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OF 
 
 HON. EDWARD (EVERETT, 
 
 CONSECRATION OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY AT 
 GETTYSBURG, 19ra NOVEMBER, 1863, 
 
 WITH THE 
 
 DEDICATORY SPEECH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 
 
 OTHER EXERCISES OF THE OCCASION; 
 
 ACCOMPANIED BY 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF THE UNDERTAKING AND OF THE ARRANGE- 
 MENT OF THE CEMETERY GROUNDS, AND BY A MAP OF THE 
 BATTLE-FIELD AND A PLAN OF THE 
 . . GE^ZTLRY. 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CEMETERY MONUMENT FUND. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 
 
 1864. 
 
Ef 
 
 5 
 
 
 MEMORIAM 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN & Co. 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 RIVE u SIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LETTKR OF DAVID WILLS, ESQ., TO HON. EDWARD EVERETT, 
 
 REQUESTING THE PUBLICATION OF HIS ADDRESS . . 5 
 
 HON. EDWARD EVERETT TO DAVID WILLS, ESQ. ... 7 
 
 ACCOUNT OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY 8 
 
 LETTER OF DAVID WILLS, ESQ., TO GOVERNOR CURTIN . 14 
 
 GOVERNOR CURTIN TO DAVID WILLS, ESQ 15 
 
 DAVID WILLS, ESQ., TO HON. EDWARD EVERETT ; INVITATION 
 
 TO DELIVER THE ADDRESS 16 
 
 HON. EDWARD EVERETT TO DAVID WILLS, ESQ., ACCEPTING 
 
 THE INVITATION 17 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL MEADE TO DAVID WILLS, ESQ. ... 18 
 LIKUTENANT-GENERAL SCOTT TO THE SAME . . . .18 
 
 REAR-ADMIRAL STEWART TO THE SAME 19 
 
 HON. S. P. CHASE TO THE SAME 20 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. W. H. SEWARD 20 
 
 ORDER OF PROCESSION 22 
 
 PROGRAMME OF ARRANGEMENTS 24 
 
 PRAYER OF REV. DR. STOCKTON 26 
 
 ADDRESS BY HON. EDWARD EVERETT ..... 29 
 
 ODE BY B. B. FRENCH, ESQ 83 
 
 DEDICATORY SPEECH BY PRESIDENT LINCOLN ... 84 
 
 DIRGE BY JAMES G. PERCIVAL 85 
 
 BENEDICTION BY REV. PRESIDENT BAUGHER .... 88 
 
 M102476 
 
LETTERS, 
 
 GETTYSBURG, %5th November, 1863. 
 HON. EDWARD EVERETT: 
 
 DEAR SIR, On behalf of the Governors of the several 
 States interested in the National Cemetery, I request of you 
 for publication a copy of your Address delivered at the con- 
 secration of the grounds on Thursday, the 19th of this month, 
 the proceeds of the sale to be added to the fund for the erec- 
 tion of a monument to the memory of the heroes whose re- 
 mains are deposited in the cemetery. 
 
 In performing this official duty, allow me as a citizen of 
 Gettysburg, and in behalf of my fellow-citizens, to express 
 our peculiar satisfaction at that part of your Address, which 
 is devoted to a narrative of the all-important events, that 
 have at once raised this place into permanent importance and 
 celebrity. Knowing as we do that you used great diligence 
 and care to procure as accurate an account as possible of the 
 movements of the two armies in this vicinity, and their posi- 
 tions in the battle on the different days, we regard that por- 
 tion of your Address as very important and valuable. Whilst 
 its delivery commanded the closest attention of the vast as- 
 sembly who listened to it, thus giving evidence of their 
 intense interest and entire appreciation, this portion of the 
 Oration, preserved in an authentip form, will descend to pos- 
 terity as a production of permanent historical value. 
 
 Allow me also to express my gratification at the tribute 
 paid by you to Major-General Reynolds, in ascribing " to his 
 forethought and self-sacrifice the triumph of the two succeed- 
 ing days." In that well-deserved tribute the historian who 
 shall do justice to the Battle of Gettysburg will undoubtedly 
 concur, pointing to him as the individual to whom our glorious 
 success was in a great degree due. He was in the advance 
 
 1 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 on the extreme left of the Army of the Potomac, and in com- 
 mand of the First Army Corps. On Wednesday morning, 
 July 1st. when pressing his corps forward to meet and retard 
 ihe pi-ogfes.s' of th:e enemy, whose position and movements 
 were beginning to be developed to him, he told one of his 
 aides, as they approached Gettysburg and examined the face 
 of the country, that Cemetery Hill must be held for our army 
 at all hazards ; that he would advance his corps rapidly to 
 Seminary Ridge, west of the town, and temporarily occupy 
 that position ; that he would there engage the enemy, who 
 was advancing, and delay his further progress, so as to give 
 time for the whole of the Army of the Potomac to concen- 
 trate on Cemetery Hill and the ridges running out either 
 way from it ; that, if pressed too hard, he would gradually 
 fall back, contesting the ground step by step, and, if neces- 
 sary to delay the* enemy, would fight from house to house, 
 through the town. He fell, the victim of a Rebel sharp- 
 shooter, so soon in the action of Wednesday morning, as he 
 was carrying out these designs, that but few persons are cogni- 
 zant of his real plans. When the facts are fully made known, 
 history and an impartial world will accord to him the highest 
 praise. His great foresight and brave conduct on that occa- 
 sion will forever endear him to those who love to worship at 
 the shrine of true patriotism. He was truly a soldier, 
 always with his men in the camp and in the field, sharing 
 their hardships, toils, and dangers. He loved his profession, 
 and devoted himself exclusively to it ; and in the vigor of 
 manhood he nobly laid down his life, a sacrifice on his coun- 
 try's altar, on the soil of his native State, at the head of his 
 brave corps, that the rest of the Army of the Potomac might 
 the more successfully reach the position of his own selection 
 for its defence. This place of his choice proved to be the true 
 position on which to meet and check the onward march of 
 the rebellious invaders. 
 
 Not doubting that you will take an interest in this confir- 
 mation of the estimate placed by you on General Reynolds's 
 services, I remain, dear sir, 
 
 Yours, with great respect, 
 
 [Signed] DAVID WILLS. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 BOSTON, 1M December, 1863. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have this day received your letter of 
 the 25th of November, requesting, on behalf of the Governors 
 of the several States interested in the National Cemetery, a 
 copy, for publication in a permanent form, of the Address 
 delivered by me at the consecration. I shall have great pleas- 
 ure in complying with this request, the rather as it is proposed 
 that the proceeds of the publication shall be added to the fund 
 for the erection of a monument to the memoiy of the brave 
 men whose remains are deposited in the cemetery. 
 
 You will be pleased to accept my thanks for the obliging 
 manner in which you speak of the historical portion of my 
 Address. It was, of course, impossible to compress within so 
 small a compass a narrative of the three eventful days, which 
 should do exact justice to every incident or every individual. 
 On some points, as in most narratives of battles, the printed 
 accounts, and even the official reports, differ. In revising my 
 Address for publication in this form, I shall correct one or two 
 slight errors of the first draught, and take advantage of sources 
 of information not originally accessible. 
 
 I am much gratified with your concurrence with me in the 
 estimate I had formed of the character of General Reynolds, 
 and of his very important services in determining the entire 
 fortunes of this ever memorable battle. 
 
 I remain, dear sir, with great regard, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT. 
 DAVID WILLS, Esq., 
 
 Agent for the National Cemetery. 
 
THE NATIONAL CEMETERY. 
 
 A FEW days after the terrific Battle of Gettysburg, His 
 Excellency A. G. Curtin, Governor of the State of Penn- 
 sylvania, hastening to the relief of the sick and wounded sol- 
 diers, visited the battle-field, and the numerous hospitals in 
 and around Gettysburg, for the purpose of perfecting the ar- 
 rangements for alleviating the sufferings and ministering to 
 the wants of the wounded and dying. His official duties soon 
 requiring his return to Harrisburg, he authorized and ap- 
 pointed David Wills, Esq., of Gettysburg, to act as his spe- 
 cial agent in this matter. 
 
 In traversing the battle-field, the feelings were shocked and 
 the heart sickened at the sights that presented themselves at 
 every step. The remains of our brave soldiers, from the 
 necessary haste with which they were interred, in many in- 
 stances were but partially covered with earth, and, indeed, 
 in some instances were left wholly unburied. Other sights, 
 too shocking to be described, were occasionally seen. These 
 appearances presented themselves promiscuously over the 
 fields of arable land for miles around, which would, of ne- 
 cessity, be farmed over in a short time. The graves, where 
 marked at all, were only temporarily so, and the marks were 
 liable to be obliterated by the action of the weather. Such 
 was the spectacle witnessed on going over the battle-field, 
 a field made glorious by victory achieved through the sacrifice 
 of the lives of the thousands of brave men, whose bodies and 
 graves were in such exposed condition. And this, too, on 
 Pennsylvania soil! Humanity shuddered at the sight, and 
 called aloud for a remedy. The idea, accordingly, suggested 
 itself of taking measures to gather these remains together, and 
 bury them decently and in order in a cemetery. Mr. Wills 
 submitted the proposition and plan for this purpose, by letter, 
 
1 E 
 
THE NATIONAL CEMETERY. 9 
 
 July 24th, 1863, to His Excellency Governor Curtin ; and 
 the Governor, with that profound sympathy and that care 
 and anxiety for the soldier which have always characterized 
 him, approved of the design, and directed a correspondence to 
 be entered into at once by Mr. Wills with the Governors of 
 the other States having soldiers dead on the battle-field of 
 Gettysburg. The Governors of the different States, wdth 
 great promptness, seconded the project, and the details of the 
 arrangement were subsequently agreed upon. Grounds favor- 
 ably situated were selected by the agent, and Governor Curtin 
 directed him to purchase them for the State of Pennsylvania, 
 for the specific purpose of the burial of the soldiers who fell 
 in defence of the Union in the Battle of Gettysburg, and 
 that lots in this cemetery should be gratuitously tendered to 
 each State having such dead on the field. The expenses of 
 the removal of the dead, of the laying out, ornamenting, and 
 enclosing the grounds, and erecting a lodge for the keeper, 
 and of constructing a suitable monument to the memory of the 
 dead, to be borne by the several States, and assessed in pro- 
 portion to their population, as indicated by their representation 
 in Congress. The Governor of Pennsylvania stipulated that 
 the State of Pennsylvania would subsequently keep the grounds 
 in order, and the buildings and fences, in repair. 
 
 Seventeen acres of land on Cemetery Hill, at the apex of 
 the triangular line of battle of the Union army, were pur- 
 chased by Pennsylvania for this purpose. There were stone 
 fences upon these grounds, which had been advantageously 
 used by the infantry. On the elevated portions of the ground 
 many batteries of artillery had been planted, which not only 
 commanded the view of the whole line of battle of the Union 
 army, but were brought to bear almost incessantly, with great 
 effect, upon every position of the Rebel lines. We refer the 
 reader to the excellent map of this battle-field and its hos- 
 pitals, in the front of this pamphlet. It was prepared by 
 the Rev. Andrew B. Cross, who is one of the most active 
 and zealous members of the Christian Commission, and who 
 labored faithfully for months in the hospitals at Gettysburg, 
 ministering to the temporal and spiritual wants of the wounded 
 and dying soldiers. This map gives the locality of the Na- 
 
10 THE NATIONAL CEMETERY. 
 
 tional Cemetery, as well as many other points of interest 
 connected with the battle-field. 
 
 The cemetery grounds were plotted and laid out, in the 
 original and appropriate style indicated by the plate accom- 
 panying this description, by the celebrated rural architect, 
 Mr. William Saunders. 
 
 Such was the origin of this final resting-place for the re- 
 mains of our departed heroes, who nobly laid down their lives 
 a sacrifice on their country's altar, for the sake of Universal 
 Freedom and the preservation of the Union. Who can esti- 
 mate the importance to us and all posterity of their valor and 
 heroism ? Their remains, above all others, deserve the highest 
 honor that a grateful people can bestow on them. Their deeds 
 will live in history long after their bodies have mouldered into 
 dust ; and the place where they now lie will be honored, pro- 
 tected, and preserved as a sad, but sacred memento of their 
 brave conduct. 
 
 The design contemplates the erection of a monument to the 
 memory of the dead ; and the situation which seems to meet 
 with the greatest favor is in the centre of the semicircle of 
 
 o 
 
 graves. It has been suggested, that each State having dead 
 here should contribute a slab or stone tablet, to be placed in 
 the monument, with the names engraved upon it of those 
 whose graves are not identified, and who consequently are 
 interred in the lots set apart for the unknown. 
 
 The grounds are laid off in lots for each State, proportioned 
 in size to the number of marked graves on the Gettysburg 
 battle-field. There is also a lot set apart for the burial of the 
 remains of those who belonged to the regular service. The 
 graves of about one third of the dead were unmarked ; but 
 these bodies are deposited in prominent and honorable po- 
 sitions at each end of the semicircular arrangement of the 
 lots. The grounds naturally have a gradual slope in every 
 direction from the centre of the semicircle to the circumfer- 
 ence. Each lot is laid oif in sections, with a space of four feet 
 for a walk between each section. The outer section is let- 
 tered A, and so on in alphabetical order. As the observer 
 stands in the centre of the semicircle, facing the circumference, 
 the burials are commenced at the right hand of the section in 
 
THE NATIONAL CEMETERY. 11 
 
 each lot, and the graves are numbered from one up numeri- 
 cally. A register is made of the number, name, regiment, 
 and company of the occupant of each grave. Two feet space 
 is allotted to each, and they are laid with the heads towards 
 the centre of the semicircle. At the head of the graves there 
 is a stone wall, built up from the bottom as a foundation for 
 the headstones, which are to be placed along the whole length 
 of each section, and on which, opposite each grave, will be 
 engraved the name, regiment, and company of the deceased. 
 These headstones will be all alike in size, the design being 
 wholly adapted to a symmetrical order, and one which com- 
 bines simplicity and durability. No other marks will be per- 
 mitted to be erected. There will be about twenty-nine hun- 
 dred burials in the cemetery. 
 
