do therefore invite my
fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who
are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart
and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving
and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And
I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due
to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with
humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend
to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners,
or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably
engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand
to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be
consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace,
harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and
of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
_Secretary of State_.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the term of service of a part of the volunteer forces of the
United States will expire during the coming year; and

Whereas, in addition to the men raised by the present draft, it is
deemed expedient to call out 300,000 volunteers to serve for three years
or the war, not, however, exceeding three years:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States and
Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof and of the militia of
the several States when called into actual service, do issue this my
proclamation, calling upon the governors of the different States to
raise and have enlisted into the United States service for the various
companies and regiments in the field from their respective States their
quotas of 300,000 men.

I further proclaim that all volunteers thus called out and duly enlisted
shall receive advance pay, premium, and bounty, as heretofore
communicated to the governors of States by the War Department through
the Provost-Marshal-General's Office by special letters.

I further proclaim that all volunteers received under this call, as well
as all others not heretofore credited,