A Day in the Life of the Confederacy
A Civil War Thanksgiving 1864
The Richmond Daily Dispatch
A Thanksgiving proclamation from Lincoln. [October 25, 1864]
Lincoln has issued a proclamation appointing the last Thursday in November next to be observed as a day
of thanksgiving and prayer in the United States. The following is an extract from the proclamation:
It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year. Defending us with His guardian care
against unfriendly designs from abroad, and vouchsafing us, in His mercy, many, and signal, victories over
the enemy (who is of our household), it has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in
their homes as our soldiers in their camps, and our sailors on the rivers and seas, with unusual health, He
has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us
new resources of wealth, and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry
with abundant reward.
Lincoln's Thanksgiving day [November 25, 1864]
We observe that Lincoln, with commendable gratitude, has issued his proclamation for a day of
thanksgiving among the universal Yankee nation. This is an annual custom of that people, heretofore
celebrated with devout oblations to themselves of pumpkin pie and roast turkey. We have nothing to say
against the custom. It is one becoming a better people, and which even they have great reasons for
observing. If any body on the earth has reason to be thankful that the rain falls on the unjust as well as the
just, it is the Yankee.
At this time they have special grounds for thanksgiving. The formula of the Pharisee, always adapted to
their national self-esteem, has been demonstrated in this war after a fashion which must carry conviction to
the most incredulous. It is a formula, more-over, in which even those can join who have not the privilege of
being Yankees. "I thank thee that I am not as other men." The Yankee may say that with a grateful heart,
and other men can never be thankful enough that it is literally true. So let us all have a day of thanksgiving,
and the national airs of Yankee Doodle and Dixie for once be blended in honor of the same delightful
beatitude.
That the Yankee is not as other men, he proved by drawing the sword upon the old customers whose trade
had made him rich, and laboring with all his might and main to cut open the goose that laid him the golden
egg. What "other men" would have hit upon so ingenious an expedient for improving their condition. In
1860, their nation was free from debt. The interest upon their debt in 1861 is over eighty-one millions of
dollars, which is about five millions more than the whole revenue of the United States the year before they
went to war. By the 1st of May next, their national debt will amount to $2,500,000,000, and an interest of
$113,000,000. This is something to be thankful for, if they mean to pay it.--In 1860, a million or more of
Yankees were alive and eating thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie who will not be crowding the tables at
the thanksgiving of 1864. The Yankee who does not rejoice that these fellows are out of the way, and that
he is eating their share as well as his own, must be lost to all the finer feelings of his race.
It is much to be thankful for that they have such a President as Lincoln. What other men on the habitable
globe would have chosen an ignorant and vulgar backwoods pettifogger for their Chief Magistrate; or,
having incurred the loss of the richest portion of their territory, more than a million of men, and two billions
of money, in penalty of their folly, would have worked for his re-election with every energy of soul and
body? What other men would expect anything else from another four years experiment but a double
amount of debt and dead men? What other men would find occasion for thanksgiving in such a past and
such a future? But the Yankee knows what he is about. The money of the Government goes into his own
pocket; and the fewer to eat, the more to be eaten. So he sends up his praises for Abraham Lincoln, that
dispenser of fat contracts and thinner out of crowded populations.
What "other men" would have carried on a war in the spirit and manner in which the pious and exemplary
Sons of the Pilgrims have conducted this contest? Thousands of dwelling-houses burned and their once
happy and unoffending inmates turned out to face, as best they may, cold and starvation; ten thousand
barns and mills, with all their contents, given to the flames; whole cities depopulated; other cities made the
target of a storm of bomb-shells, bursting among helpless, shrieking women and children; vast and once
lovely regions of country laid black and bare by the fiery besom of desolation! Surely no "other men" but
Yankees could perpetrate, in the eves of the world, deeds like these; and no other men, in any age, would
thank the God of Christianity for the achievements of devils. Let us rejoice with the Yankee that "he is not
as other men." Better to be the victim than the perpetrator of crimes against God and Humanity.
[ November 11, 1864]
A movement is on foot in New York to send fifty thousand turkeys to General Grant for a thanksgiving
dinner for the Army of the Potomac. Fifty thousand barrels of apples are to constitute the dessert.
[November 25, 1864]
Yesterday was observed as a day of thanksgiving in Grant's army, who, no doubt, devoured the several
thousand turkeys sent them from the North, and about which the Yankee newspapers have been talking so
much of late. There was unbroken quiet all along the lines throughout the day. Even General Graham,
commanding at Bermuda Hundred, finding it impossible to dislodge General Pickett from the advanced
position captured by him last night a week ago, seems to have come to the conclusion to let him alone.