 An application was made by Mr. Wills to Hon. E. M. 
 Stanton, Secretary of War, for coffins for the interment of 
 the dead, and the Quartermaster-General was promptly or- 
 dered to furnish them. The Secretary of War, also, with a 
 liberal considerateness, afforded many facilities for the proper 
 and honorable solemnization of the exercises of the 19th of No- 
 vember. The removals and burials are made with the greatest 
 cai'e, and under the strictest supervision. Every precaution is 
 taken to identify the unmarked graves, and also to prevent 
 the marked graves from losing their identity, by the deface- 
 ment of the original temporary boards on which the names 
 were written or cut by comrades in arms. The graves be- 
 ing all numbered, the numbers are registered every evening 
 in a record-book, with the name, company, and regiment. 
 This register will designate the graves, should the temporary 
 marks become defaced by the action of the weather, or be 
 otherwise lost, before the permanent headstones are put in 
 place. After the burials are all made, the graves ah 1 per- 
 manently marked, and the style of monument determined 
 upon, a map will be prepared and lithographed, showing the 
 number of each grave in each section, and a key be published 
 with the map, giving the full inscription on the headstone, cor- 
 responding with the number. 
 
 A few of the States sent agents to Gettysburg to superin- 
 tend the removal and burial of their dead, while most of them 
 
12 THE NATIONAL CEMETERY. 
 
 intrusted the arrangements for that purpose to the agent of the 
 State of Pennsylvania. The Boston city authorities, in con- 
 cert with the Governor of Massachusetts, sent an efficient 
 committee to Gettysburg, who made the removals of the Mas- 
 sachusetts dead by their own special arrangement. 
 
 The consecration of these cemetery grounds was, in due 
 time, suggested by Governor Curtin. The name of Hon. Ed- 
 ward Everett was submitted to the Governors of all the States 
 interested, as the orator to deliver the Address on that occa- 
 sion, and they unanimously concurred in him as the person 
 eminently suitable for the purpose. A letter of invitation was 
 accordingly addressed to him, inviting him to deliver the Ora- 
 tion. He accepted the duty, and the 19th of November was 
 fixed upon as the day. Hon. W. H. Lamon, the United 
 States Marshal for the District of Columbia, was selected as 
 the Chief Marshal of the civic procession, and to Major-Gen- 
 eral D. N. Couch, commanding the department of the Susque- 
 hannah, were committed the arrangements for the military. 
 To all of these gentlemen great credit is due for the admira- 
 ble manner in which they discharged the duties of the positions 
 assigned them. Birgfield's Brigade Band of Philadelphia was 
 invited to furnish the music for the ceremonial of consecration, 
 which was done gratuitously, and in a very acceptable manner. 
 The Presidential party was accompanied by the Marine Band 
 from the Navy Yard at Washington, and the military detach- 
 ment was attended by the Brass Band from Fort McHenry, 
 Baltimore. 
 
 The public generally were invited to be present and partici- 
 pate in these solemn exercises, and special invitations were 
 sent to the President and Vice-President of the United States 
 and the members of the Cabinet, to Major-General George 
 G. Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, and, 
 through him, to the officers and privates of that army which 
 had fought so valiantly, and gained such a memorable victory 
 on the Gettysburg battle-field, and to Lieutenant-General 
 Winfield Scott and Admiral Charles Stewart, the distin- 
 guished and time-honored representatives of the Army and 
 Navy. The President of the United States was present, and 
 participated in these solemnities, delivering a brief Dedicatory 
 
THE NATIONAL CEMETERY. 13 
 
 Address. The occasion was further made memorable by the 
 presence of large representations from the army and navy, of 
 the Secretary of State of the United States, the Ministers of 
 France and Italy, the French Admiral, and other distinguished 
 foreigners, and several members of Congress, also of the Gov- 
 ernors of a large number of the States interested, with their 
 staffs, and, in some instances, large delegations, besides a vast 
 concourse of citizens from all the States. 
 
 Letters were received, in reply to the invitations addressed 
 to them, from Major-General Meade, Lieutenant-General 
 Scott, Admiral Charles Stewart, and the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, Hon. S. P. Chase, regretting their inability to be present, 
 and expressive of their approval of the project. 
 
 One of the most sad and impressive features of the solem- 
 nities of the 19th of November was the presence, in the pro- 
 cession and on the grounds, of a delegation of about fifty 
 wounded soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, from the York 
 Hospital. These men had been wounded in the Battle of 
 Gettysburg, and were present in a delegation to pay this just 
 tribute to the remains of their fallen comrades. During the 
 exercises their bronzed cheeks were frequently suffused with 
 tears, indicative of their heartfelt sympathy in the solemn 
 scene before them. From none others could tears of un- 
 feigned grief fall upon these graves with so much sad appre- 
 ciation. These scarred veterans came and dropped the tear 
 of sorrow on the last resting-place of those companions by 
 whose sides they so nobly fought, and, lingering over the 
 graves after the crowd had dispersed, slowly went away, 
 strengthened in their faith in a nation's gratitude. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 GETTYSBURG, August 17, 1863. 
 To HIS EXCELLENCY A. G. CURTIN, 
 Governor of Pennsylvania. 
 
 SIR, By virtue of the authority reposed in me by your 
 Excellency, I have invited the cooperation of the several loyal 
 States having soldier-dead on the battle-field around this place 
 in the noble project of removing their remains from their pres- 
 ent exposed and imperfectly buried condition, on the fields for 
 miles around, to a cemetery. 
 
 The chief executives of fifteen out of the seventeen States 
 have already responded, in most instances pledging their 
 States to unite in the movement ; in a few instances highly 
 approving of the project, and stipulating to urge upon their 
 legislatures to make appropriations to defray their proportion- 
 ate share of expense. 
 
 I have also, at your request, selected and purchased the 
 grounds for this cemetery, the land to be paid for by, and the 
 title to be made to, the State of Pennsylvania, and to be held 
 in perpetuity, devoted to the object for which purchased. 
 
 The grounds embrace about seventeen acres on Cemetery 
 Hill, fronting on the Baltimore turnpike, and extending to the 
 Taneytown road. It is the ground which formed the apex of 
 our triangular line of battle, and the key to our line of de- 
 fences. It embraces the highest point on Cemetery Hill, and 
 overlooks the whole battle-field. It is the spot which should 
 be specially consecrated to this sacred purpose. It was here 
 that such immense quantities of our artillery were massed, 
 and during Thursday and Friday of the battle, from this most 
 important point on the field, dealt out death and destruction 
 to the Rebel army in every direction of their advance. 
 
LETTERS. 15 
 
 I have been in conference, at different times, with agents 
 sent here by the Governors of several of the States, and we 
 have arranged details for carrying out this sacred work. I 
 herewith enclose you, a copy of the proposed arrangement of 
 details, a copy of which I have also sent to the chief executive 
 of each State having dead here. 
 
 I have also, at your suggestion, cordially tendered to each 
 State the privilege, if they desire, of joining in the title to the 
 land. 
 
 I think it would be showing only a proper respect for the 
 health of this community not to commence the exhuming of 
 the dead, and removal to the cemetery, until the month of 
 November ; and in the mean time the grounds should be artis- 
 tically laid out, and consecrated by appropriate ceremonies. 
 I am, with great respect, 
 
 Your Excellency's obedient servant, 
 DAVID WILLS. 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA EXECUTIVE CHAMBEB, 
 HAKKISBUKG, PA., August 21, 1863. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Yours of the 26th instant was duly received, 
 and ought to have been answered sooner, but you know how 
 I am pressed. 
 
 I am much pleased with the details for the cemetery which 
 you have so thoughtfully suggested, and will be glad, so far as 
 is in my power, to hasten their consummation on the part of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 It is of course probable that our sister States joining with 
 us in this hallowed undert^ing may desire to make some alter- 
 ations and modifications of your proposed plan of purchasing 
 and managing these sacred grounds, and it is my wish that 
 you give to their views the most careful and respectful consid- 
 eration. Pennsylvania will be so highly honored by the pos- 
 session within her limits of this soldiers' mausoleum, and so 
 much distinguished among the other States by their contribu- 
 tions in aid of so glorious a monument to patriotism and 
 humanity, that it becomes her duty, as it is her melancholy 
 
16 LETTERS. 
 
 pleasure, to yield in every reasonable way to the wishes and 
 suggestions of the States, who join with her in dedicating a 
 portion of her territory to the solemn uses of a national sepul- 
 chre. 
 
 The proper consecration of the grounds must claim our 
 early attention ; and, as soon as we can do so, our fellow-pur- 
 chasers should be invited to join with us in the performance 
 of suitable ceremonies on the occasion. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 A. G. CURTIN. 
 
 DAVID WILLS, Esq. 
 
 GETTYSBURG, PA., September 23, 1863. 
 HON. EDWARD EVERETT: 
 
 SIR, The several States having soldiers in the Army of 
 the Potomac, who fell at the Battle of Gettysburg in July last, 
 gallantly fighting for the Union, have made arrangements here 
 for the exhuming of all their dead, and their removal and 
 decent burial in a cemetery selected for that purpose on a 
 prominent part of the battle-field. 
 
 The design is to biwy all in common, marking with head- 
 stones, with the proper inscription, the known dead, and to 
 erect a suitable monument to the memory of all these brave 
 men, who have thus sacrificed their lives on the altar of 
 their country. 
 
 This burial-ground will be consecrated to this sacred and 
 holy purpose on Thursday, the 23d day of October next, with 
 appropriate ceremonies, and the several States interested have 
 united in the selection of you to deliver the Oration on that 
 solemn occasion. I am therefore instructed by the Governors 
 of the different States interested in this project to invite you 
 cordially to join with them in the ceremonies, and to deliver 
 the oration for the occasion. 
 
 Hoping to have an early and favorable reply from you, 
 
 I remain, Sir, your most obedient servant, 
 
 DAVID WILLS, 
 Agent for the Governor of Pennsylvania. 
 
LETTERS. 17 
 
 BOSTON, 26<A September, 186-3. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have received your favor of the 23d 
 instant, inviting me,- on behalf of the Governors of the States 
 interested in the preparation of a cemetery for the soldiers who 
 fell in the great battles of July last, to deliver an address at 
 the consecration. I feel much complimented by this request, 
 and would cheerfully undertake the performance of a duty at 
 once so interesting and honorable. It is, however, wholly out 
 of my power to make the requisite preparation by the 23d of 
 October. I am under engagements which will occupy all my 
 time from Monday next to the 12th of October, and, indeed, it 
 is doubtful whether, during the whole month of October, I 
 shall have a day at my command. 
 
 The occasion is one of great importance, not to be dismissed 
 with a few sentimental or patriotic commonplaces. It will 
 demand as full a narrative of the events of the three impor- 
 tant days as the limits of the hour will admit, and some appro- 
 priate discussion of the political character of the great struggle, 
 of which the Battle of Gettysburg is one of the most momen- 
 tous incidents. As it will take me two days to reach Gettys- 
 burg, and it will be highly desirable that I should have at least 
 one day to survey the battle-field, I cannot safely name an 
 earlier time than the 19th of November. 
 
 Should such a postponement of the day first proposed be 
 admissible, it will give me great pleasure to accept the invita- 
 tion. I remain, dear sir, with much respect, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT. 
 DAVID WILLS, Esq., 
 
 Agent for the National Cemetery. 
 
 NOTE. In compliance with Mr. Everett's suggestions as expressed in 
 the foregoing letter, Thursday, the 19th of November, was appointed for the 
 ceremonial of the consecration. 
 
18 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, 
 
 November 13, 1863. 
 DAVID WILLS, Esq., 
 
 Agent for the Governor of Pennsylvania, etc. : 
 
 SIR, I have the honor to acknowledge the invitation 
 which, on behalf of the Governor of Pennsylvania and other 
 States interested, you extend to me and the officers and men 
 of my command, to be present on the 19th instant at the con- 
 secration of the burial-place of those who fell on the field of 
 Gettysburg. 
 
 It seems almost unnecessary for me to say that none can 
 have a deeper interest in your good work than comrades in 
 arms, bound in close ties of long association and mutual con- 
 fidence and support with those to whom you are paying this 
 last tribute of respect ; nor could the presence of any be more 
 appropriate than that of those who stood side by side in the 
 struggle, shared the peril, and the vacant places in whose 
 ranks bear sad testimony to the loss they have sustained. 
 But this army has duties to perform which will not admit 
 of its being represented on the occasion ; and it only remains 
 for me in its name, with deep and grateful feelings, to thank 
 you and those you represent for your tender care of its heroic 
 dead, and for your patriotic zeal, which, in honoring the mar- 
 tyr, gives a fresh incentive to all who do battle for the main- 
 tenance of the integrity of the government. 
 I am, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 GEORGE G. MEADE, 
 Major-General Commanding. 
 
 NEW YORK, November 19, 1863. 
 DAVID WILLS, Esq., Agent, etc. : 
 
 DEAR SIR, I have had the honor to receive your invi- 
 tation, on the part of the Governors of the loyal States, to be 
 present at the consecration of the Military Cemetery at Get- 
 tysburg this day. 
 
LETTERS. 19 
 
 Besides the determination, on account of infirmities, never 
 again to participate in any public meeting or entertainment, I 
 was too sick at the time to do more than write a short tele- 
 gram in reply to His Excellency Governor Curtin. 
 
 Having long lived with and participated in the hardships 
 and dangers of our soldiers, I can never fail to honor 
 
 " the brave, who sink to rest, 
 By all their country's wishes blest." 
 
 None deserve this tribute from their countrymen more than 
 those who have fallen in defence of the Constitution and 
 Union of the thirty-four United States. 
 
 I remain yours 
 
 Most respectfully, 
 
 WINFIELD SCOTT. 
 
 BoRDENTOWjf, N. J., November 21, 1863. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I regret extremely, that, in consequence ( 
 of the invitation you did me the honor to send me remaining 
 for several days among the advertised letters in the Philadel- 
 phia post-office, I was not able to accept the same by appear- 
 ing in person at the interesting consecration of the National 
 Cemetery at Gettysburg on the nineteenth of this month. 
 
 On an occasion so solemn, awakening every patriotic emo- 
 tion of the human heart, I cannot but deplore that I was not 
 able to be present, to shed a tear over the remains of these 
 gallant men, who gave back their lives to their God in defence 
 of their country. 
 
 Accept for yourself, my dear sir, and be pleased to present 
 to the Committee, my thanks for your kind invitation, and 
 believe me, with great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 CHARLES STEWART. 
 
 To DAVID WILLS, Esq., Agent, etc. 
 
20 MR. SEWARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 TREASURY DEPARTMENT, November 16, 1863. 
 
 DEAR SIR, It disappoints me greatly to find that im- 
 perative public duties make it impossible for me to be present 
 at the consecration of the grounds selected as the last resting- 
 place of the soldiers who fell in battle for their country at 
 Gettysburg. It consoles me to think what tears of mingled 
 grief and triumph will fall upon their graves, and what bene- 
 dictions of the country saved by their heroism will make their 
 memories sacred among men. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 S. P. CHASE. 
 DAVID WILLS, Esq., 
 Agent for the Governors of the States. 
 
