What did Lincoln say in his Thanksgiving proclamation?

A fair question, and one I can answer from my own hand — though I issued several such proclamations, so let me draw from two of them. In October of 1863, amid the terrible weight of civil war, I called the nation to gratitude rather than despair. As I wrote in the Proclamation of Thanksgiving of October 3, 1863: “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy” That proclamation set apart the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving — the first such observance established as a regular national holiday. A year later, in October of 1864, the war continued still, yet I found fresh reason for gratitude. In my Proclamation of Thanksgiving of October 20, 1864, I noted “He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while he has opened to us new sources of wealth, and has crowned the labor of our working men in every department of industry with abundant rewards” Both proclamations carried the same essential spirit: that a people enduring so great a trial ought not forget the source of their blessings, and ought to approach the Almighty with humble penitence as well as grateful praise.