Gettysburg

  LINCOLN AND SLAVERY

  By 1863, Lincoln most certainly viewed his own role in events not only as the protector of the union, but the instrument by which the United States could rid itself of the curse of slavery. On January 1 of that year, Lincoln had legally freed all Confederate-held slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation.

  Emancipation of the slaves was made as an executive order using Lincoln’s wartime powers as Commander in Chief of the armed forces, and thus it did not have to be passed by Congress. It was a measure Lincoln took to help bring an end to the war, but it also neatly served his personal belief, and the belief of many other Americans, that all men, everywhere, should be free. Lincoln explained this in a special message to Congress in December 1862: “Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history ... In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”

  Ironically, the war fought by the Confederacy to preserve slavery became the legal means by which Lincoln was able to free them and eventually banish slavery from the United States with the Thirteenth Amendment. Until that momentous and courageous act of emancipation had been taken, slaves were simply the legal property of American citizens, protected by the Constitution—the very Constitution Lincoln had sworn to defend taking the oath to become President. Slavery in America, a country founded on the premise that all men are created equal, was hypocrisy of the worst kind. Slavery had divided the nation for decades and became the single issue over which Americans could find no compromise. Lincoln knew slavery had to be ended in order for the nation to be truly united.

  Edward Everett

  Lincoln and his staff arrived at Gettysburg around 6:00 pm. The town was in celebration over the upcoming event. Ten thousand visitors crammed the town, bands were playing, crowds were cheering and singing, and everyone was anxious for a glimpse of the president. Lincoln and the other dignitaries went to David Wills’s house at the center of town, where they dined and where Lincoln stayed the night. The president made a brief appearance to wave to the amassed crowd and to say a few words, but he made no formal oration. That night he stayed up in his room late into the evening, working on his speech.

  The next morning, at 10:00 am, Lincoln met with the other dignitaries who had come far and wide to witness the dedication. Principle among them was Andrew Curtin, the Governor of Pennsylvania. They made up a large procession, and Lincoln road slowly on horseback, covering the mile walk from the center of town to the new cemetery on the ridge, adjacent to the old Evergreen Cemetery that had been at the center of the battle. Thousands of people lined the way on either side of the road.

  A Gettysburg resident wrote that Lincoln bowed “with a modest smile and uncovered head to the throng of women, men and children that greeted him from the doors and windows.” Near the cemetery the scars of battle were still readily apparent; “all about were traces of the fierce conflict. Rifle pits, cut and scarred trees, broken fences, pieces of artillery wagons and harness, scraps of blue and gray clothing, bent canteens . . .” It was a stark reminder about the cost of victory at Gettysburg—over 3,500 Northern soldiers would eventually be buried where they now stood.

  The dedication opened with a prayer and then Everett’s speech, which had been billed as the primary oration for the event; Lincoln would then follow with his remarks. The day was cloudy but without rain, and warm for November. Everett rose and began: “STANDING beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature . . .”

  For the next two hours Everett spoke with great eloquence, recalling the events of the campaign and the battle fought at Gettysburg. This is what people had come to hear—one of the greatest speakers of his time delivering an epic story of the battle’s events. There was much applause when he finished and the band played as everyone congratulated Everett.

  Now it was Lincoln’s turn to speak. The crowd quieted and waited. Lincoln, still seated, took a few small papers from his pocket, found one and read it carefully, then returned it to his coat. This was not a speech to be read aloud from notes, but to be given from the soul.

  George D. Gitt, who saw Lincoln that morning, recorded that “tucking away the papers, he arose, and very slowly stepped to the front of the platform. The flutter and motion of the crowd ceased the moment the president was on his feet. Such was the quiet that his footfalls . . . woke echoes, and with the creaking of the boards, it was as if someone were walking through the hallways of an empty house.”

  E. W. Andrews 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.” He 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 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.

  The brevity of Lincoln’s words surprised the crowd. Many stood silent at his conclusion, transfixed by his words. Gitt recalled, “Had not Lincoln turned and moved toward his chair, the audience would very likely have remained voiceless for several moments more. Finally there came applause and a calling, ‘Yes! Yes! Government for the people!’ It was as if the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west were echoing Lincoln’s concluding and keynote thought.” Three cheers erupted for the president and his delegation.