 IN the afternoon of the 18th, the President and the dis- 
 tinguished personages accompanying him arrived at Gettys- 
 burg, by a special train. In the course of the evening, the 
 President and Secretary of State were serenaded, and the fol- 
 lowing remarks were made by Mr. Seward, in response to the 
 call: 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS : I am now sixty years old and upward ; 
 I have been in public life practically forty years of that time, 
 and yet this is the first time that ever any p3Ople or commu- 
 nity so near to the border of Maryland was found willing to 
 listen to my voice ; and the reason was that I saw, forty years 
 ago, that slavery was opening before this people a graveyard 
 that was to be filled with brothers falling in mutual political 
 combat. I knew that the cause that was hurrying the Union 
 into this dreadful strife was slavery ; and when during all the 
 intervening period I elevated my voice, it was to warn the 
 people to remove that cause while they could by constitutional 
 means, and so avert the catastrophe of civil war which has 
 fallen upon the nation. I am thankful that you are willing 
 
MR. SEWARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 to hear me at last. I thank my God that I believe this strife 
 is going to end in the removal of that evil which ought to 
 have been removed by deliberate councils and peaceful means. 
 (Good.) I thank my God for the hope that this is the last 
 fratricidal war which will fall upon the country which is 
 vouchsafed to us by Heaven, the richest, the broadest, the 
 most beautiful, the most magnificent and capable of a great 
 destiny, that has ever been given to any part of the human 
 race. (Applause.) And I thank him for the hope that 
 when that cause is removed, simply by the operation of abol- 
 ishing it, as the origin and agent of the treason that is without 
 justification and without parallel, we shall thenceforth be 
 united, be only one country, having only one hope, one am- 
 bition, and one destiny. (Applause.) To-morrow, at least, 
 we shall feel that we are not enemies, but that we are friends 
 and brothers, that this Union is a reality, and we shall mourn 
 together for the evil wrought by this rebellion. We are now- 
 near the graves of the misguided, whom we have consigned to 
 their last resting-place, with pity for their errors, and with the 
 same heart full of grief with which we mourn over a brother 
 by whose hand, raised in defence of his government, that mis- 
 guided brother perished. 
 
 When we part to-morrow night, let us remember that we 
 owe it to our country and to mankind that this war shall have 
 for its conclusion the establishing of the principle of demo- 
 cratic government, the simple principle that whatever party, 
 whatever portion of the community, prevails by constitutional 
 suffrage in an election, that party is to be respected and main- 
 tained in power until it shall give place, on another trial and 
 another verdict, to a different portion of the people. If you 
 do not do this, you are drifting at once and irresistibly to the 
 very verge of universal, cheerless, and hopeless anarchy. 
 But with that principle this government of ours the purest, 
 the best, the wisest, and the happiest in the world must be, 
 and, so far as we are concerned, practically will be, immortal. 
 (Cheers.) Fellow-citizens, good-night. 
 2* 
 
ORDER OF PROCESSION 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 CONSECRATION OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY AT 
 GETTYSBURG, PA., 
 
 ON THE 19m OF NOVEMBER, 1863. 
 
 Military, under command of Major-General COUCH. 
 Major-General MEADE and Staff, and the Officers and Soldiers 
 
 of the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 Officers of the Navy and Marine Corps of the United States. 
 
 Aids. CHIEF MARSHAL. Aids. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Members of the Cabinet. 
 Assistant Secretaries of the several Executive Departments. 
 
 General-in-Chief of the Army, and Staff. 
 Lieutenant-General SCOTT and Rear- Admiral STEWART. 
 
 Judges of the United States Supreme Court. 
 Hon. EDWARD EVERETT, Orator of the Day, and the Chaplain. 
 
 Governors of the States, and their Staffs. 
 Commissioners of the States on the Inauguration of the Cem- 
 etery. 
 
 Bearers with the Flags of the States. 
 VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and Speaker of the 
 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 Members of the two Houses of Congress. 
 
 Officers of the two Houses of Congress. 
 
 Mayors of Cities. 
 
 Gettysburg Committee of Arrangements. 
 Officers and Members of the United States Sanitary Com- 
 mission. 
 
 Committees of different Religious Bodies. 
 United States Military Telegraphic Corps. 
 
ORDER OF PROCESSION. 23 
 
 Officers and Representatives of Adams's Express Company. 
 
 Officers of different Telegraph Companies. 
 
 Hospital Corps of the Army. 
 
 Soldiers' Relief Associations. 
 
 Knights Templar. 
 
 Masonic Fraternity. 
 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 
 
 Other Benevolent Associations. 
 Literary, Scientific, and Industrial Associations. 
 
 The Press. 
 Officers and Member* of Loyal Leagues. 
 
 Fire Companies. 
 Citizens of the State of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Citizens of other States. 
 
 Citizens of the District of Columbia. 
 
 Citizens of the several Territories. 
 
PROGRAMME OF ARRANGEMENTS 
 
 AND 
 
 ORDER OF EXERCISES 
 
 FOB THE 
 
 CONSECRATION OF THE 'NATIONAL CEMETERY AT 
 GETTYSBURG, 
 
 ON THE I&TH OF NOVEMBER, 1863. 
 
 THE military will form in Gettysburg at nine o'clock, A. M., 
 on Carlisle Street, north of the square, its right resting on 
 the square, opposite McClellan's Hotel, under the direction 
 of Major-General Couch. 
 
 The State Marshals and Chief Marshal's aids will assemble 
 in the public square at the same hour. 
 
 All civic bodies, except the citizens of States, will assemble, 
 according to the foregoing printed programme, on York Street 
 at the same hour. 
 
 The delegation of Pennsylvania citizens will form on Cham- 
 bersburg Street, its right resting on the square ; and the other 
 citizen delegations, in their order, will form on the same street, 
 in rear of the Pennsylvania delegation. 
 
 The Marshals of the States are charged with the duty of 
 forming their several delegations so that they will assume their 
 appropriate positions when the main procession moves. 
 
 The head of the column will move at precisely ten o'clock, 
 
 A. M. 
 
 The route will be up Baltimore Street to the Emmittsburg 
 road, thence to the junction of the Taneytown road, thence, 
 by the latter road, to the Cemetery, where the military will 
 fbrm in line, as the General in command may order, for the 
 purpose of saluting the President of the United States. 
 
PROGRAMME OF ARRANGEMENTS. 25 
 
 The military will then close up, and occupy the space on 
 the left of the stand. 
 
 The civic procession will advance and occupy the area in 
 front of the stand, the military leaving sufficient space between 
 them and the line of graves for the civic procession to pass. 
 
 The ladies will occupy the right of the stand, and it is 
 desirable that they be upon the ground as early as ten o'- 
 clock. A. M. 
 
 The exercises will take place as soon as the military and 
 civic bodies are in position, as follows : 
 
 Music, by BIRGFIELD'S Band. 
 
 Prayer, by Rev. T. H. STOCKTON, D. D. 
 
 Music, by the Marine Band. 
 
 Oration, by Hon. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 )[rtsic. Hymn composed by B. B. FRENCH, ESQ. 
 
 Dedicatory Remarks, by the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Dirge, sung by Choir selected for the occasion. 
 
 Benediction, by Rev. H. L. BAUGHER, D. D. 
 
 After the benediction the procession will be dismissed, and 
 the State Marshals and special aids to the Chief Marshal will 
 form on Baltimore Street, and return to the court-house in 
 Gettysburg, where a meeting of the Marshals will be held. 
 
 An appropriate salute will be fired in Gettysburg on the 
 day of the celebration, under the direction of Major-General 
 Couch. 
 
PRAYER 
 
 REV. DR. STOCKTON. 
 
 O GOD our Father, for the sake of Thy Son our Saviour, 
 inspire us with Thy Spirit, and sanctify us to the right fulfil- 
 ment of the duties of this occasion. 
 
 We come to dedicate this new historic centre as a National 
 Cemetery. If all departments of the one government which 
 Thou hast ordained over our Union, and of the many gov- 
 ernments which Thou hast subordinated to our Union, be 
 here represented, if all classes, relations, and interests of our 
 blended brotherhood of people stand severally and thoroughly 
 apparent in Thy presence, we trust that it is because Thou 
 hast called 'us, that Thy blessing awaits us, and that Thy 
 designs may be embodied in practical results of incalculable 
 and imperishable good. 
 
 And so, with Thy holy Apostle, and with the Church of 
 all lands and ages, we unite in the ascription, " Blessed be 
 God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father 
 of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in 
 all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which 
 are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are 
 comforted of God." 
 
 In emulation of all angels, in fellowship with all saints, and 
 in sympathy with all sufferers, in remembrance of Thy works, 
 in reverence of Thy ways, and in accordance with Thy word, 
 we laud and magnify Thine infinite perfections, Thy creative 
 glory, Thy redeeming grace, Thy providential goodness, and 
 the progressively richer and fairer developments of Thy su- 
 preme, universal, and everlasting administration. 
 
PRAYER. 27 
 
 In behalf of all humanity, whose ideal is divine, whose first 
 memory is Thine image lost, and whose last hope is Thine 
 image restored, and especially of our own nation, whose his- 
 tory has been so favored, whose position is so peerless, whose 
 mission is so sublime, and whose future is so attractive, we 
 thank Thee for the unspeakable patience of Thy compassion 
 and the exceeding greatness of Thy loving-kindness. In con- 
 templation of Eden, Calvary, and Heaven, of Christ in the 
 Garden, on the Cross, and on the Throne, nay, more, of 
 Christ as coming again in all-subduing power and glory, we 
 gratefully prolong our homage. By this Altar of Sacrifice, 
 on this Field of Deliverance, on this Mount of Salvation, 
 within the fiery and bloody line of these " munitions of 
 rocks," looking back to the dark days of fear and trembling, 
 and to the rapture of relief that came after, we multiply our 
 thanksgivings, and confess our obligations to renew and per- 
 fect our personal and social consecration to Thy service and 
 glory. 
 
 Oh, had it not been for God ! For lo ! our enemies, they 
 came unresisted, multitudinous, mighty, flushed with victory, 
 and sure of success. They exulted on our mountains, they 
 revelled in our valleys ; they feasted, they rested ; they slept, 
 they awaked ; they grew stronger, prouder, bolder, every 
 day ; they spread abroad, they concentrated here ; they look- 
 ed beyond this horizon to the stores of wealth, to the haunts 
 of pleasure, and to the seats of power in our capital and chief 
 cities. They prepared to cast the chain of Slavery around 
 the form of Freedom, binding life and death together forever. 
 Their premature triumph was the mockery of God and man. 
 One more victory, and all was theirs ! But behind these 
 hills was heard the feebler march of a smaller, but still pur- 
 suing host. Onwai'd they hurried, day and night, for God 
 and their country. Foot-sore, wayworn, hungry, thirsty, faint, 
 but not in heart, they came to dare all, to bear all, and 
 to do all that is possible to heroes. And Thou didst sustain 
 them! At first they met the blast on the plain, and bent 
 before it like the trees in a storm. But then, led by Thy 
 hand to these hills, they took their stand upon the rocks and 
 remained as firm and immovable as they. In vain were they 
 
PRAYER. 
 
 assaulted. All art, all violence, all desperation, failed to dis- 
 lodge them. Baffled, bruised, broken, their enemies recoiled, 
 retired, and disappeared. Glory to God for this rescue ! But 
 oh, the slain ! In the freshness and fulness of their young 
 and manly life, with such sweet memories of father and 
 mother, brother and sister, wife and children, maiden and 
 friends, they died for us. From the coasts beneath the 
 Eastern star, from the shores of Northern lakes and rivers, 
 from the flowers of Western prairies, and from the homes 
 of the Midway and the Border, they came here to die for 
 us and for mankind. Alas, how little we can do for them ! 
 We come with the humility of prayer, with the pathetic elo- 
 quence of venerable wisdom, with the tender beauty of poetry, 
 with v 3 plaintive harmony of music, with the honest tribute 
 of our Chief Magistrate, and with all this honorable attend- 
 ance : but our best hope is in thy blessing, O Lord, our God ! 
 O Father, bless us 1 1 Bless the bereaved, whether present or 
 absent ; bless our sick and wounded soldiers and sailors ; bless 
 all our rulers and people ; bless our army and navy ; bless the 
 efforts for the suppression of the rebellion ; and bless all the 
 associations of this day and place and scene forever. As the 
 trees are not dead, though their foliage is gone, so our heroes 
 are not dead, though their forms have fallen. In their proper 
 personality they are all with Thee. And the spirit of their 
 example is here. It fills the air ; it fills our hearts. And, 
 long as time shall last, it will hover in these skies and rest on 
 this* landscape ; and the pilgrims of our own land, and from 
 all lands, will thrill with its inspiration, and increase and con- 
 firm their devotion to liberty, religion, and God. 
 
 Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. 
 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
 heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us 
 our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temp- 
 tation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, 
 the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 STANDING beneath this serene sky, overlooking 
 these broad fields now reposing from the labors of- 
 the waning year, the mighty Alleghanies dimly 
 towering before us, the graves of our bi^vthren 
 beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise 
 my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of 
 God and Nature. But the duty to which you have 
 called me must be performed ; grant me, I pray 
 you, your indulgence and your sympathy. 
 
 It was appointed by law in Athens, that the 
 obsequies of the citizens who fell in battle should 
 be performed at the public expense, and in the 
 most honorable manner. Their bones were carefully 
 gathered up from the funeral pyre, where their 
 bodies were consumed, and brought home to the 
 city. There, for three days before the interment, 
 they lay in state, beneath tents of honor, to receive 
 the votive offerings of friends and relatives, flow- 
 ers, weapons, precious ornaments, painted vases, 
 (wonders of art, which after two thousand years 
 adorn the museums of modern Europe,) the last 
 tributes of surviving affection. Ten coffins of fune- 
 real cypress received the honorable deposit, one for 
 each of the tribes of the city, and an eleventh in 
 
30 ADDRESS. 
 
 memory of the unrecognized, but not therefore 
 unhonored, dead, and of those whose remains could 
 not be recovered. On the fourth day the mournful 
 procession was formed : mothers, wives, sisters, 
 daughters, led the way, and to them it was per- 
 mitted by the simplicity of ancient manners to utter 
 aloud their lamentations for the beloved and the 
 lost; the male relatives and friends of the deceased 
 followed ; citizens and strangers closed the train. 
 Thus marshalled, they moved to the place of inter- 
 ment in that famous Ceramicus, the most beautiful 
 suburb of Athens, which had been adorned by 
 Cimon, the son of Miltiades, with walks and foun- 
 tains and columns, whose groves were filled with 
 altars, shrines, and temples, whose gardens were 
 kept forever green by the streams from the neigh- 
 boring hills, and shaded with the trees sacred to 
 Minerva and coeval with the foundation of the 
 city, whose circuit enclosed 
 
 " the olive grove of Academe, 
 Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird 
 Trilled his thick-warbled note the summer long, " 
 
 whose pathways gleamed with the monuments of 
 the illustrious dead, the work of the most consum- 
 mate masters that ever gave life to marble. There, 
 beneath the overarching plane-trees, upon a lofty 
 stage erected for the purpose, it was ordained 
 that a funeral oration should be pronounced by 
 some citizen of Athens, in the presence of the 
 assembled multitude. 
 
