As a national holiday, Thanksgiving originated as war propaganda.

Lincoln and his cabinet, as they were seated at the reading of the proclamation
It was Abe Lincoln in November 1863 who made Thanksgiving a national holiday. The Union Army under Grant had finally won a battle at Shiloh, and the victory called for celebration.
American Indians, or native Americans as some prefer, give no thanks for the Europeans’ arrival or for Lincoln’s victory over the Confederacy. No sooner than Sherman and Sheridan had raped and pillaged the Confederacy than they were sicced on the Plains Indians, Ralph K. Andrist chronicles their extermination in his book, The Long Death: The Last Days of the Plains Indian.
The invasion of the Confederate States of America by the Union has been incorrectly labeled a “civil war” by court historians. It is completely clear that there was no civil war. A civil war is when contesting sides fight for the control of the government. The Confederacy had its own government in Richmond and no interest in the one in Washington. It was the North that invaded the South by sending an army into Virginia where the Union army was defeated at the Battle of Bull Run. Continue reading →