150 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, defining the American Civil War in one of the most important
speeches in history. He was there to deliver “a few appropriate remarks” at the
dedication of a cemetery for the Union dead from the Battle of Gettysburg, the
biggest and bloodiest battle ever fought in North America.
Lincoln arrived in Gettysburg on November 18, just after dusk had
settled upon the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Thousands had flocked to the
city, crowding the streets of the small southern Pennsylvania town with
outsiders for the second time in 1863. Lincoln spent that evening in the David
Wills home on the town square, where 36 people stayed that evening. Lincoln
spent that night finishing his remarks for the following day. He was asked to
speak to a group of well wishers outside the Wills home, but declined, stating
only that he preferred not to speak extemporaneously that evening.
The next morning, Lincoln rose early to tour the Gettysburg
battlefield. He wanted to visit where Major General John Reynolds had been killed on July 1, 1863,
and thus rode to the Herbst Woods on McPherson Ridge, part of the July 1
battlefield.
Upon returning to the town, Lincoln took part in a
procession to the new cemetery. After entering the cemetery from Baltimore
Street, Lincoln and other dignitaries made their way to the speaker’s rostrum.
Speaking first was Edward Everett, who famously delivered an oration stretching
over two hours. Then, it was Lincoln’s turn.
As Lincoln stepped forward, he was speaking amidst a climate
of death and destruction. All around the still unfinished cemetery, there were
fresh graves, holding the remains of soldiers who had recently given their
lives that this nation may live. When Lincoln arrived at the train station the
day before, there were coffins stacked nearby, waiting to be used for the
remains of brave soldiers who paid the last full measure of devotion. During
his tour of the battlefield, he saw graves of soldiers who had not yet been
reinterred to the new cemetery, as well as the landscape which still bore the
scars of battle. And, when Lincoln stepped forward at the cemetery dedication,
around his famed top hat was a black band, signifying that he was still
mourning the loss of his son Willie, who died in February 1862. Lincoln was, in
many ways, still a grieving father who, although he had not lost a son due to
war, was speaking to a nation of grieving parents whose children had perished
on farmers fields across the United States in a struggle for the future of the
nation. He stepped forward that day to answer a question: was all of the death
and suffering that was tearing apart the country ultimately worth it. Lincoln’s
answer was yes.
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 battle-field 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 that
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.