ADDRESS. 31 
 
 Such were the tokens of respect required to be 
 paid at Athens to the memory of those who had 
 fallen in the cause of their country. For those 
 alone who fell at Marathon a peculiar honor was 
 reserved. As the battle fought upon that immortal 
 field was distinguished from all others in Grecian 
 history for its influence over the fortunes of Hellas, 
 as it depended upon the event of that day 
 whether Greece should live, a glory and a light to 
 all coming time, or should expire, like the meteor 
 of a moment; so the honors awarded to its martyr- 
 heroes were such as were bestowed by Athens on 
 no other occasion. They alone of all her sons were 
 entombed upon the spot which they had forever 
 rendered famous. Their names were inscribed upon 
 ten pillars erected upon the monumental tumulus 
 which covered their ashes, (where, after six hundred 
 years, they were read by the traveller Pausanias,) 
 and although the columns, beneath the hand of 
 time and barbaric violence, have long since disap- 
 peared, the venerable mound still marks the spot 
 where they fought and fell, 
 
 " That battle-field where Persia's victim-horde 
 First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword." 
 
 And shall I, fellow-citizens, who, after an interval 
 of twenty-three centuries, a youthful pilgrim from 
 the world unknown to ancient Greece, have wan- 
 dered over that illustrious plain, ready to put off 
 the shoes from off my feet, as one that stands on 
 holy ground, who have gazed with respectful emo- 
 
32 ADDRESS. 
 
 tion on the mound which still protects the dust of 
 those who rolled back the tide of Persian invasion, 
 and rescued the land of popular liberty, of letters, 
 and of arts, from the ruthless foe, stand unmoved 
 over the graves of our dear brethren, who so lately, 
 on three of those all-important days which decide a 
 nation's history, days on whose issue it depended 
 whether this august republican Union, founded by 
 some of the wisest statesmen that ever lived, ce- 
 mented with the blood of some of the purest patri- 
 ots that ever died, should perish or endure, rolled 
 back the tide of an invasion, not less unprovoked, 
 not less ruthless, than that which came to plant 
 the dark banner of Asiatic despotism and slavery 
 on the free soil of Greece ? Heaven forbid ! And 
 could I prove so insensible to every prompting of 
 patriotic duty and affection, not only would you, 
 fellow-citizens, gathered many of you from distant 
 States, who have come to take part in these pious 
 offices of gratitude, you, respected fathers, breth- 
 ren, matrons, sisters, who surround me, cry out for 
 shame, but the forms of brave and patriotic men 
 who fill these honored graves would heave with 
 indignation beneath the sod. 
 
 We have assembled, friends, fellow-citizens, at the 
 invitation of the Executive of the great central 
 State of Pennsylvania, seconded by the Governors 
 of seventeen other loyal States of the Union, to pay 
 the last tribute of respect to the brave men, who. 
 in the hard-fought battles of the first, second, and 
 third days of July last, laid down their lives for 
 
ADDRESS. 33 
 
 the country on these hill - sides and the plains 
 before us, and whose remains have been gathered 
 into the cemetery which we consecrate this day. 
 As my eye ranges over the fields whose sods were 
 so lately moistened by the blood of gallant and 
 loyal men, I feel, as never before, how truly it was 
 said of old that it is sweet and becoming to die 
 for one's country. I feel, as never before, how justly, 
 from the dawn of history to the present time, men 
 have paid the homage of their gratitude and admi- 
 ration to the memory of those who nobly sacrifice 
 their lives, that their fellow-men may live in safety 
 and in honor. And if this tribute were ever due, 
 when, to whom, could it be more justly paid than 
 to those whose last resting-place we this day com- 
 mend to the blessing of Heaven and of men ? 
 
 For consider, my friends, what would have been 
 the consequences to the country, to yourselves, and 
 to all you hold dear, if those who sleep beneath 
 our feet, and their gallant comrades who survive to 
 serve their country on other fields of danger, had 
 failed in their duty on those memorable days. Con- * 
 sider what, at this moment, would be the condition 
 of the United States, if that noble Army of the 
 Potomac, instead of gallantly and for the second 
 time beating back the tide of invasion from Mary- 
 land and Pennsylvania, had been itself driven from 
 these well-contested heights, thrown back in con- 
 fusion on Baltimore, or trampled down, discom- 
 fited, scattered to the four winds. What, in that 
 sad event, would not have been the fate of the 
 
34 ADDRESS. 
 
 Monumental City, of Harrisburg, of Philadelphia, 
 of Washington, the Capital of the Union, each 
 and every one of which would have lain at the 
 mercy of the enemy, accordingly as it might have 
 pleased him, spurred by passion, flushed with victory, 
 and confident of continued success, to direct his 
 course ? 
 
 For this we must bear in mind, it is one of the 
 great lessons of the war, indeed of every war, that 
 it is impossible for a people without military or- 
 ganization, inhabiting the cities, towns, and villages 
 of an open country, including of course the natural 
 proportion of non-combatants of either sex and of 
 every age, to withstand the inroad of a veteran 
 army. What defence can be made by the inhabi- 
 tants of villages mostly built of wood, of cities 
 unprotected by walls, nay, by a population of men, 
 however high-toned and resolute, whose aged par- 
 ents demand their care, whose wives and children 
 are clustering about them, against the charge of 
 the war-horse whose neck is clothed with thunder, 
 against flying artillery and batteries of rifled can- 
 non planted on every commanding eminence, 
 against the onset of trained veterans led by skilful 
 chiefs ? No, my friends, army must be met by 
 army, battery by battery, squadron by squadron; 
 and the shock of organized thousands must be 
 encountered by the firm breasts and valiant arms 
 of other thousands, as well organized and as skil- 
 fully led. It is no reproach, therefore, to the un- 
 armed population of the country to say, that we 
 
ADDRESS. 00 
 
 owe it to the brave men who sleep in their beds 
 of honor before us, and to their gallant surviving 
 associates, not merely that your fertile fields, my 
 friends of Pennsylvania and Maryland, were redeemed 
 from the presence of the invader, but that your 
 beautiful capitals were not given up to threatened 
 plunder, perhaps laid in ashes, Washington seized 
 by the enemy, and a blow struck at the heart of 
 the nation. 
 
 Who that hears me has forgotten the thrill of 
 joy that ran through the country on the 4th of 
 July, auspicious day for the glorious tidings, and 
 rendered still more so by the simultaneous fall of 
 Vicksburg, when the telegraph flashed through the 
 land the assurance from the President of the United 
 States that the Army of the Potomac, under Gen- 
 eral Meade, had again smitten the invader? Sure 
 I am, that, with the ascriptions of praise that rose 
 to Heaven from twenty millions of freemen, with 
 the acknowledgments that breathed from patriotic 
 lips throughout the length and breadth of America, 
 to the surviving officers and men who had rendered 
 the country this inestimable service, there beat in 
 every loyal bosom a throb of tender and sorrowful 
 gratitude to the martyrs who had fallen on the 
 sternly contested field. Let A nation's fervent thanks 
 make some amends for the toils and sufferings of 
 those who survive. Would that the heartfelt trib- 
 ute could penetrate these honored graves ! 
 
 In order that we may comprehend, to their full 
 extent, our obligations to the martyrs -and surviving 
 
36 ADDRESS. 
 
 heroes of the Army of the Potomac, let us contem- 
 plate for a few moments the train of events, which 
 culminated in the battles of the first days of 
 July. Of this stupendous rebellion, planned, as its 
 originators boast, more than thirty years ago, ma- 
 tured and prepared for during an entire genera- 
 tion, finally commenced because, for the first time 
 since the adoption of the Constitution, an election 
 of President had been effected without the votes of 
 the South, (which retained, however, the control of 
 the two other branches of the government,) the 
 occupation of the national capital, with the seizure 
 of the public archives and of the treaties with for- 
 eign powers, was an essential feature. This was in 
 substance, within my personal knowledge, admitted, 
 in the winter of 1860-61, by one of the most influ- 
 ential leaders of the rebellion ; and it was fondly 
 thought that this object could be effected by a bold 
 and sudden movement on the 4th of March, 1861. 
 There is abundant proof, also, that a darker project 
 was contemplated, if not by the responsible chiefs 
 of the rebellion, yet by nameless ruffians, willing to 
 play a subsidiary and murderous part in the treason- 
 able drama. It was accordingly maintained by the 
 Rebel emissaries in England, in the circles to which 
 they found access, that the new American Minister 
 ought not, when he arrived, to be received as the 
 envoy of the United States, inasmuch as before that 
 time Washington would be captured, and the capi- 
 tal of the nation and the archives and muniments 
 of the government would be in the possession of 
 
ADDRESS. 37 
 
 the Confederates. In full accordance also with this 
 threat, it was declared by the Rebel Secretary of 
 War, at Montgomery, in the presence of his Chief 
 and of his colleagues, and of five thousand hearers, 
 while the tidings of the assault on Sumter were 
 travelling over the wires on that fatal 12th of 
 April, 1861, that before the end of May "the flag 
 which then flaunted the breeze," as he expressed it, 
 " would float over the dome of the Capitol at Wash- 
 ington." 
 
 At the time this threat was made, the rebellion 
 was confined to the cotton-growing States, and it 
 was well understood by them, that the only hope 
 of drawing any of the other slave-holding States 
 into the conspiracy was in bringing about a con- 
 flict of arms, and " firing the heart of the South " 
 by the effusion of blood. This was declared by the 
 Charleston press to be the object for which Sumter 
 was to be assaulted; and the emissaries sent from 
 Richmond, to urge on the unhallowed work, gave 
 the promise, that, with the first drop of blood that 
 should be shed, Virginia would place herself by the 
 side 'of South Carolina. 
 
 In pursuance of this original plan of the leaders 
 of the rebellion, the capture of Washington has 
 been continually had in view, not merely for the 
 sake of its public buildings, as the capital of the 
 Confederacy, but as the necessary preliminary to 
 the absorption -of the Border States, and for the 
 moral effect in the eyes of Europe of possessing 
 the metropolis of the Union. 
 
38 ADDRESS. 
 
 I allude to these facts, not perhaps enough borne 
 in mind, as a sufficient refutation of the pretence 
 on the part of the Rebels, that the war is one of 
 self-defence, waged for the right of self-government. 
 It is in reality a war originally levied by ambitious 
 men in the cotton-growing States, for the purpose 
 of drawing the slave-holding Border States into the 
 vortex of the conspiracy, first by sympathy, which 
 in the case of Southeastern Virginia, North Caro- 
 lina, part of Tennessee, and Arkansas, succeeded, 
 and then by force, and for the purpose of subjugat- 
 ing Maryland, Western Virginia, Kentucky, Eastern 
 Tennessee, and Missouri ; and it is a most extraor- 
 dinary fact, considering the clamors of the Rebel 
 chiefs on the subject of invasion, that not a soldier 
 of the United States has entered the States last 
 named, except to defend their Union-loving inhabi- 
 tants from the armies and guerillas of the Rebels. 
 
 In conformity with these designs on the city of 
 Washington, and notwithstanding the disastrous re- 
 sults of the invasion of 1862 ? it was determined by 
 the Rebel government last summer to resume the 
 offensive in that direction. Unable" to force the 
 passage of the Rappahannock where General Hooker, 
 notwithstanding the reverse at Chancellorsville in 
 May, was strongly posted, the Confederate general 
 resorted to strategy. He had two objects in view. 
 The first was, by a rapid movement northward, and 
 by manoeuvring with a portion of his army on the 
 east side of the Blue Ridge, to tempt Hooker from 
 his base of operations, thus leading him to uncover 
 
ADDRESS. 39 
 
 the approaches to Washington, to throw it open to 
 a raid by Stuart's cavalry, and to enable Lee himself 
 to cross the Potomac in the neighborhood of Pooles- 
 ville and thus fall upon the capital. This plan of 
 operations was wholly frustrated. The design of 
 the Rebel general was promptly discovered by Gen- 
 eral Hooker, and, moving with great rapidity from 
 Fredericksburg, he preserved unbroken the inner 
 line, and stationed the various corps of his army 
 at all the points protecting the approach to Wash- 
 ington, from Centreville up to Leesburg. From 
 this vantage-ground the Rebel general in vain at- 
 tempted to draw him. In the mean time, by the 
 vigorous operations of Pleasanton's cavalry, the cav- 
 alry of Stuart, though greatly superior in numbers, 
 was so crippled as to be disabled from performing 
 the part assigned it in the campaign. In this man- 
 ner, General Lee's first object, namely, the defeat of 
 Hooker's army on the south of the Potomac and a 
 direct march on Washington, was baffled. 
 
 The second part of the Confederate plan, which 
 is supposed to have been undertaken in opposition 
 to the views of General Lee, was to turn the dem- 
 onstration northward into a real invasion of Mary- 
 land and Pennsylvania, in the hope, that, in this 
 way, General Hooker would be drawn to a distance 
 from the capital, and that some opportunity would 
 occur of taking him at disadvantage, and, after de- 
 feating his army, of making a descent upon Balti- 
 more and Washington. This part of General Lee's 
 plan, which was substantially the repetition of that 
 
40 ADDRESS. 
 
 of 1862, was not less signally defeated, with what 
 honor to the arms of the Union the heights on 
 which we are this day assembled will forever attest. 
 
 Much' time had been uselessly consumed by the 
 Rebel general in his unavailing attempts to out- 
 manoeuvre General Hooker. Although General Lee 
 broke up from Fredericksburg on the 3d of June, 
 it was not till the 24th that the main body of his 
 army entered Maryland. Instead of crossing the 
 Potomac, as he had intended, east of the Blue 
 Eidge, he was compelled to do it at Shepherds- 
 town and Williamsport, thus materially deranging 
 his entire plan of campaign north of the river. 
 Stuart, who had been sent with his cavalry to the 
 east of the Blue Ridge, to guard the passes of the 
 mountains, to mask the movements of Lee, and to 
 harass the Union general in crossing the river, 
 having been very severely handled by Pleasanton 
 at Beverly Ford, Aldie, and Upperville, instead of 
 being able to retard General Hooker's advance, was 
 driven himself away from his connection with the 
 army of Lee, and cut off for a fortnight from all 
 communication with it, n circumstance to which 
 General Lee, in his report, alludes more than once, 
 with evident displeasure. Let us now rapidly glance 
 at the incidents of the eventful campaign. 
 