  Many newspapers reported the event according to the political allegiances. The Chicago Times reported that Lincoln’s words were “silly, flat and dish-watery utterances.” Massachusetts’ Springfield Republican called the address “a perfect gem, deep in feeling, compact in thought and expression,” and Harper’s Weekly commented, “The few words of the President were from the heart to the heart.”

  Lincoln’s address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, November 19, conclusion, transfixed by his words 1863. Photo credit: Library of Congress.

  Of all the compliments he received, though, the one that pleased Lincoln the most came from a friend and political supporter: Edward Everett. Everett wrote to Lincoln the day after the dedication: “Permit m
e 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.”

  History would come to agree with Everett. In just two minutes, Lincoln had reminded Americans that the nation was founded on the principles of human equality expressed by the Declaration of Independence. The war was a struggle to preserve the nation and democracy as envisioned by the founding fathers. It was now up to the country to dedicate itself to achieving a final victory over the Confederacy so that the thousands who perished at Gettysburg had not sacrificed their lives in vain. Such a victory would grant America a new birth of freedom, a new nation without slavery—one nation, indivisible, whose government was dedicated to the freedom and rights of all its people.

  Lincoln’s words have lasted throughout time and are now a deep part of our American culture. More than words simply carved into the stone blocks of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, the Gettysburg Address lives on. Lincoln’s words remind us what it means to be an American—what America aspires to as a nation. His words are a living legacy to our cherished rights and freedoms linking our past to the future. Lincoln spoke of those darkest days of the Civil War as a great struggle in our quest to secure freedom for all, a quest that still continues to this day.

  Lincoln greeting people just after his Gettysburg Address. Photo credit: National Archives.

  Charles Sumner, a senator and abolitionist from Massachusetts, writing just after Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, noted “that speech, uttered at the field of Gettysburg . . . and now sanctified by the martyrdom of its author, is a monumental act. In the modesty of his nature he said ‘the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.’ He was mistaken. The world at once noted what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech. Ideas are always more than battles.”

  MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. QUOTES LINCOLN’S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

  Acentury after Gettysburg, on August 18, 1963, another great American, Martin Luther King, Jr., would stand on the steps of the Lincoln memorial in front of over 200,000 people and quote from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is his opening words: “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.” In his epic “I Have a Dream” speech, King appealed for civil equality, “I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!”

  Epilogue

  Through our great good fortune, in our youth

  our hearts were touched with fire.

  —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  On October 3, 1888, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the survivors of the 20th Maine gathered around a large granite monument being dedicated to the memory of their regiment. Chamberlain, now sixty years old, spoke with great eloquence on what the battlefield had come to mean for the nation:

  The 20th Maine Reunion, 1889. Joshua Chamberlain is seated at center right. Photo credit: Maine Historical Society.

  Here the 20th Maine Regiment Col. J. L. Chamberlain Commanding.

  Forming the Extreme Left of the National Line of Battle.

  On the 2nd Day of July, 1863. Repulsed the Attack of the Extreme Right

  of Longstreet’s Corps. and Charged in Turn, Capturing 308 Prisoners.

  The Regiment Lost 38 Killed or Mortally Wounded,

  and 93 Wounded Out of 358 Engaged.

  This Monument Erected By Survivors of the Regiment.

  a.d. 1888. Marks Very Nearly the Spot Where Colors Stood

  The 20th Maine Infantry Memorial on Little Round Top. Photo Credit: Jen Goellnitz.

  In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and loi the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.

  The battlefield at Gettysburg had become a sacred place to all Americans. In 1864, a group of citizens established the Gettysburg Memorial Association, which was dedicated to preserving the battlefield as a memorial to the Union army. In 1895, the land holdings were transferred to the Federal Government, which designated Gettysburg as a National Military Park. It became a memorial to both armies as veterans from either side eventually came and dedicated monuments to the memory of their troops’ heroic deeds in July 1863. The administration of the park was transferred to the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service in 1933, which continues to this day.

