Thanksgiving Virginia and a sparsely documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1619 arrival of 38 English settlers at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia, concluded with a religious celebration as dictated by the group's charter from the London Company, which specifically required "that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned ... in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God." The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history
St. Augustine in the American Civil War sides in the Civil War. Many black Union soldiers either came from St. Augustine, or settled there after the war, providing a leadership cadre for the community known as Lincolnville that was established in 1866. Many of the city's old cemeteries feature the distinctive marble tombstones marked "USCT"--United States Colored Troops. Florida state militia took the fort at St. Augustine from a small U. S. Army garrison (one soldier) on January 7, 1861. Three days later the state of Florida seceded from the United States. Union troops reoccupied the city on March 11, 1862, putting St. Augustine under Union control.