little visit, they touched the sky with their fingers,
<<Bienvenu, Your Excellence, bienvenu! Shall we faire business avec America, oul? Beaucoup money, much argent, oul?o. The problem is that the
sons of Allah are not Vietnamese. And with them the war will be very tough. Very long, very difficult, very tough. Unless we Europeans stop
shitting in our pants and playing the double-game with the enemy, giving up our dignity. An opinion I respectfully offer to the Pope too.

    Tell me, Holy Father: is it true that some time ago you asked the
sons of Allah to forgive the Crusades that Your predecessors fought to
take back the Holy Sepulchre? But did the sons of Allah ever ask you to
be forgiven for having taken the Holy Sepulchre? Did they ever apologize
for having subjugated over seven centuries the superCatholic Iberian
peninsula, the whole Portugal and three quarters of Spain, so that if
Isabella of Castile and Ferdinando of Aragon had not chased them out in
1490 we all would speak Arabic?

   The question intrigues me, Holy Father, because they never asked me
any forgiveness for the crimes that in the seventeenth and eighteenth
century the Saracens committed along the coasts of Tuscany and in the
Mediterranean. I mean when they kidnapped my ancestors, they chained up
their legs and their arms and their necks, they took them to Algiers or
Tunis or Tangier or Constantinople and sold them in the bazaars. They
kept them slaves for the rest of their lives, the young women inside the
harems, they punished their attempts to escape by cutting their throats:
remember? Of course, you remember. The Society for the Liberation of the
White Slaves held by them in Algeria, in Tunisia, in Morocco, in Turkey
etcetera was founded by Italian friars: right? And it was the Catholic
Church that negotiated the release of those who had the money to pay
their ransom: right? You really bewilder me, Most Holy Father. Because
you have worked so hard to see the Soviet Union collapse.

    My generation, a generation which has lived its entire existence in
the fear of the Third World War, must thank especially you for the
miracle in which none
of us believed: a Europe free from the nightmare of Communism, a Russia
which asks to enter into Nato, a Leningrad which is named again Saint
Petersburg, a Putin who is Bush's best friend. His best ally. And after
such victory you wink at individuals who are worse than Stalin, you
flirt with the same ones who still would like to build mosques inside
the Vatican? Most Holy Father.. In all respect, you remind me of the
Germanjewish bankers who in the 1930's, hoping to save themselves, lent
money to Hitler. And who a few years later ended in his crematory
ovens).....

--------

the chapter goes on... but I choose to end it there, on that crematory
note- because there are those who would toss freedom, democracy,
liberty, equality, the federal republic, onto that bonfire, so fast
so very fast- that it would startle your mind, to comprehend the sheer
vulgarity and hatred contained in that vapid hateful series of desires.

So.... tommorrow, go eat up, say a prayer- for the hell of it and count your blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving All...

Mark

November 24, 2004, 8:51 a.m.
Giving Thanks in Wartime
The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Thanksgiving of 1864.

When we sit down to our Thanksgiving meals this year, we should take
some time to remember the men and women in uniform who are unable to
spend the holiday with their own families. We might also remember that
Thanksgiving became a national holiday in time of war, and largely due
to an effort 140 years ago to ensure that our soldiers and sailors in
the field enjoyed some of the comforts of home.

Thanksgiving originated in Massachusetts and on the eve of the Civil War
was still not observed nationally. In the 1850s, Thanksgiving was
celebrated in about ten states in New England and the midwest. It was a
time both of feasting and of charity, acknowledging the blessings of
plenty while remembering those who had little. "Eat the fat, and drink
the sweet," counseled a New York Times editorial in 1851, "and send
portions to those for whom nothing is prepared." When war broke out the
observance became more widespread, and in 1861 the number of states
celebrating Thanksgiving doubled. Troops took their traditions with them
to the front, and the soldiers of Massachusetts regiments in particular
held grand feasts in their field commands. Massachusetts Governor John
A. Andrew decreed such a celebration during the first November of the
war, hoping that "military duties may not be inconsistent with their
observation, in some fitting manner, of the day annually set apart for
the renewal and enlivening of the domestic affections."

President Lincoln declared a number of thanksgivings, for example in
April 1862, and July 1863 after Gettysburg. Two months later Lady's Book
magazine editor Sarah Hale wrote a letter to Lincoln urging him to
proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving reflecting the traditional
holiday. Lincoln soon issued a declaration asking that the blessings
bestowed upon the country "be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully
acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American
people" and inviting Americans at home and abroad "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." This was
the first general Thanksgiving observance, but the following year the
holiday became the occasion for a national show of unity and support.

In October 1864, the president again decreed that the last Thursday of
November be set aside to offer up prayers "for a return of the
inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land
which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling-place for ourselves and
for our posterity throughout all generations." Shortly thereafter, on
October 27, a citizen of New York City known first only by the initials
GWB (belonging to noted editor George W. Blunt), used the occasion of
the holiday to propose a great national endeavor. Blunt suggested that
"something be done for the Army and Navy" for Thanksgiving, "not only to
aid them in keeping the day properly, but to show them they are
remembered at home." He proposed to send the troops "poultry and pies,
or puddings, all cooked, ready for use." He estimated it would take
50,000 turkeys and a like number of pies to feed the 220,000 men of the
Army and Navy in Virginia then besieging Richmond. "This seems to be a
big undertaking," he wrote, "but I do not see any difficulty in carrying
it out." The food could be prepared and boxed up by those who could
afford it, and shipped from New York a few days in advance, in time to
be distributed the day before. If the idea has merit, he wrote, "I am
ready to do my best with others to put it through."

