Thanksgiving itself was not celebrated annually ... as Thanksgiving Day to celebrate the Union Army’s victory at Gettysburg.

That first Thanksgiving was a celebration not of the ... days in the nation’s history occurred on some farmland in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. “No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any ...

It took the trauma of the Civil War to make Thanksgiving a formal, annual holiday. Lincoln issued his proclamation on Oct. 3, 1863, three months after Union Army victories at Gettysburg and ...