  Union and Confederate veterans meet as friends at the fiftieth anniversary of the battle in 1913. Photo credit: Library of Congress.

  Gettysburg eventually became hallowed ground where both sides came to find peace, and in time, to reconcile with former enemies. Two grand reunions were held there, the first in 1913 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the battle. It was the largest Civil War reunion ever held with over 53,000 veterans in attendance. President Woodrow Wilson expressed the mood of the occasion in his July 4, 1913 speech: “We have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten—except that we shall not forget the splendid valor.”

  The second reunion was held in 1933 to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the battle. Now in their nineties, the last of the veterans came for one final visit to their sacred field. President Franklin Roosevelt spoke at the dedication of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial on July 3 of that year, noting, “Surely, all this is holy ground . . . Here, at Gettysburg, here in the presence of the spirits of those who fell on this ground, we give renewed assurance that the passions of war are moldering in the tombs of Time and the purposes of peace are flowing today in the hearts of a united people.”

  Some of the last surviving veterans of the Gettysburg battle shake hands over the stone wall at the Angle during the seventy-fifth anniversary in 1933. Photo credit: National Archives.

  Gettysburg is the best preserved battlefield of the Civil War today and rightfully so. Over a million visitors each year travel to the site of the battle “to ponder and dream” as Chamberlain so perfectly foretold. If the Civil War is considered the crossroads of the American soul, then Gettysburg is surely the spiritual center of that experience for both North and South. For this author, the battlefield remains a stark reminder of the great sacrifices of both sides—a testament to the courage and loyalty of the American character—and of the cost of forging a nation dedicated to its ideal that all men are created equal. The Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s speech are timeless reminders from our epic past of what it truly means to be an American.

  Postscript

  THE CIVILIANS

  Matilda “Tillie” Pierce married Horace Alleman, a lawyer who graduated from Gettysburg College, and moved with him to Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, where they stayed the rest of their lives and raised three children. Her memoir, At Gettysburg: Or What A Girl Saw And Heard Of The Battle, was published in 1889. She passed away in 1914, and is buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery at Selinsgrove.

  Daniel A. Skelly remained in Gettysburg his whole life, eventually rising from store clerk to a partner of the Fahnestock dry goods store. His memoir, A Boy’s Experiences During the Battle of Gettysburg, was published in 1932, at the urging of his family, just a few months bef
ore he passed away. He is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg.

  Mary Virginia “Ginnie” Wade was laid to rest at Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg. When Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg on November 19, her sister, Georgia McClellan, was seated near the president. A monument, dedicated at her grave in 1900, flies the American flag overhead around the clock. She is only one of two American women so honored. She was the only Gettysburg civilian killed during the battle.

  Elizabeth Salome “Sallie” Myers remained in Gettysburg and married Henry Stewart in 1867. Henry was the brother of Sergeant Alexander Stewart, the mortally wounded soldier she had helped while serving as a nurse. She had written to Henry about his brother’s death, and they met when he came to Gettysburg. She gave birth to one son, who eventually became a doctor and preserved her diary. Her account, How A Gettysburg Schoolteacher Spent Her Vacation in 1863, was published in 1903. She passed away in 1922, and is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg.

  THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC

  Corporal Johnston Hastings Skelly died of his wounds received in the battle of Winchester on June 26, 1863. He is buried 100 feet from his betrothed, Mary Virginia Wade, at Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg.

  Lieutenant Franklin Aretas Haskell wrote his account of Gettysburg in a letter to his brother two weeks after the event, which was later published in 1898, as The Battle of Gettysburg. Bruce Catton proclaimed Haskell’s writing as “one of the genuine classics of Civil War literature.” On February 9, 1864, Haskell was appointed colonel of the 36th Wisconsin. On June 3, he assumed command of the 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, Second Corps when its commander, Colonel Henry Boyd McKeen, was killed during the Battle of Cold Harbor. Shortly after taking command he was shot through the temple and killed while leading a charge.