A committee was set up to organize the effort, their goal being that on
Thanksgiving Day there would be no soldier or sailor in the eastern
theater "who does not receive tangible evidence that those for whom he
is periling his life remember him." They felt it was particularly
important to reach men who had no families back home. Blunt served as
the committee's executive director, and the treasurer was Theodore
Roosevelt, father of the future president (then six years old). "Will
not all who feel that we have a country worth defending and preserving,"
the committee wrote in the Times, "do something to show those who are
fighting our battles that they are remembered and honored?" The appeal
was reprinted in many papers and the proposal caught on immediately.
Contributions began to come in from all over the country. Within three
weeks, with little publicity and no direct solicitation, the committee
had collected $50,000 (almost $600,000 in today's dollars). The Times
reprinted some of the letters sent accompanying the contributions. One
contributor, signing "Little Mac" in homage to recently defeated
Democratic presidential candidate and former Union General George
McClellan, noted in verse,

     Although I voted a Democrat,
     But it has nothing to do with that.
     It only shows a man can be
     A Democrat and love sweet liberty.

Public stores were made available for the turkeys and "other good things
for the soldiers and sailors on the James." Goods were to be cooked,
wrapped in white paper, packed in straw in boxes or barrels, and marked
"Our Defenders, City Point." Private transport companies volunteered to
ship the materials by rail and steamship. The food drive was emulated in
other cities. Ladies of Jersey City contributed $1,500 for the purchase
of cigars and tobacco for the troops. The citizens of Orange, New
Jersey, sent bags of tomatoes for sauces. There was a proposal to send
1,000 barrels of apples to soldiers, and the Army Apple Fund was born.
The governor of Ohio suggested that the Saturday following Thanksgiving
be devoted to helping the families of servicemen, especially those
suffering privations by the absence of their men. It was called "a day
of gladness for the wives and children of our brave defenders," and is
an idea that still has merit.

As the day neared, the foodstuffs were collected and shipped out.
Steamers took meals to sailors and Marines in the blockade forces, and
in the ports and fortifications along the eastern seaboard. Trains
headed south to predetermined distribution points. Blunt believed the
effect of the outpouring of public support would inspire the troops to
"hit the rebels a harder lick than ever." Meanwhile Jefferson Davis also
declared a Thanksgiving day, for November 16, 1864, a day "specially
devoted to the worship of Almighty God," that the people of the
Confederacy would join together in prayer that God would, inter alia,
"restore peace to our beloved country, healing its bleeding wounds and
securing to us the continued enjoyment of our right of self-government
and independence." But when the day arrived, Atlanta was in flames,
Sherman started his march to the sea, and Lee's men huddled in their
trenches around Richmond. Confederate War Department clerk J. B. Jones
dryly noted in his diary that the Confederate Thanksgiving was "like
Sunday, with an occasional report of cannon down the river."

November 24 dawned cold, bright, and brilliant on the eastern seaboard.
General George G. Meade reported to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton,
"Nothing new or important this morning except the arrival of deserters,
who report the occupation of Macon by Sherman." Sherman's Army continued
its march, sadly unable to be reached with the Thanksgiving turkeys, but
not having time to pause. In Virginia and North Carolina, Union troops
were "relieved from all duty not essential to the safety of the
command." Turkey feasts were enjoyed by Union troops in camps, on the
siege lines, and in the rear areas. Seventeen thousand meals were served
in Washington, DC, to troops defending the city and convalescing in
hospitals. A large banquet was held in Alexandria, Virginia, followed by
a grand ball. In Baltimore, the Union Ladies' Committee distributed
meals to Union soldiers and rebel prisoners alike. At Camp Parole, in
Annapolis, roast turkey had been the primary topic of conversation for
days. That morning "every face wore a joyous aspect, in anticipation of
the good things in preparation for the dinner." Orderlies set long
tables of turkey, pies, bread, butter, tea and cider. Fourteen hundred
men sat down, Federal soldiers and paroled Confederates, men from every
state in the Union, probably the first such all-American Thanksgiving
meal ever.

Shipments sent to the Shenandoah Valley were coordinated with the city
of Philadelphia. When transportation arrangements broke down at the last
minute, Reverend George F. Noyes personally undertook the mission to get
the food delivered. "The want of proper appliances compelled most of the
men to broil or stew their turkeys," he wrote, "but everyone seemed
fully satisfied, and appreciated the significance of this sympathetic
thank-offering from the loyal North. One soldier said to me, 'It isn't
the turkey, but the idea that we care for,' and he thus struck the
key-note of the whole festival." Fearing shortages, General Sheridan
ordered the food first be distributed to enlisted men, but some officers
had made independent arrangements for their units guaranteeing there was
plenty for all. "Joy and festivity were the order of the day," a
correspondent wrote, "and you may depend upon it that our brave fellows
in the field knew how to do justice to the occasion." Near New Town,
Virginia, the officers and men of the Ninetieth New York regiment sat
down to a feast of turkeys, chickens, cakes and fruits, "more evidence
that we are not forgotten, nor can we ever forget those who, while they
are enjoying all the comforts of home and plenty, still think of, and by
their noble deeds testify that they remember the soldiers."

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Thanksgiving united the country in the spirit
of giving, gratitude, and patriotism. It showed the troops at the front
that the country was behind them, and solidified Thanksgiving as a
national observance. So please take a minute to remember those who are
giving so much for us, or better yet find a way to let them know that
you care — www.americasupportsyou.mil is a good place to start. Let's
give our service people all the support we can, so they will be able to
say, in the words of a Union soldier, "When we are asked, 'Do they think
of us at home?' our own hearts can willingly and gladly respond, 'They do.'"

http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200411240851.asp