 A detachment from Swell's corps, under Jenkins, 
 had penetrated, on the 15th of June, as far as 
 Chambersburg. This movement was intended at 
 first merely as a demonstration, and as a maraud- 
 ing expedition for supplies. It had, however, the 
 
ADDRESS. 41 
 
 salutary effect of alarming the country; and vigor- 
 ous preparations were made, not only by the Gen- 
 eral Government, but here in Pennsylvania and in 
 the sister States, to repel the inroad. After two 
 days passed at Chambersburg, Jenkins, anxious for 
 his communications with Ewell, fell back with his 
 plunder to Hagerstown. Here he remained for sev- 
 eral days, and then, having swept the recesses of the 
 Cumberland valley, came down upon the eastern flank 
 of the South Mountain, and pushed his marauding 
 parties as far as Waynesboro. On the 22d the 
 remainder of Swell's corps crossed the river and 
 moved up the valley. They were followed on the 
 24th by Longstreet and Hill, who crossed at Wil- 
 liamsport and Shepherdstown, and, pushing up the 
 valley, encamped at Chambersburg on the 27th. In 
 this way the whole Rebel army, estimated at 90,000 
 infantry, upwards of 10,000 cavalry, and 4000 or 
 5000 artillery, making a total of 105,000 of all 
 arms, was concentrated in Pennsylvania. 
 
 Up to this time no report of Hooker's move- 
 ments had been received by General Lee, who, hav- 
 ing been deprived of his cavalry, had no means of 
 obtaining information. Rightly judging, however, 
 that no time would be lost by the Union army in 
 the pursuit, in order to detain it on the eastern 
 side of the mountains in Maryland and Pennsyl- 
 vania, and thus preserve his communications by the 
 way of Williamsport, he had, before his own arrival 
 at Chambersburg, directed Ewell to send detach- 
 ments from his corps to Carlisle and York. The 
 
42 ADDRESS. 
 
 latter detachment, under Early, passed through this 
 place on the 26th of June. You need not, fellow- 
 citizens of Gettysburg, that I should recall to you 
 those moments of alarm and distress, precursors as 
 they were of the more trying scenes which were 
 so soon to follow. 
 
 As soon as General Hooker perceived that the 
 advance of the Confederates into the Cumberland 
 valley was not a mere feint to draw him away 
 from Washington, he moved rapidly in pursuit. 
 Attempts, as we have seen, were made to harass 
 and retard his passage across the Potomac. These 
 attempts were not only altogether unsuccessful, but 
 were so unskilfully made as to place the entire Fed- 
 eral army between the cavalry of Stuart and the 
 army of Lee. While the latter was massed in the 
 Cumberland valley, Stuart was east of the mountains, 
 with Hooker's army between, and Gregg's cavalry 
 in close pursuit. Stuart was accordingly compelled 
 to force a march northward, which was destitute 
 of strategical character, and which deprived his 
 chief of all means of obtaining intelligence. 
 
 Not a moment had been lost by General Hooker 
 in the pursuit of Lee. The day after the Rebel 
 army entered Maryland, the Union army crossed 
 the Potomac at Edwards' Ferry, and by the 28th of 
 June lay between Harper's Ferry and Frederick. 
 The force of the enemy on that day was partly at 
 Chambersburg, and partly moving on the Cashtown 
 road in the direction of Gettysburg, while the de- 
 tachments from Swell's corps, of which mention has 
 
ADDRESS. 43 
 
 been made, had reached the Susquehannah opposite 
 Harrisburg and Columbia. That a great battle 
 must soon be fought, no one could doubt; but in 
 the apparent and perhaps real absence of plan on 
 the part of Lee, it was impossible to foretell the 
 precise scene of the encounter. Wherever fought, 
 consequences the most momentous hung upon the 
 result. 
 
 In this critical and anxious state of affairs, Gen- 
 eral Hooker was relieved, and General Meade was 
 summoned to the chief command of the army. It 
 appears to my unmilitary judgment to reflect the 
 highest credit upon him, upon his predecessor, and 
 upon the corps commanders of the Army of the 
 Potomac, that a change could take place in the 
 chief command of so large a force on the eve of a 
 general battle, the various corps necessarily mov- 
 ing on lines somewhat divergent, and all in igno- 
 rance of the enemy's intended point of concentra- 
 tion, and that not an hour's hesitation should 
 ensue in the advance of any portion of the entire 
 army. 
 
 Having assumed the chief command on the 28th, 
 General Meade directed his left wing, under Rey- 
 nolds, upon Emmittsburg and his right upon New 
 Windsor, leaving General French with 11,000 men 
 to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and 
 convoy the public property from Harper's Ferry to 
 Washington. Buford's cavalry was then at this 
 place, and Kilpatrick's at Hanover, where he en- 
 countered and defeated the rear of Stuart's cavalry, 
 
44 ADDRESS. 
 
 who was roving the country in search of the main 
 army of Lee. On the Rebel side, Hill had reached 
 Fayetteville on the Cashtown road on the 28th, 
 and was followed on the same road by Longstreet 
 on the 29th. The eastern side of the mountain, as 
 seen from Gettysburg, was lighted up at night by 
 the camp-fires of the enemy's advance, and the coun- 
 try swarmed with his foraging parties. It was now 
 too evident to be questioned, that the thunder- 
 cloud, so long gathering blackness, would soon burst 
 on some part of the devoted vicinity of Gettysburg. 
 The 30th of June was a day of important prepa- 
 ration. At half-past eleven o'clock in the morning 
 General Buford passed through Gettysburg, upon a 
 reconnoissance in force, with his cavalry, upon the 
 Chambersburg road. The information obtained by 
 him was immediately communicated to General Rey- 
 nolds, who was, in consequence, directed to occupy 
 Gettysburg. That gallant officer accordingly, with 
 the First Corps, marched from Emmittsburg to within 
 six or seven miles of this place, and encamped on 
 the right bank of Marsh's Creek. Our right wing, 
 meantime, was moved to Manchester. On the same 
 day the corps of Hill and Longstreet were pushed 
 still farther forward on the Chambersburg road, and 
 distributed in the vicinity of JMarsh's Creek, while 
 a reconnoissance was made by the Confederate Gen- 
 eral Pettigrew up to a very short distance from 
 this place. Thus at nightfall on the 30th of June 
 the greater part of the 'Rebel force was concentrated 
 in the immediate vicinity of two corps of the 
 
ADDRESS. 45 
 
 Union army, the former refreshed by two days 
 passed in comparative repose and deliberate prepa- 
 ration for the encounter, the latter separated by a 
 march of one or two days from their supporting 
 corps, and doubtful at what precise point they were 
 to expect an attack. 
 
 And now the momentous day, a day to be for- 
 ever remembered in the annals of the country, 
 arrived. Early in the morning on the 1st of July 
 the conflict began. I need not say that it would 
 be impossible for me to comprise, within the limits 
 of the hour, such a narrative as would do anything 
 like full justice to the all-important events of these 
 three great days, or to the merit of the brave offi- 
 cers and men of every rank, of every arm of the 
 service, and of every loyal State, who bore their 
 part in the tremendous struggle, alike those who 
 nobly sacrificed their lives for their country, and 
 those who survive, many of them scarred with hon- 
 orable wounds, the objects of our admiration and 
 gratitude. The astonishingly minute, accurate, and 
 graphic accounts contained in the journals of the 
 day, prepared from personal observation by report- 
 ers who witnessed the scenes and often shared the 
 perils which they describe, and the highly valuable 
 "Notes" of Professor Jacobs of the University in 
 this place, to which I am greatly indebted, will 
 abundantly supply the deficiency of my necessarily 
 too condensed statement.* 
 
 * Besides the sources of information mentioned in the text, I have been 
 kindly favored with a memorandum of the operations of the three days 
 4* 
 
46 ADDRESS. 
 
 General Reynolds, on arriving at Gettysburg in 
 the morning of the 1st, found Buford with his cav- 
 
 drawn up for me by direction of Major-General Meade, (anticipating the 
 promulgation of his official report,) by one of his aids, Colonel Theodore 
 Lyman, from whom also I have received other important communications 
 relative to the campaign. I have received very valuable documents rela- 
 tive to the 1 battle from Major-General Halleck, Commander-in-Chief of the 
 army, and have been much assisted in drawing up the sketch of the cam- 
 paign, by the detailed reports, kindly transmitted to me in manuscript from 
 the Adjutant-General's office, of the movements of every corps of the army, 
 for each day, after the breaking up from Fredericksburg commenced. I 
 have derived much assistance from Colonel John B. Bachelder's oral expla- 
 nations of his beautiful and minute drawing (about to be engraved) of the 
 field of the three days' struggle. With the information derived from these 
 sources I have compared the statements in General Lee's official report of 
 the campaign, dated 31st July, 1863, a well-written article, purporting to 
 be an account of the three days' battle, in the Richmond Enquirer of the 
 22d of July, and the article on " The Battle of Gettysburg and the Cam- 
 paign of Pennsylvania," by an officer, apparently a colonel in the British 
 army, in Blackwood's Magazine for September. The value of the infor- 
 mation contained in this last essay may be seen by comparing the remark 
 under date 27th of June, that "private property is to be rigidly protected," 
 with the statement in the next sentence but one, that " all the cattle and 
 farm-horses having been seized by Ewell, farm labor had come to a com- 
 plete stand-still." He also, under date of 4th July, speaks of Lee's retreat 
 being encumbered by " E well's immense train of plunder." This writer 
 informs us, that, on the evening of the 4th of July, he heard " reports coming 
 in from the different Generals that the enemy [Meade's army] was retir- 
 ing, and had been doing so all day long." At a consultation at head-quar- 
 ters on the 6th, between Generals Lee, Longstreet, Hill, and Wilcox, this 
 writer was told by some one, whose name he prudently leaves in blank, that 
 the army had no intention at present of retreating for good, and that some 
 of the enemy's despatches had been intercepted, in which the following 
 words occur : " The noble, but unfortunate Army of the Potomac has again 
 been obliged to retreat before superior numbers ! " He does not appear to 
 be aware, that, in recording these wretched expedients, resorted to in order 
 to keep up the spirits of Lee's army, he furnishes the most complete refu- 
 tation of his own account of its good condition. I much regret that Gen- 
 eral Meade's official report was not published in season to enable me to 
 
ADDRESS. 47 
 
 airy warmly engaged with the enemy, whom he held 
 most gallantly in check. Hastening himself to the 
 front, General Reynolds directed his men to be 
 moved over the fields from the Emmittsburg road, 
 in front of McMillan's and Dr. Schmucker's, under 
 cover of the Seminary Ridge. Without a moment's 
 hesitation, he attacked the enemy, at the same 
 time sending orders to the Eleventh Corps (Gen- 
 eral Howard's) to advance as promptly as possible. 
 General Reynolds immediately found himself engaged 
 with a force which greatly outnumbered his own, 
 and had scarcely made his dispositions for the ac- 
 tion when he fell, mortally wounded, at the head 
 of his advance. The command of the First Corps 
 devolved on General Doubleday, and that of the 
 field on General Howard, who arrived at 11.30 with 
 Schurz's and Barlow's divisions of the Eleventh 
 Corps, the latter of whom received a severe wound. 
 Thus strengthened, the advantage of the battle was 
 for some time on our side. The attacks of the 
 Rebels were vigorously repulsed by Wadsworth's 
 division of the First Corps, and a large number of 
 prisoners, including General Archer, were captured. 
 At length, however, the continued reinforcement of 
 the Confederates from the main body in the neigh- 
 borhood, and by the divisions of Rodes and Early, 
 coming down by separate lines from Heidlersberg 
 and taking post on our extreme right, turned the 
 
 take full advantage of it, in preparing the brief sketch of the battles of the 
 three days contained in this Address. It reached me but the morning 
 before it was sent to the press. 
 
48 ADDRESS. 
 
 fortunes of the day. Our army, after contesting 
 the ground for five hours, was obliged to yield to 
 the enemy, whose force outnumbered them two to 
 one ; and toward the close of the afternoon General 
 Howard deemed it prudent to withdraw the two 
 corps to the heights where we are now assembled. 
 The greater part of the First Corps passed through 
 the outskirts of the town, and reached the hill 
 without serious loss or molestation. The Eleventh 
 Corps and portions of the First, not being aware 
 that the enemy had already entered the town from 
 the north, attempted to force their way through 
 Washington and Baltimore Streets, which, in the 
 crowd and confusion of the scene, they did with a 
 heavy loss in prisoners. 
 
 General Howard was not unprepared for this turn 
 in the .fortunes of the day. He had in the course 
 of the morning caused Cemetery HiU to be occu- 
 pied by General Steinwehr, with the second division 
 of the Eleventh Corps. About the time of the 
 withdrawal of our troops to the hill, General Han- 
 cock arrived, having been sent by General Meade, 
 on hearing of the death of Reynolds, to assume the 
 command of the field till he himself could reach 
 the front. In conjunction with General Howard, 
 General Hancock immediately proceeded to post 
 troops and to repel an attack on our right flank. 
 This attack was feebly made and promptly repulsed. 
 At nightfall, our troops on the hill, who had so gal- 
 lantly sustained themselves during the toil and peril 
 of the day, were cheered by the arrival of General 
 
ADDRESS. 49 
 
 Slocum with the Twelfth Corps and of General 
 Sickles with a part of the Third. 
 
 Such was the fortune of the first day, commencing 
 with decided success to our arms, followed by a 
 check, but ending in the occupation of this all-im- 
 portant position. To you, fellow-citizens of Gettys- 
 burg, I need not attempt to portray the anxieties 
 of the ensuing night. Witnessing as you had done 
 with sorrow the withdrawal of our army through 
 your streets, with a considerable loss of prisoners, 
 mourning as you did over the brave men who had 
 fallen, shocked with the wide-spread desolation 
 around you, of which the wanton burning of the 
 Harman House had given the signal, ignorant of 
 the near approach of General Meade, you passed 
 the weary hours of the night in painful expectation. 
 
