http://www.christianity.com/ChurchHistory/11630534/
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, tranquillity and Union."
- Abraham Lincoln.
