On Oct. 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first official Thanksgiving holiday on the fourth Thursday of every November thereafter. President George Washington had also called for a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, but it did not become an annual event until Lincoln made it so.
Lincoln’s intention was to give thanks to the Union Army and God for the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous July.
On Sept. 20, 1863, after their defeat at Chickamauga, Union forces retreated north to Chattanooga. Surrounded and besieged by Confederate forces, they were kept alive by deliveries of food and supplies via wagon across Walden’s Ridge, costing the lives of an estimated 10,000 horses and mules.
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant arrived in late October and was able to clear Lookout Valley by the 28th, making it possible for the Union Army to open a “Cracker Line” by river from Bridgeport, Ala., which eased the situation.
Benjamin F. Taylor, a war correspondent from Chicago, wrote on Nov. 22: “Stand with me as I stood this morning, near Major-Gen. [Gordon] Granger’s headquarters, here in the heart of Chattanooga. As the sun comes up, the mists lift grandly, trail across the tops of the mountains, and are folded up in heaven. The horizon all around rises and falls like the waves of the sea.