 Long before the dawn of the 2d of July, the new 
 Commander-in-Chief had reached the ever-memorable 
 field of service and glory. Having received intelli- 
 gence of the events in progress, and informed by 
 the reports of Generals Hancock and Howard of 
 the favorable character of the position, he deter- 
 mined to give battle to the enemy at this point. 
 He accordingly directed the remaining corps of the 
 army to concentrate at Gettysburg with all possible 
 expedition, and breaking up his head-quarters at 
 Taneytown at 10 P. M., he arrived at the front at 
 one o'clock in the morning of the 2d of July. Few 
 were the moments given to sleep, during the rapid 
 watches of that brief midsummer's night, by officers 
 or men, though half of our troops were exhausted 
 
50 ADDRESS. 
 
 by the conflict of the day, and the residue wearied 
 by the forced marches which had brought them to 
 the rescue. The full moon, veiled by thin clouds, 
 shone down that night on a strangely unwonted 
 scene. The silence of the grave-yard was broken 
 by the heavy tramp of armed men, by the neigh 
 
 * 
 
 of the war-horse, the harsh rattle of the wheels 
 of artillery hurrying to their stations, and all the 
 indescribable tumult of preparation. The various 
 corps of the army, as they arrived, were moved 
 to their positions, on the spot where we are as- 
 sembled and the ridges that extend southeast and 
 southwest ; batteries were planted, and breastworks 
 thrown up. The Second and Fifth Corps, with the 
 rest of the Third, had reached the ground by seven 
 o'clock, A. M. ; but it was not till two o'clock in the 
 afternoon that Sedgwick arrived with the Sixth 
 Corps. He had marched thirty-four miles since 
 nine o'clock on the evening before. It was only on 
 his arrival that the Union army approached an 
 equality of numbers with that of the Rebels, who 
 were posted upon the opposite and parallel ridge, 
 distant from a mile to a mile and a half, overlap- 
 ping our position on either wing, and probably 
 exceeding by ten thousand the army of General 
 Meade.* 
 
 * In the Address as originally prepared, judging from the best sources 
 of information then within my reach, I assumed the equality of the two 
 armies on the 2d and 3d of July. Subsequent inquiry has led me to think 
 that I underrated somewhat the strength of Lee's force at Gettysburg, 
 and I have corrected the text accordingly. General Halleck, however, 
 in his official report accompanying the President's messages, states the 
 armies to have been equal. 
 
ADDRESS. 51 
 
 And here I cannot but remark on the providen- 
 tial inaction of the Kebel army. Had the contest 
 been renewed by it at daylight on the 2d of July, 
 with the First and Eleventh Corps exhausted by 
 the battle and the retreat, the Third and Twelfth 
 weary from their forced march, and the Second, 
 Fifth, and Sixth not yet arrived, nothing but a mir- 
 acle could have saved the army from a great disas- 
 ter. Instead of this, the day dawned, the sun rose, 
 the cool hours of the morning passed, the forenoon 
 and a considerable part of the afternoon wore away, 
 without the slightest aggressive movement on the 
 part of the enemy. Thus time was given for half 
 of our forces to arrive and take their place in the 
 lines, while the rest of the army enjoyed a much- 
 needed half-day's repose. 
 
 At length, between three and four o'clock in the 
 afternoon, the work of death began. A signal-gun 
 from the hostile batteries was followed by a tremen- 
 dous cannonade along the Rebel lines, and this by 
 a heavy advance of infantry, brigade after brigade, 
 commencing on the enemy's right against the left 
 of our army, and so onward to the left centre. A 
 forward movement of General Sickles, to gain a 
 commanding position from which to repel the Rebel 
 attack, drew upon him a destructive fire from the 
 enemy's batteries, and a furious assault from Long- 
 street's and Hill's advancing troops. After a brave 
 resistance on the part of his corps, he was forced 
 back, himself falling severely wounded. This was 
 the critical moment of the second day; but the 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Fifth and a part of the Sixth Corps, with portions 
 of the First and Second, were promptly brought to 
 the support of the Third. The struggle was fierce 
 and murderous, but by sunset our success was deci- 
 sive, and the enemy was driven back in confusion. 
 The most important service was rendered toward the 
 clojse of the day, in the memorable advance between 
 Round Top and Little Eound Top, by General Craw- 
 ford's division of the Fifth Corps, consisting of two 
 brigades of the Pennsylvania Reserves, of which one 
 company was from this town and neighborhood. 
 The Rebel force was driven back with great loss in 
 killed and prisoners. At eight o'clock in the even- 
 ing a desperate attempt was made by the enemy 
 to storm the position of the Eleventh Corps on 
 Cemetery Hill ; but here, too, after a terrible conflict, 
 he was repulsed with immense loss. Ewell, on our 
 extreme right, which had been weakened by the 
 withdrawal of the troops sent over to support our 
 left, had succeeded in gaming a foothold within a 
 portion of our lines, near Spangler's Spring. This 
 was the only advantage obtained by the Rebels to 
 compensate them for the disasters of the day, and 
 of this, as we shall see, they were soon deprived. 
 
 Such was the result of the second act of this 
 eventful drama, a day hard fought, and at one 
 moment anxious, but, with the exception of the 
 slight reverse just named, crowned with dearly 
 earned but uniform success to our arms, auspicious 
 of a glorious termination of the final struggle. On 
 these good omens the night fell. 
 
ADDRESS. 53 
 
 In the course of the night, General Geary re- 
 turned to his position on the right, from which he 
 had hastened the day before to strengthen the Third 
 Corps. He immediately engaged the enemy, and, 
 after a sharp and decisive action, drove them out 
 of our lines, recovering the ground which had been 
 lost on the preceding day. A spirited contest was 
 kept up all the morning on this part of the line ; 
 but General Geary, reinforced by Wheaton's bri- 
 gade of the Sixth Corps, maintained his position, 
 and inflicted very* severe losses on the Rebels. 
 
 Such was the cheering commencement of the third 
 day's work, and with it ended all serious attempts 
 of the enemy on our right. As on the preceding 
 day, his efforts were now mainly directed against 
 our left centre and left wing. From eleven till 
 half-past one o'clock, all was still, a solemn pause 
 of preparation, as if both armies were nerving them- 
 selves for the supreme effort. At length the awful 
 silence, more terrible than the wildest tumult of bat- 
 tle, was broken by the roar of two hundred and 
 fifty pieces of artillery from the opposite ridges, 
 joining in a cannonade of unsurpassed violence, 
 the Rebel batteries along two thirds of their line 
 pouring their fire upon Cemetery Hill, and the 
 centre and left wing of our army. Having at- 
 tempted in this way for two hours, but without suc- 
 cess, to shake the steadiness of our lines, the enemy 
 rallied his forces for a last grand assault. Their 
 attack was principally directed against the position 
 of our Second Corps. Successive lines of Rebel 
 
54 ADDRESS. 
 
 infantry moved forward with equal spirit and stead- 
 iness from their cover on the wooded crest of Sem- 
 inary Ridge, crossing the intervening plain, and, 
 supported right and left by their choicest brigades, 
 charged furiously up to our batteries. Our own 
 brave troops of the Second Corps, supported by 
 Doubleday's division and Stannard's brigade of the 
 First, received the shock with firmness ; the ground 
 on both sides was long and fiercely contested, and 
 was covered with the killed and the wounded ; the 
 tide of battle flowed and ebbed' across the plain, 
 till, after " a determined and gallant struggle," as 
 it is pronounced by General Lee, the Rebel ad- 
 vance, consisting of two thirds of Hill's corps and 
 the whole of Longstreet's, including Pickett's divis- 
 ion, the elite of his corps, which had not yet been 
 under fire, and was now depended upon to decide 
 the fortune of this last eventful day, was driven 
 back with prodigious slaughter, discomfited and 
 broken. While these events were in progress at our 
 left centre, the enemy was driven, with a consider- 
 able loss of prisoners, from a strong position on our 
 extreme left, from which he was annoying our force 
 on Little Round Top. In the terrific assault on 
 our centre, Generals Hancock and Gibbon were 
 wounded. In the Rebel army, Generals Armistead, 
 Kemper, Pettigrew, and Trimble were wounded, 
 the first named mortally, the latter also made pris- 
 oner, General Garnett was killed, and thirty-five 
 hundred officers and men made prisoners. 
 
 These were the expiring agonies of the three 
 
ADDRESS. 55 
 
 days' conflict, and with them the battle ceased. It 
 was fought by the Union army with courage and 
 skill, from the first cavalry skirmish on Wednesday 
 morning to the fearful rout of the enemy on Friday 
 afternoon, by every arm and every rank of the ser- 
 vice, by officers and men, by cavalry, artillery, and 
 infantry. The superiority of numbers was with the 
 enemy, who were led by the ablest commanders in 
 their service; and if the Union force had the ad- 
 vantage of a strong position, the Confederates had 
 that of choosing time and place, the prestige of for- 
 mer victories over the Army of the Potomac, and 
 of the success of the first day. Victory does not 
 always fall to the lot of those who deserve it ; but 
 that so decisive a triumph, under circumstances like 
 these, was gained by our troops, I would ascribe, 
 under Providence, to the spirit of exalted patriot- 
 ism that animated them, and a consciousness that 
 they were fighting in a righteous cause. 
 
 Ah 1 hope of defeating our army, and securing 
 what General Lee calls " the valuable results " of 
 such' an achievement, having vanished, he thought 
 only of rescuing from destruction the remains of his 
 shattered forces. In killed, wounded, and missing, 
 he had, as far as can be ascertained, suffered a loss 
 of about 37,000 men, rather more than a third 
 of the army with which he is supposed to have 
 marched into Pennsylvania. Perceiving that his 
 only safety was in rapid retreat, he commenced 
 withdrawing his troops at daybreak on the 4th, 
 throwing up field-works in front of our left, which, 
 
56 ADDRESS. 
 
 assuming the appearance of a new position, were 
 intended probably to protect the rear of his army 
 in their retreat. That day sad celebration of the 
 4th of July for an army of Americans was passed 
 by him in hurrying off his trains. By nightfall, the 
 main army was in full retreat on the Cashtown and 
 Fairfield roads, and it moved with such precipita- 
 tion, that, short as the nights were, by daylight the 
 following morning, notwithstanding a heavy rain, 
 the rear-guard had left its position. The struggle 
 of the last two days resembled in many respects 
 the Battle of Waterloo ; and if, in the evening of 
 the third day, General Meade, like the Duke of 
 Wellington, had had the assistance of a powerful 
 auxiliary army to take up the pursuit, the rout of , 
 the Rebels would have been as complete as that of 
 Napoleon. 
 
 Owing to the circumstance just named, the in- 
 tentions of the enemy were not apparent on the 
 4th. The moment his retreat was discovered, the 
 following morning, he was pursued by our cavalry 
 on the Cashtown road and through the Emmittsburg 
 and Monterey passes, and by Sedgwick's corps on 
 the Fairfield road. His rear-guard was briskly at- 
 tacked at- Fairfield ; a great number of wagons and 
 ambulances were captured in the passes of the 
 mountains ; the country swarmed with his strag- 
 glers, and his wounded were literally emptied from 
 the vehicles containing them into the farm-houses 
 on the road. General Lee, in his report, makes 
 repeated mention of the Union prisoners whom he 
 
ADDRESS. 57 
 
 conveyed into Virginia, somewhat overstating their 
 number. He states, also, that " such of his wounded 
 as were in a condition to be removed" were for- 
 warded to Williamsport. He does not mention that 
 the number of his wounded not removed, and left to 
 the Christian care of the victors, was 7540, not one 
 of whom failed of any attention which it was pos- 
 sible, under the circumstances of the case, to afford 
 them, not one of whom, certainly, has been put 
 upon Libby-prison fare, lingering death by star- 
 vation. Heaven forbid, however, that we should 
 claim any merit for the exercise of common hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Under the protection of the mountain -ridge, 
 whose narrow passes are easily held even by a re- 
 treating army, General Lee reached Williamsport in 
 safety, and took up a strong position opposite to 
 that place. General Meade necessarily pursued with 
 the main army by a flank-movement through Mid- 
 dletown, Turner's Pass having been secured by Gen- 
 eral French. Passing through the South Mountain, 
 the Union army came up with that of the Rebels 
 on the 12th, and found it securely posted on the 
 heights of Marsh Run. The position was recon- 
 noitred, and preparations made for an attack on the 
 13th. The depth of the river, sw r ollen by the recent 
 rains, authorized the expectation that the enemy 
 would be brought to a general engagement the fol- 
 lowing day. An advance was accordingly made by 
 General Meade on the morning of the 14th; but it 
 was soon found that the Rebels had escaped in the 
 5* 
 
58 ADDRESS. 
 
 night, with such haste that EwelPs corps forded 
 the river where the water was breast-high. The 
 cavalry, which had rendered the most important ser- 
 vices during the three days, and in harassing the 
 enemy's retreat, was now sent in pursuit, and cap- 
 tured two guns and a large number of prisoners. 
 In an action which took place at Falling Waters, 
 General Pettigrew was mortally wounded. General 
 Meade, in further pursuit of the Rebels, crossed the 
 Potomac at Berlin. Thus again covering the ap- 
 proaches to Washington, he compelled the enemy to 
 pass the Blue Ridge at one of the upper gaps ; and 
 in about six weeks from the commencement of the 
 campaign, General Lee found himself again on the 
 south side of the Rappahannock, with the probable 
 loss of about a third part of his army. 
 
 Such, most inadequately recounted, is the history 
 of the ever - memorable three days, and of the 
 events immediately preceding and following. It has 
 been pretended, in order to diminish the magnitude 
 of this disaster to the Rebel cause, that it was 
 merely the repulse of an attack on a strongly de- 
 fended position. The tremendous losses on both 
 sides are a sufficient answer to this misrepresen- 
 tation, and attest the courage and obstinacy with 
 which the three days' battle was waged. Few of 
 the great conflicts of modern times have cost vic- 
 tors and vanquished so great a sacrifice. On the 
 Union side, there fell, in the whole campaign, of gen- 
 erals killed, Reynolds, Weed, and Zook, and wound- 
 ed, Barlow, Barnes, Buttcrfield, Doubleday, Gibbon, 
 
ADDRESS. 59 
 
 Graham, Hancock, Sickles, and Warren ; while of 
 officers below the rank of general, and men, there 
 were 2834 killed, 13,709 wounded, and 6643 miss- 
 ing. On the Confederate side, there were killed on 
 the field or mortally wounded, Generals Armistead, 
 Barksdale, Garnett, Fender, Pettigrew, and Semmes, 
 and wounded, Heth, Hood, Johnson, Kemper, Kim- 
 ball, and Trimble. Of officers below the rank of 
 general, and men, there were taken prisoners, in- 
 cluding the \vounded, 13,621, an amount ascertained 
 officially. Of the wounded in a condition to be re- 
 moved, of the. killed, and the missing, the enemy 
 has made no return. They are estimated, from the 
 best data which the nature of the case admits, at 
 23,000. General Meade also captured 3 cannon, 
 [Jfl^CPQ- -smntl oiimfl, " ft ' ut 41 standards ; and 24,978 
 small arms were collected on the battle-field. 
 
