Well, here it is, “turkey day.” Or so termed by many people. Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday, but it wasn’t always so. On Oct 3rd, 1863, after a decisive victory at Gettysburg, President Lincoln announced that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving Holiday on November 26th, 1863, the last Thursday of November. Some years Thanksgiving falls on the 26th again, and when it does, I have a triple memory. Nov 26th is my late father Clavis Murley’s birthday, and also his mother, Minnie Bartlett Murley’s birthday. On that first celebration in 1863, my grandmother Minnie’s father, James K. Bartlett was probably on a train headed for the Union Prisoner of War Camp at Rock Island, IL, a camp in the middle of the Mississippi River. He had been shot and captured on the 24th at the battle of Lookout Mountain, TN. My other grandfather had just reached Dalton, GA, after battling his way off Missionary Ridge on the 25th, and had stopped the Union advance at Ringgold Pass, GA. He would sit there until the following May, then be a part of the 100-day battle of the Battle for Atlanta. That first thanksgiving was not one of peace and fellowship. So many stories are told to us about that first dinner being one of thanksgiving, but that is not exactly true. Before that tiny ship cast off from Europe in 1620, its cargo of 102 Puritans had long left England in pursuit of religious freedom. They spent months almost in bondage in Holland, as farmers working in mills to support their families. When finally they found passage, there were two ships, leaving the continent, a good three months later than they should in the season. Shortly after leaving port the other ship began to take on water, it was leaking. All the passengers had to transfer to the Mayflower. It took two months for the 102 passengers, including three pregnant women and about a dozen children and 30 crewmen - and they were short of crewmen - to make the passage and not to their intended landing ne
