Is there somehow a link between the battle of Gettysburg and our most American of holidays? Indeed there is! “How so?” you might ask. Well, it’s like this…

In the midst of all the terrible strife of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln took the time to set aside a Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving. Lincoln had not been a Christian when he became President; nor had he been a Christian when his young son Tad died; but when he went to Gettysburg in July of 1863, and saw the fresh graves of all those thousands of soldiers, he then committed his life to Christ. The knowledge of his conversion makes the following proclamation, made by Lincoln only three months later, all the more touching: