Grateful for a pause to reflect and give thanks -- Nov. 21, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

As the Civil War raged in the fall of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln invited citizens to observe “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

People had been giving thanks on American soil since long before we were a country, but Lincoln’s proclamation started the observance of the last Thursday in November as a national day of gratitude.

President Franklin Roosevelt later sought to boost retail sales by moving Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday in November, where it remains.

We’re a nation of firsts, so it may not come as a surprise that several states claim the first Thanksgiving. Texas contends the Feast of the First Thanksgiving was in May 1541 at Palo Duro Canyon near what’s now Amarillo, according to the Library of Congress.

A couple of decades later, French Huguenots gave praise and thanks near Jacksonville, Florida. English colonists sat down with Native Americans for prayer by the Kennebec River in Maine in August 1607.

Virginia marks the first Thanksgiving when colonists offered prayers for a safe arrival in 1619, two years before Pilgrims in Massachusetts had their three-day feast with Native Americans in 1621.

Thanksgiving is more secular now. Most of us pray less and eat and shop more. But we still need a day to pause, reflect and count our blessings – especially now.

A majority of Americans believe the country’s political, racial and class divisions are so severe the United States is two-thirds of the way to the “edge of civil war,” Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service Battleground Civility Poll reported last month.

Republicans blame Democratic political leaders, social media, large newspapers, CNN and MSNBC, while Democrats blame Republican political leaders, social media, Fox News, wealthy special interests and President Donald J. Trump, the poll found. Independents mostly blame social media and Trump, the poll said.

It also showed we’re conflicted. Nearly everyone wants more compromise in Washington, but at the same time we want our own political leaders to stand up to the other side. That’s a recipe for continued strife, not harmony.

Other recent polls show we’re angry when we check the news, angry at a political system that seems to work only for insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street and in Washington; and angrier than we were a generation or even five years ago. That’s a lot of angry.

This Thanksgiving brings a welcome time-out from televised impeachment hearings and other news stories that provoke us. It’s hard to muster gratitude when you feel like throwing something at the TV or bashing the phone screen that brings the latest news outrage.

We can declare the Thanksgiving dinner table a politics-free zone. Let us savor family and friends and pass the turkey without commenting on the turkeys in Washington.  

Or, let us open a couple of beers. Samuel Adams’s new ad suggests drinkers “Toast Someone” who has made a significant impact on their life. The ad shows several popular comedians toasting and thanking someone who made a difference.

It’s a clever idea, because people are notoriously awkward when they try to put their thanks into words. And yet, decades of research show that people who are grateful and express their gratitude are happier and healthier than others.

In one study, participants were assigned to write and deliver a letter of gratitude to someone they’d not properly thanked. Those who did “immediately exhibited greater happiness,” the Harvard Mental Health Letter reported.

Such studies cannot prove cause and effect, and not all studies show people feeling better about their lives through gratitude. Children and adolescents who wrote and delivered letters of gratitude didn’t feel better about themselves, but the recipients probably did.

The Harvard newsletter summarizes the power of gratitude this way: “Gratitude helps people refocus on what they have instead of what they lack. And, although it may feel contrived at first, this mental state grows stronger with use and practice.”

Gratitude also “helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals – whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.”   

In these toxic times, we could all do with stronger connections to other people, nature or a higher power. Happy Thanksgiving.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Monuments to Union generals tell stories we need to hear -- May 23, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Last Saturday, 17 people gathered at hectic Thomas Circle, where Massachusetts Avenue, 14^th Street and M Street intersect in Northwest Washington.

It wasn’t a protest or a line for concert tickets. We were doing something most people don’t – looking past the bumper-cars traffic to the equestrian statue smack in the middle of the traffic circle.

With journalist and history enthusiast Keith White, who leads walking tours for friends, as our guide, we looked closely at about a dozen monuments to Union generals in the nation’s capital, answering the 21^st Century question: “Who ARE those guys?”

Until controversy engulfed Confederate monuments across the South, many people knew only the big names -- Lee, Jackson and Davis. The Confederate statues have made us rethink who and what we should honor and why.

Similarly, in Washington, people flock to the monuments to Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson, while hardly noticing many others. But the uncontentious monuments to victorious Union generals who helped preserve the Union also tell compelling stories.

Two monuments we saw honored Civil War generals from Virginia who made the agonizing decision to stay loyal to the United States -- when doing so meant an irreparable split from friends and family.

(It’s worth noting some Northerners also fought for the South; New Yorker Samuel Cooper and Pennsylvanian John Pemberton became generals in the Confederate Army.)  

Thomas Circle is named for the best Union general you’ve never heard of.

George Henry Thomas was born in 1815 into a slave-holding family on a plantation in Southampton County, Virginia, near the North Carolina line.

A West Point grad, he served with distinction in Florida and Mexico, and his proud hometown presented him with an engraved silver sword for his bravery in the Mexican war.

He became an artillery and cavalry instructor at the military academy under Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, who was superintendent. Yet when Lee and other Southerners resigned from the U.S. Army to join the Confederacy, Thomas remained.

His sisters, avid secessionists, were so distraught, the story goes, they turned his picture to the wall, denied they had a brother named George, returned his letters unopened, and refused to send him the sword he’d left with them for safe-keeping.

Thomas was a brilliant military strategist. He managed to hold his position and avoid a rout during the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, earning the valiant nickname, the “Rock of Chickamauga.”

When his statue in Washington was dedicated in 1879, 14 years after the Civil War ended and nine years after Thomas died of a stroke at 53, the federal government shut down for the day and former soldiers flooded the city.

But Thomas never reconciled with his sisters. Near the end of their long lives, they gave his sword to the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond.

Another Virginian who stayed loyal to the Union army was Major General Winfield Scott, born in Dinwiddie County in 1786.

A hero of the Mexican War, Scott was known as “Old Fuss and Feathers” for his love of discipline and pomp.

By 1861, when the Civil War started, Scott was the army’s top general, but he was in poor health and couldn’t even mount his horse. He recommended President Lincoln name his fellow Virginian Lee to lead the Army.

When Lee refused, Scott is said to have told him: “Lee, you have made the greatest mistake of your life, but I feared it would be so.”

Scott resigned, wrote a two-volume autobiography and died in 1866.

The sculptor of Scott’s monument put him on a small mare, his favorite mount. But Scott’s family insisted a great military man should be shown on a stallion. The sculptor made an adjustment. Today, most people don’t notice, but in 1874, the statue was widely ridiculed.

The Scott monument is in busy Scott Circle, where Massachusetts and Rhode Island avenues and 16^th Street NW meet. 

On Memorial Day, we honor those who gave their lives in military service.

We owe respect and a deep debt of gratitude to all who serve and sacrifice, and especially to Virginians Thomas and Scott who made the wrenching decision to fight to preserve the United States.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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