A Thanksgiving proclamation from Lincoln. [October 25, 1864]
Lincoln has issued a proclamation appointing the last Thursday in November next to be observed as a day
of thanksgiving and prayer in the United States. The following is an extract from the proclamation:
It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year. Defending us with His guardian care
against unfriendly designs from abroad, and vouchsafing us, in His mercy, many, and signal, victories over
the enemy (who is of our household), it has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in
their homes as our soldiers in their camps, and our sailors on the rivers and seas, with unusual health, He
has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us
new resources of wealth, and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry
with abundant reward.
Lincoln's Thanksgiving day [November 25, 1864]
We observe that Lincoln, with commendable gratitude, has issued his proclamation for a day of
thanksgiving among the universal Yankee nation. This is an annual custom of that people, heretofore
celebrated with devout oblations to themselves of pumpkin pie and roast turkey. We have nothing to say
against the custom. It is one becoming a better people, and which even they have great reasons for
observing. If any body on the earth has reason to be thankful that the rain falls on the unjust as well as the
just, it is the Yankee.
At this time they have special grounds for thanksgiving. The formula of the Pharisee, always adapted to
their national self-esteem, has been demonstrated in this war after a fashion which must carry conviction to
the most incredulous. It is a formula, more-over, in which even those can join who have not the privilege of
being Yankees. "I thank thee that I am not as other men." The Yankee may say that with a grateful heart,
and other men can never be thankful enough that it is literally true. So let us all have a day of thanksgiving,
and the national airs of Yankee Doodle and Dixie for once be blended in honor of the same delightful
beatitude.
That the Yankee is not as other men, he proved by drawing the sword upon the old customers whose trade
had made him rich, and laboring with all his might and main to cut open the goose that laid him the golden
egg. What "other men" would have hit upon so ingenious an expedient for improving their condition. In
1860, their nation was free from debt. The interest upon their debt in 1861 is over eighty-one millions of
dollars, which is about five millions more than the whole revenue of the United States the year before they
went to war. By the 1st of May next, their national debt will amount to $2,500,000,000, and an interest of
$113,000,000. This is something to be thankful for, if they mean to pay it.--In 1860, a million or more of
Yankees were alive and eating thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie who will not be crowding the tables at
the thanksgiving of 1864. The Yankee who does not rejoice that these fellows are out of the way, and that
he is eating their share as well as his own, must be lost to all the finer feelings of his race.
It is much to be thankful for that they have such a President as Lincoln. What other men on the habitable
globe would have chosen an ignorant and vulgar backwoods pettifogger for their Chief Magistrate; or,
having incurred the loss of the richest portion of their territory, more than a million of men, and two billions
of money, in penalty of their folly, would have worked for his re-election with every energy of soul and
body? What other men would expect anything else from another four years experiment but a double
amount of debt and dead men? What other men would find occasion for thanksgiving in such a past and
such a future? But the Yankee knows what he is about. The money of the Government goes into his own
pocket; and the fewer to eat, the more to be eaten. So he sends up his praises for Abraham Lincoln, that
dispenser of fat contracts and thinner out of crowded populations.
What "other men" would have carried on a war in the spirit and manner in which the pious and exemplary
Sons of the Pilgrims have conducted this contest? Thousands of dwelling-houses burned and their once
happy and unoffending inmates turned out to face, as best they may, cold and starvation; ten thousand
barns and mills, with all their contents, given to the flames; whole cities depopulated; other cities made the
target of a storm of bomb-shells, bursting among helpless, shrieking women and children; vast and once
lovely regions of country laid black and bare by the fiery besom of desolation! Surely no "other men" but
Yankees could perpetrate, in the eves of the world, deeds like these; and no other men, in any age, would
thank the God of Christianity for the achievements of devils. Let us rejoice with the Yankee that "he is not
as other men." Better to be the victim than the perpetrator of crimes against God and Humanity.
[ November 11, 1864]
A movement is on foot in New York to send fifty thousand turkeys to General Grant for a thanksgiving
dinner for the Army of the Potomac. Fifty thousand barrels of apples are to constitute the dessert.
[November 25, 1864]
Yesterday was observed as a day of thanksgiving in Grant's army, who, no doubt, devoured the several
thousand turkeys sent them from the North, and about which the Yankee newspapers have been talking so
much of late. There was unbroken quiet all along the lines throughout the day. Even General Graham,
commanding at Bermuda Hundred, finding it impossible to dislodge General Pickett from the advanced
position captured by him last night a week ago, seems to have come to the conclusion to let him alone.