 I must leave to others, who can do it from per- 
 sonal observation, to describe the mournful spectacle 
 presented by these hill-sides and plains at the close 
 of the terrible conflict. It was a saying of the 
 Duke of "Wellington, that next to a defeat, the sad- 
 dest thing is a victory. The horrors of the battle- 
 field, after the contest is over, the sights and 
 sounds of woe, let me throw a pall over the 
 scene, which no words can adequately depict to 
 those who have not witnessed it, on which no one 
 who has witnessed it, and who has a heart in his 
 bosom, can bear to dwell. One drop of balm alone, 
 one drop of heavenly, life-giving balm, mingles in 
 this bitter cup of misery. Scarcely has the cannon 
 
60 ADDRESS. 
 
 ceased to roar, when the brethren and sisters of 
 Christian benevolence, ministers of compassion, an- 
 gels of pity, hasten to the field and the hospital, 
 to moisten the parched tongue, to bind the ghastly 
 wounds, to soothe the parting agonies alike of friend 
 and foe, and to catch the last whispered messages 
 of love from dying lips. " Carry this miniature back 
 to my dear wife, but do not take it from my bosom 
 till I am gone." " Tell my little sister not to grieve 
 for me ; I am willing to die for my country." u Oh, 
 that my mother were here ! " When since Aaron 
 stood between the living and the dead was there 
 ever so gracious a ministry as this ? It has been 
 said that -it is characteristic of Americans to treat 
 women with a deference not paid to them in any 
 other country. I will not undertake to say whether 
 this is so; but I will say, that, since this terrible 
 war has been waged, the women of the loyal States, 
 if never before, have entitled themselves to our 
 highest admiration and gratitude, alike those who 
 at home, often with fingers unused to the toil, often 
 bowed beneath their own domestic cares, have per- 
 formed an amount of daily labor not exceeded by 
 those who work for their daily bread, and those who, 
 in the hospital and the tents of the Sanitary and 
 Christian Commissions, have rendered services which 
 millions could not buy. Happily, the labor and the 
 service are their own reward. Thousands of matrons 
 and thousands of maidens have experienced a delight 
 in these homely toils and services, compared with 
 which the pleasures of the ball-room and the opera- 
 
ADDRESS. 61 
 
 house are tame and unsatisfactory. This on earth 
 is reward enough, but a richer is in store for them. 
 Yes, brothers, sisters of charity, while you bind up 
 the wounds of the poor sufferers, the humblest, 
 perhaps, that have shed their blood for the coun- 
 try, forget not WHO it is that will hereafter say 
 to you, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
 the least of these my BRETHREN, ye have done it 
 unto me." 
 
 And now, friends, fellow-citizens, as we stand 
 among these honored graves, the momentous ques- 
 tion presents itself, Which of the two parties to the 
 war is responsible for all this suffering, for this 
 dreadful sacrifice of life, the lawful and constitu- 
 tional government of the United States, or the am- 
 bitious men who have rebelled against it ? I say 
 "rebelled" against it, although Earl Russell, the 
 British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in his 
 recent temperate and conciliatory speech in Scot- 
 land, seems to intimate that no prejudice ought to 
 attach to that word, inasmuch as our English fore- 
 fathers rebelled against Charles I. and James II., 
 and our American fathers rebelled against George 
 III. These certainly are venerable precedents, but 
 they prove only that it is just and proper to rebel 
 against oppressive governments. They do not prove 
 that it was just and proper for the son of James II. 
 to rebel against George I., or his grandson Charles 
 Edward to rebel against George II. ; nor, as it seems 
 to me, ought these dynastic struggles, little better 
 than family quarrels, to be compared with this 
 
62 ADDRESS. 
 
 monstrous conspiracy against the American Union. 
 These precedents do not prove that it was just and 
 proper for the " disappointed great men " of the 
 cotton-growing States to rebel against " the most 
 beneficent government of which history gives us 
 any account," as the Vice-President of the Confed- 
 eracy, in November, 1860, charged them with doing. 
 They do not create a presumption even in favor 
 of the disloyal slaveholders of the South, who, liv- 
 ing under a government of which Mr. Jefferson 
 Davis, in the session of 1860-61, said that it was 
 " the best government ever instituted by man, un- 
 exceptionably administered, and under which the 
 people have been prosperous beyond comparison 
 with any other people whose career has been re- 
 corded in history," rebelled against it because their 
 aspiring politicians, himself among the rest, were in 
 danger of losing their monopoly of its offices. What 
 would have been thought by an impartial posterity 
 of the American rebellion against George III., if 
 the colonists had at all times been more than 
 equally represented in parliament, and James Otis 
 and Patrick Henry and Washington and Franklin 
 and the Adamses and Hancock and Jefferson, and 
 men of their stamp, had for two generations en- 
 joyed the confidence of the sovereign and adminis- 
 tered the government of the empire ? What would 
 have been thought of the rebellion against Charles 
 I., if Cromwell and the men of his school had been 
 the responsible advisers of that prince from his ac- 
 cession to the throne, and then, on account of a 
 
ADDRESS. 63 
 
 partial change in the ministry, had brought his head 
 to the block, and involved the country in a desolating 
 war, for the sake of dismembering it and establish- 
 ing a new government south of the Trent ? What 
 would have been thought of the Whigs of 1688, if 
 they had themselves composed the cabinet of James 
 II., and been the advisers of the measures and the 
 promoters of the policy which drove him into exile ? 
 The Puritans of 1640 and the Whigs of 1688 rebelled 
 against arbitrary power in order to establish consti- 
 tutional liberty. If they had risen against Charles 
 and James because those monarchs favored equal 
 rio-hts, and in order themselves "for the first time 
 
 o " 
 
 in the history of the world" to establish an oligar- 
 chy "founded on the corner-stone of slavery," they 
 would truly have furnished a precedent for the Reb- 
 els of the South, but their cause would not have 
 been sustained by the eloquence of Pym or of 
 Somers, nor sealed with the blood of Hampden or 
 Russell. 
 
 I call the war which the Confederates are waging 
 against the Union a "rebellion," because it is one, 
 and in grave matters it is best to call things by their 
 right names. I speak of it as a crime, because the 
 Constitution of the United States so regards it, and 
 puts " rebellion " on a par with " invasion." The 
 Constitution and law not only of England, but of 
 every civilized country, regard them in the same 
 light ; or rather they consider the rebel in arms as 
 far worse than the alien enemy. To levy war 
 against the United States is the constitutional defi- 
 
64 ADDKESS. 
 
 nition of treason, and that crime is by every civ- 
 ilized government regarded as the highest which 
 citizen or subject can commit. Not content with 
 the sanctions of human justice, of all the crimes 
 against the law of the land it is singled out for the 
 denunciations of religion. The litanies of every 
 church in Christendom whose ritual embraces that 
 office, as far as I am aware, from the metropol- 
 itan cathedrals of Europe to the humblest mission- 
 ary chapel in the islands of the sea, concur with 
 the Church of England in imploring the Sovereign 
 of the universe, by the most awful adjurations 
 which the heart of man can conceive or his tongue 
 utter, to deliver us from " sedition, privy conspir- 
 acy, and rebellion." And reason good ; for while 
 a rebellion against tyranny, a rebellion designed,- 
 after prostrating arbitrary power, to establish free 
 government on the basis of justice and truth, 
 is an enterprise on which good men and angels 
 may look with complacency, an unprovoked rebel- 
 lion of .ambitious men against a beneficent gov- 
 ernment, for the purpose the avowed purpose 
 of . establishing, extending, and perpetuating any 
 form of injustice and wrong, is an imitation on 
 earth of that first foul revolt of "the Infernal Ser- 
 pent," against which the Supreme Majesty of heav- 
 en sent forth the armed myriads of his angels, and 
 clothed the right arm of his Son with the three- 
 bolted thunders of omnipotence. 
 
 Lord Bacon, in "the true marshalling of the sov- 
 ereign degrees of honor," assigns the first place to 
 
ADDRESS. 65 
 
 " the Conditores Imperiorum, founders of States and 
 Commonwealths ; " and, truly, to build up from the 
 discordant elements of our nature, the passions, the 
 interests, and the opinions of the individual man, 
 the rivalries of family, clan, and tribe, the influ- 
 ences of climate and geographical position, the ac- 
 cidents of peace and war accumulated for ages, 
 to build up from, these oftentimes warring elements 
 u well-compacted, prosperous, and powerful State, if 
 it were to be accomplished by one effort or in one 
 generation, would require a more than mortal skill. 
 To contribute in some notable degree to this, the 
 greatest work of man, by wise and patriotic counsel 
 in peace and loyal heroism in war, is as high as 
 human merit can well rise, and far more than to 
 any of those to whom Bacon assigns this highest 
 place of honor, whose names can hardly be repeated 
 without a wondering smile, Romulus, Cyrus, Cae- 
 sar, Ottoman, Ismael, is it due to our Washington 
 as the founder of the American Union. But if to 
 achieve or help to achieve this greatest work of 
 man's wisdom and virtue gives title to a place 
 among the chief benefactors, rightful heirs of the 
 benedictions, of mankind, by equal reason shall the 
 bold, bad men who seek to undo the noble work, 
 Everswes Imperiorum, destroyers of States, who for 
 base and selfish ends rebel against beneficent gov- 
 ernments, seek to overturn wise constitutions, to lay 
 powerful republican Unions at the foot of foreign 
 thrones, to bring on civil and foreign war, anarchy 
 at home, dictation abroad, desolation, ruin, by 
 6 
 
66 ADDRESS. 
 
 equal reason, I say, yes, a thousandfold stronger, 
 shall they inherit the execrations of the ages. 
 
 But to hide the deformity of the crime under the 
 cloak of that sophistry which strives to make the 
 worse appear the better reason, we are told by the 
 leaders of the Rebellion that in our complex system 
 of government the separate States are "sovereigns," 
 and that the central power is only an " agency " 
 established by these sovereigns to manage certain 
 little affairs, such, forsooth, as Peace, War, Army, 
 Navy, Finance, Territory, and Relations with the 
 native tribes, which they could not so conven- 
 iently administer themselves. It happens, unfortu- 
 nately for this theory, that the Federal Constitution 
 (which has been adopted by the people of every 
 State of the Union as much as their own State con- 
 stitutions have been adopted, and is declared to be 
 paramount to them) nowhere recognizes the States 
 as "sovereigns," in fact, that, by their names, it 
 does not recognize them at all; while the authority 
 established by that instrument is recognized, in its 
 text, not as an " agency," but as " the Government 
 of the United States." By that Constitution, more- 
 over, which purports in its preamble to be ordained 
 and established by " the People of the United States," 
 it is expressly provided, that "the members of the 
 State legislatures, and all executive and judicial offi- 
 cers, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to sup- 
 port the Constitution." Now it is a common thing, 
 under all governments, for an agent to be bound 
 by oath to be faithful to his sovereign ; but I never 
 
ADDRESS. 67 
 
 heard before of sovereigns being bound by oath to 
 be faithful to their agency. 
 
 Certainly I d.o not deny that the separate States 
 are clothed with sovereign powers for the adminis- 
 tration of local affairs. It is one of the most beau- 
 tiful features of our mixed system of government; 
 but it is equally true, that, in adopting the Federal 
 Constitution, the States abdicated, by express renun- 
 ciation, all the most important functions of national 
 sovereignty, and, by one comprehensive, self-denying 
 clause, gave up all right to contravene the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. Specifically, and by 
 enumeration, they renounced all the most important 
 prerogatives of independent States for peace and 
 for war, the right to keep troops or ships of war 
 in time of peace, or to engage in war unless actu- 
 ally invaded ; to enter into compact with another 
 State or a foreign power j to lay any duty on ton- 
 nage, or any impost on exports or imports, with- 
 out the consent of Congress ; to enter into any 
 treaty, alliance, or confederation ; to grant letters 
 of marque and reprisal, and to emit bills of credit, 
 while all these powers and many others are ex- 
 pressly vested in the General Government. To as- 
 cribe to political communities, thus limited in their 
 jurisdiction, who cannot even establish a post- 
 office on their own soil, the character of inde- 
 pendent sovereignty, and to reduce a national or- 
 ganization, clothed with all the transcendent powers 
 of government, to the name and condition of an 
 " agency " of the States, proves nothing but that 
 
68 ADDRESS. 
 
 the logic of secession is on a par with its loyalty 
 and patriotism. 
 
 Oh, but "the reserved rights!" And what of the 
 reserved rights ? The tenth amendment of the Con- 
 stitution, supposed to provide for "reserved rights," 
 is constantly misquoted. By that amendment, " the 
 2mvers not delegated to the United States by the 
 Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are 
 reserved to the States respectively, or to the People." 
 The " powers " reserved must of course be such as 
 could have been, but were not delegated to the 
 United States, could have been, but .were not 
 prohibited to the States; but to speak of the right 
 of an individual State to secede, as a power that 
 could have been, though it was not delegated to 
 the United States, is simple nonsense. 
 
 But waiving this obvious absurdity, can it need 
 a serious argument to prove that there can be no 
 State right to enter into a new confederation re- 
 served under a constitution which expressly prohib- 
 its a State to "enter into any treaty, alliance, or 
 confederation," or any "agreement or compact with 
 another State or a foreign power?" To say that the 
 State may, by enacting the preliminary farce of se- 
 cession, acquire the right to do the prohibited things, 
 to say, for instance, that though the States, in form- 
 ing the Constitution, delegated to the United States 
 arid prohibited to themselves the power of declaring 
 war, there was by implication reserved to each State 
 the right of seceding and then declaring war; that, 
 though they expressly prohibited to the States and 
 
ADDRESS. 69 
 
 delegated, to the United States the entire treaty- 
 making power, they reserved by implication (for an 
 express reservation is not pretended) to the indi- 
 vidual States, to Florida, for instance, the right to 
 secede, and then to make a treaty with Spain retro- 
 ceding that Spanish colony, and thus surrendering 
 to a foreign power the key to the Gulf of Mexico, 
 to maintain propositions like these, with whatever 
 affected seriousness it is done, appears to me egre- 
 gious trifling. 
 
