The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
—Abraham Lincoln
Today marks the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's "brief remarks" made at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863 four and a half months after the Union victory there over the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
It is critical to remember the events of those days and the mood of the country. Gettysburg had been a major Union victory, but one that had narrowly avoided a catastrophe as Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army invaded Pennsylvania. The victory had come at a terrible price, over 23,000 casualties, killed, wounded and missing. Lee's army had escaped back over the Potomac river in July ensuring the war would continue.
A distraught Lincoln had blamed General Meade (perhaps unfairly) after the battle and told Secretary Hay, “Our Army held the war in the hollow of their hand and they would not close it.” With Lee’s army still defending Richmond, Lincoln faced the real possibility that the American people would lose the will to see the war through to victory--a victory that now included the emancipation of all slaves held in Confederate territory as a stated war aim. The Emancipation Proclamation was a highly controversial measure in politics at the time. A year later, Lincoln would be facing re-election--a referendum on his proclamation and conduct of the war.
Lincoln would be making a speech at a dedication of the final resting place for thousands of his soldiers who had fallen at Gettysburg. Many people in the North were calling for an end to the war, supporting Lincoln’s political rival George C. McClellan to form a new administration in 1864, to negotiate peace with the Confederacy. If that happened, everything Lincoln had worked for—the preservation of the Union, the abolishment of slavery, and the sacrifices of millions of people—would have been in vain.
Union dead at Gettysburg. Photo by Timothy O'Sullivan |
The Gettysburg Address was a chance for Lincoln to explain to the country--to a wounded and tired populace who had sacrificed greatly already, why the war needed to continue and why total victory over a compromised peace was so critical for Lincoln's vision of the American future. Lincoln knew there was a great weariness among the people. The Confederacy showed no signs of surrendering their cause for independence. Lincoln knew what he was asking by continuing the war--the deaths from battle and disease, the orphaned children and widowed mothers, the total destruction of land and property—Americans slaughtering Americans—would continue.
E. W. Andrews who saw Lincoln speak that day recalled that Lincoln “came out before the vast assembly, and stepped slowly to the front of the platform, with his hands clasped before him, his natural sadness of expression deepened, his head bent forward, and his eyes cast to the ground. In this attitude he stood for a few seconds, silent, as if communing with his own thoughts; and when he began to speak, and throughout his entire address, his manner indicated no consciousness of the presence of tens of thousands hanging on his lips, but rather of one who, like the prophet of old, was overmastered by some unseen spirit of the scene, and passively gave utterance to the memories, the feelings, the counsels and the prophecies with which he was inspired.”
Lincoln spoke these simple words:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Edward Everett, keynote speaker at the dedication who narrated a two hour epic of the Gettysburg battle before Lincoln spoke, wrote to Lincoln the next day, “Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity and appropriateness, at the consecration of the Cemetery. I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”
Edward Everett |
Senator Charles Sumner |
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You can read more about the Gettysburg campaign in my new book, Gettysburg: The True Account of Two Young Heroes in the Greatest Battle of the Civil War written for teens but a great read for anyone interested in the Civil War, Gettysburg and President Lincoln.
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