Thanksgiving Thoughts from the Past

 Thanksgiving Day has always been a day of retrospect. The first American Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621, to commemorate the harvest reaped by the Plymouth Colony after a harsh winter. The colonists celebrated it as a traditional English harvest feast, to which they invited the local Wampanoag Indians. 

Days of thanksgiving were celebrated throughout the colonies after fall harvests. George Washington, our first president, declared the holiday in 1789.

By the mid–1800s, many states observed a Thanksgiving holiday. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln gave his Thanksgiving Proclamation, declaring the last Thursday in November 1863 a day of thanksgiving. 

Let’s take a look at entries from two journals during the Civil War that relate of Thanksgiving Day in Tennessee.

Elk River, Tenn., November 27, 1863. Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day. Nobody needs to be told how our hearts turned homeward. It was with no unworthy or unmanly motives that every one thought how pleasant it would be to enjoy the festival with families and friends.

Our day was beautiful. After a cold night, the sun rose beautifully here, and soon melted away the frost. It was quite warm long before noon. We had, of course, our usual religious service at eleven o'clock — gathering beside the formidable fortification which frowns from the top of the hill, and under the flag which there was wind enough to float. It was our  storm flag, not our battle flag ; that is guarded as tenderly as a saint's relics, and only used when, although to bear it is almost a sentence of death, it waves defiance to the enemy, and when each man of our colorguard springs to catch it from the hands of the dying. But the storm flag waved near us. We were but a handful. Three times have we celebrated Thanksgiving Day, and each since the first with rapidly diminishing numbers. The dead sleep on the battlefield.

The men played ball, of course. And they had their dinner. It was impossible, in preparing, to get any supplies from Nashville, because the capacity of the railway is tried severely to carry the necessaries of life. So a large party had been sent out, well armed, into the country to make provision. They were gone two days, and found, at a distance of some fifteen miles, plenty of geese, chickens, and the like, which the people were very ready to sell. It would seem - queer to friends at home, in doing their Thanksgiving marketing, to have to go fifteen miles, and take fifty well-armed men as a matter of safety.

I have figured up a little ; and to show that there was enough to eat, report that the ratio of supply was this: to every hundred men, fourteen geese, four turkeys, and forty chickens; besides a few quails, a pig, and some plum puddings. And plenty of geese still quack, reserved for subsequent eating.

In the evening, the officers came together, inviting also the officers of the excellent Second Kentucky battery. Singing and social pleasantry made the hours pass rapidly. Some of our officers came back: they love the old homestead. And the brigade band, some of whose members used to belong to our old regimental band, came on foot for eight miles (they would have come by rail, but that no trains ran, and they waited till impatient), and discoursed most beautiful music.

The family of Oliver Perry Temple, a trustee for the University of Tennessee, shared a  Thanksgiving Feast during the Civil War with Union soldiers.  His journal recorded the events. 

Knoxville, November 26, 1863. There had been a Thanksgiving and turkey eating dinner in Knoxville previously to the one given by General Burnside—one given in his honor. On Thanksgiving Day, November 26,1863, Mrs. Temple, wife of the author, gave a dinner to him and a part of his staff. Among those were Colonel Wm. Hamilton Harris, of New York; Captain (now Colonel U.S. A.) D. H. Larned, retired; and probably Major William Cutting, of New York City, and others. I was absent at the time. Before the siege commenced, Mrs. Temple bad procured a splendid large turkey for that occasion. Other supplies she always had on hand. The entertainment was sumptuous, and, considering the time, profuse. The occasion was one of anxiety, especially to General Burnside, and well calculated to cast a gloom over the company. The fate of Knoxville and the army at that very time hung wavering in the balance. But the genial sunshine of the hostess, and her inspiring animation, drove away all gloom, even from the brow of the stern old chief. All went well with him through the various courses until coffee was reached, and there he drew the line, declaring that he could not think of drinking coffee while his poor soldiers were lying in wet trenches and had none. Noble-hearted man! But, worthy as was this sentiment, I never heard that he refused to partake of the turkey because his soldiers had none! This was perhaps the only Thanksgiving dinner given in Knoxville on that day. This incident is given as an introduction and as indirectly related to the thrilling incidents which follow:

Thirty years after that time, a carriage drove up to my house in Knoxville, one Sabbath afternoon, containing a gentleman and two ladies. On being ushered into the parlor, the gentleman introduced himself by saying that he was Wm. Hamilton Harris, a son of ex-United States Senator Ira Harris, of New York, who served in the senate during the late war. He further stated that he served on the staff of General Burnside with the rank of colonel; that he was in Knoxville during the siege; that he was one of the party who had partaken of the Thanksgiving dinner given by Mrs. Temple to General Burnside, and that we had had the honor of carving the large turkey on that occasion. He explained that he had called to pay his respects to my daughter and myself out of regard for the memory of Mrs. Temple, who was then dead, and of whom he spoke in the most tender praise. This courtesy, after the lapse of thirty years, certainly proved Colonel Harris to be a refined gentleman.

Sources: Potomac and the Rapidan, Alonzo Quint, 2nd Massachusetts Inf.; East Tennessee and the Civil War, Oliver Perry Temple.

This post was part of an article originally published on Wed November 17, 2010.    J. Mark Lowe