War and Thanksgiving
John Amble
November 28, 2024
Michigan_infantry
Happy Thanksgiving from War on the Rocks! Today is all about tradition: turkey and stuffing; family, friends, and football. From early childhood, we all learn the origin story of Thanksgiving that is so mythically central to its celebration. Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony marked a successful harvest with a feast to which they invited Native Americans who had lent much-needed assistance after the previous hard winter. Records of earlier harvest celebrations and debates (google “thanksgiving origins” if you’re interested and have hours to kill) about the actual provenance of what would become our Thanksgiving aside, it is no surprise that the centuries-long history would make it the holiday most steeped in uniform tradition across America.
But how did thanksgiving become Thanksgiving? The first recognition of a single, nationally celebrated holiday of Thanksgiving came in a proclamation by the Second Continental Congress in 1777, a year after it signed the Declaration of Independence. It came as our young country’s future was far from certain, and was indeed issued from a temporary meeting site because the national capital of Philadelphia itself was then occupied by British forces. The language was marked by its central theme of gratitude for American forces’ successes, thanking God,
particularly in that he hath been pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success.
The document also issued prayers for further good fortune on the battlefield:
To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty God, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, Independence and Peace.
https://warontherocks.com/2024/11/war-and-thanksgiving-6/