 Pardon me, my friends, for dwelling on these 
 wretched sophistries. But it is these which con- 
 ducted the armed hosts of rebellion to your doors 
 on the terrible and glorious days of July, and which 
 have brought upon the whole land the scourge of 
 an aggressive and wicked war, a war which can 
 have no other termination compatible with the per- 
 manent safety and welfare of the country but the 
 complete destruction of the military power of the 
 enemy. I have, on other occasions, attempted to 
 show that to yield to his demands and acknowledge 
 his independence, thus resolving the Union at once 
 into two hostile governments, with a certainty of 
 further disintegration, would annihilate the strength 
 and the influence of the country as a member of 
 the family of nations ; afford to foreign powers the 
 opportunity and the temptation for humiliating and 
 disastrous interference in our affairs ; wrest from 
 the Middle and Western States some of their great 
 natural outlets to the sea and of their most impor- 
 tant lines of internal communication ; deprive the 
 
70 ADDRESS. 
 
 commerce and navigation of the country of two 
 thirds of our sea-coast and of the fortresses which 
 protect it: not only so, but would enable each indi- 
 vidual State, some of them with a white popula- 
 tion equal to a good-sized Northern county, or 
 rather the dominant party in each State, to cede 
 its territory, its harbors, its fortresses, the mouths 
 of its rivers, to any foreign power. It cannot be 
 that the people of the loyal States, that twenty- 
 two millions of brave and prosperous freemen, 
 will, for the temptation of a brief truce in an eter- 
 nal border-war, consent to this hideous national sui- 
 cide. 
 
 Do not think that I exaggerate the consequences 
 of yielding to the demands of the leaders of the Re- 
 bellion. I understate them. They require of us 
 not only all the sacrifices I have named, not only 
 the cession to them, a foreign and hostile power, of 
 all the territory of the United States at present 
 occupied by the Rebel forces, but the abandonment 
 to them of the vast regions we have rescued from 
 their grasp, of Maryland, of a part of Eastern Vir- 
 ginia and the whole of Western Virginia ; the sea- 
 coast of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and 
 Florida; Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri; Arkan- 
 sas, and the larger portion of Mississippi, Louisiana, 
 and Texas, in most of Avhich, with the exception 
 of lawless guerillas, there is not a rebel in arms, in 
 all of which the great majority of the people are 
 loyal to the Union. We must give back, too, the 
 helpless colored population, thousands of whom are 
 
ADDRESS. 71 
 
 perilling their lives in the ranks of our armies, to a 
 bondage rendered tenfold more bitter by the mo- 
 mentary enjoyment of freedom. Finally, we must 
 surrender every man in the Southern country, white 
 or black, who has moved a finger or spoken a word 
 for the restoration of the Union, to a reign of ter- 
 ror as remorseless as that of Robespierre, which has 
 been the chief instrument by which' the Rebellion 
 has been organized and sustained, and which has al- 
 ready filled the prisons of the South with noble men, 
 whose only crime is that they are not the worst of 
 criminals. The South is full of such men. I do not 
 believe there has been a day since the election of 
 President Lincoln, when, if an ordinance of secession 
 could have been fairly submitted, after. a free discus- 
 sion, to the mass of the people in any single South- 
 ern State, a majority of ballots would have been 
 given in its favor. No, not in South Carolina. It 
 is not possible that the majority of the people, even 
 of that State, if permitted, without fear or 'favor, to 
 give a ballot on the question, would have aban- 
 doned a leader like Petigru, and all the memories 
 of the Gadsdens, the Rutledges, and the Cotesworth 
 Pinckneys of the revolutionary and constitutional 
 age, to follow the agitators of the present day. 
 
 Nor must we be deterred from the vigorous pros- 
 ecution of the war by the suggestion, continually 
 thrown out by the Rebels and those who sympathize 
 with them, that, however it might have been at an 
 earlier stage, there has been engendered by the 
 operations of the war a state of exasperation and 
 
72 ADDRESS. 
 
 bitterness, which, independent of all reference to 
 the original nature of the matters in controversy, 
 will forever prevent the restoration of the Union, 
 and the return of harmony between the two great 
 sections of the country. This opinion I take to be 
 entirely without foundation. 
 
 No man can deplore more than I do the mis- 
 eries of every kind unavoidably incident to war. 
 Who could stand on this spot and call to mind the 
 scenes of the first days of July with any other feel- 
 ing ? A sad foreboding of what would ensue, if war 
 should break out between North and South, has 
 haunted me through life, and led me, perhaps too 
 long, to tread in the path of hopeless compromise, 
 in the fond endeavor to conciliate those who were 
 predetermined not to be conciliated. But it is not 
 true, as is pretended by the Rebels and their sym- 
 pathizers, that the war has been carried on by the 
 United States without entire regard to those tem- 
 peraments which are enjoined by the law of nations, 
 by our modern civilization, and by the spirit of 
 Christianity. It would be quite easy to point out, 
 in the recent military history of the leading Euro- 
 pean powers, acts of violence and cruelty, in the 
 prosecution of their wars, to which no parallel can 
 be found among us. In fact, when we consider the 
 peculiar bitterness with which civil wars are almost 
 invariably waged, we may justly boast of the man- 
 ner in which the United States have carried on the 
 contest. It is of course impossible to prevent the 
 lawless acts of stragglers and deserters, or the occa- 
 
ADDRESS. 73 
 
 sional unwarrantable proceedings of subordinates on 
 distant stations ; but I do not believe there is, in 
 all history, the , record of a civil war of such gigan- 
 tic dimensions where so little has been done in the 
 spirit of vindictiveness as in this war, by the Gov- 
 ernment and commanders of the United States; and 
 this notwithstanding the provocation given by the 
 Kebel Government by assuming the responsibility of 
 wretches like Quantrell, refusing quarter to colored 
 troops and scourging and selling into slavery free 
 colored men from the North who fall into their 
 hands, by covering the sea with pirates, refusing a 
 just exchange of prisoners, while they crowd their 
 armies with paroled prisoners not exchanged, and 
 starving prisoners of war to death. 
 
 In the next place, if there are any present who 
 believe, that, in addition to the effect of the mili- 
 tary operations of the war, the confiscation acts and 
 emancipation proclamations have embittered the Reb- 
 els beyond the possibility of reconciliation, I would 
 request them to reflect that the tone of the Rebel 
 leaders and Rebel press was just as bitter in the 
 first months of the war, nay, before a gun was fired, 
 as it is now. There were speeches made in Con- 
 gress in the very last session before the outbreak 
 of the Rebellion, so ferocious as to show that their 
 authors were under the influence of a real frenzy. 
 At the present day, if there is any discrimination 
 made by the Confederate press in the affected scorn, 
 hatred, and contumely with which every shade of 
 opinion and sentiment in the loyal States is treated, 
 
74 ADDRESS. 
 
 the bitterest contempt is bestowed upon those at the 
 North who still speak the language of compromise, 
 and who condemn those measures of the administra- 
 tion which are alleged to have rendered the return of 
 peace hopeless. 
 
 No, my friends, that gracious Providence which 
 overrules all things for the best, "from seeming evil 
 still educing good," has so constituted our natures, 
 that the violent excitement of the passions in one di- 
 rection is generally followed by a reaction in an oppo- 
 site direction, and the sooner for the violence. If it 
 were not so, if injuries inflicted and retaliated of 
 necessity led to new retaliations, with forever accumu- 
 lating compound interest of revenge, then the world, 
 thousands of years ago, would have been^turned into 
 an earthly hell, and the nations of the earth would 
 have been resolved into clans of furies and demons, 
 each forever warring with his neighbor. But it is not 
 so ; all history teaches a different lesson. The Wars 
 of the Roses in England lasted an entire generation, 
 from the Battle of St. Albans in 1455 to that of Bos- 
 worth Field in 1485. Speaking of the former, Hume 
 says : " This was the first blood spilt in that fatal 
 quarrel, which was not finished in less than a course 
 of thirty years ; which was signalized by twelve 
 pitched battles ; which opened a scene of extraordi- 
 nary fierceness and cruelty ; is computed to have cost 
 the lives of eighty princes of the blood ; and almost 
 entirely annihilated the ancient nobility of England 
 The strong attachments which, at that time, men of 
 the same kindred bore to each other, and the vindic- 
 
ADDRESS. 75 
 
 tive spirit which was considered a point of honor, 
 rendered the great families implacable in their resent- 
 ments, and widened every moment the breach between 
 the parties." Such was the state of things in England 
 under which an entire generation grew up ; but when 
 Henry VII., in whom the titles of the two Houses were 
 united, went up to London after the Battle of Bos- 
 worth Field, to mount the throne, he was everywhere 
 received with joyous acclamations, "as one ordained 
 and sent from heaven to put an end to the dissen- 
 sions" which had so long afflicted the country. 
 
 The great Rebellion in England of the seventeenth 
 century, after long and angry premonitions, may be 
 said to have begun with the calling of the Long Parlia- 
 ment in 1640, and to have ended with the return of 
 Charles II. in 1660, twenty years of discord, con- 
 flict, and civil war ; of confiscation, plunder, havoc ; a 
 proud hereditary peerage trampled in the dust ; a 
 national church overturned, its clergy beggared, its 
 most eminent prelate put to death ; a military despot- 
 ism established on the ruins of a monarchy which had 
 subsisted seven hundred years, and the legitimate sov- 
 ereign brought to the block ; the great families which 
 adhered to the king proscribed, impoverished, ruined ; 
 prisoners of war a fate worse than starvation in 
 Libby sold to slavery in the West Indies; in a 
 word, everything that can embitter and madden con- 
 tending factions. Such was the state of things for 
 twenty years; and yet, by no gentle transition, but 
 suddenly, and "when the restoration of affairs appeared 
 most hopeless," the son of the beheaded sovereign was 
 
76 ADDRESS. 
 
 brought back to his father's blood-stained throne, with 
 such " unexpressible and universal joy " as led the 
 merry monarch to exclaim " he doubted it had been 
 his own fault he had been absent so long, for he saw 
 nobody who did not protest he had ever wished for 
 his return." " In this wonderful manner," says Claren- 
 don, " and with this incredible expedition, did God put 
 an end to a rebellion that had raged near twenty 
 years, and had been carried on with all the horrid cir- 
 cumstances of murder, devastation, and parricide, that 
 fire and sword, in the hands of the most wicked men 
 in the world," (it is a royalist that is speaking,) " could 
 be instruments of, almost to the desolation of two 
 kingdoms, and the exceeding defacing and deforming 
 
 of the third By these remarkable steps did the 
 
 merciful hand of God, in this short space of time, not 
 only bind up and heal all those wounds, but even 
 made the scar as undiscernible as, in respect of the 
 deepness, was possible, which was a glorious addition 
 to the deliverance." 
 
 In Germany, the wars of the Eeformation and of 
 Charles V. in the sixteenth century, the Thirty Years' 
 War in the seventeenth century, the Seven Years' War 
 in the eighteenth century, not to speak of other less 
 celebrated contests, entailed upon that country all the 
 miseries of intestine strife for more than three centu- 
 ries. At the close of the last-named war, which was 
 the shortest of all and waged in the most civilized age, 
 "an officer," says Archenholz, "rode through seven 
 villages in Hesse, and found in them but one human 
 being." More than three hundred principalities, com- 
 
ADDRESS. 77 
 
 prehended in the Empire, fermented with the fierce 
 passions of proud and petty States ; at the commence- 
 ment of this period the castles of robber counts frowned 
 upon every hill-top ; a dreadful secret tribunal, whose 
 seat no one knew, whose power none could escape, 
 froze the hearts of men with terror throughout the 
 land ; religious hatred mingled its bitter poison in the 
 seething caldron of provincial animosity : but of all 
 these deadly enmities between the States of Germany 
 scarcely the memory remains. There are controver- 
 sies in that country, at the present day, but they 
 grow mainly out of the rivalry of the two leading 
 powers. There is no country in the world in which 
 the sentiment of national brotherhood is stronger. 
 
 In Italy, on the breaking up of the Roman Em- 
 pire, society might be said to be resolved into its 
 original elements, into hostile atoms, whose only 
 movement was that of mutual repulsion. Ruthless 
 barbarians had destroyed the old organizations, and 
 covered the land with a merciless feudalism. As 
 the new civilization grew up, under the wing of the 
 Church, the noble families and the walled towns 
 fell madly into conflict with each other; the secu- 
 lar feud of Pope and Emperor scourged the land; 
 province against province, city against city, street 
 against street, waged remorseless war with each 
 other from father to son, till Dante was able to fill 
 his imaginary hell with the real demons of Italian 
 history. So ferocious had the factions become, that 
 the great poet-exile himself, the glory of his native 
 city and of his native language, was, by a decree 
 
78 ADDRESS. 
 
 of the municipality, condemned to be burned alive 
 if found in the city of Florence. But these deadly 
 feuds and hatreds yielded to political influences, as 
 the hostile cities were grouped into States under 
 stable governments ; the lingering traditions of the 
 ancient animosities gradually died away, and now 
 Tuscan and Lombard, Sardinian and Neapolitan, as 
 if to shame the degenerate sons of America, are 
 joining in one cry for a united Italy. 
 
 In France, not to go back to the civil wars of the 
 League in the sixteenth century and of the Fronde 
 in the seventeenth ; not to speak of the dreadful 
 scenes throughout the kingdom, which followed the 
 revocation of the edict of Nantes; we have, in the 
 great revolution which commenced at the close of 
 the last century, seen the blood-hounds of civil strife 
 let loose as rarely before in the history of the world. 
 The reign of terror established at Paris stretched 
 its bloody Briarean arms to every city and village 
 in the land, and if the most deadly feuds which 
 ever divided a people had the power to cause per- 
 manent alienation and hatred, this surely was the 
 occasion. But far otherwise the fact. In seven 
 years from the fall of Robespierre, the strong arm 
 of the youthful conqueror brought order out of this 
 chaos of crime and woe ; Jacobins whose hands were 
 scarcely cleansed from the best blood of France met 
 the returning emigrants, whose estates they had 
 confiscated and whose kindred they had dragged to 
 the guillotine, in the Imperial antechambers ; and 
 when, after another turn of the wheel of fortune, 
 
ADDRESS. 79 
 
 Louis XVIII. was restored to his throne, he took 
 the regicide Touched who had voted for his broth- 
 er's death, to Jiis cabinet and confidence. 
 
 The people of loyal America will never ask you, 
 Sir, to take to your confidence or admit again to a 
 share in the government the hard-hearted men 
 whose cruel lust of power has brought this desolat- 
 ing war upon the land, but there is no personal 
 bitterness felt even against them. They may live, 
 if they can bear to live after wantonly causing the 
 death of so many thousands of their fellow-men ; 
 they may live in safe obscurity beneath the shelter 
 of the government they have sought to overthrow, 
 or they may fly to the protection of the govern- 
 ments of Europe, some of them are already there, 
 seeking, happily in vain, to obtain the aid of foreign 
 powers in furtherance of their own treason. There 
 let them stay. The humblest dead soldier, that lies 
 cold and stiff in his grave before us, is an object 
 of envy beneath the clods that cover him, in com- 
 parison with the living man, I care not with what 
 trumpery credentials he may be furnished, who is 
 willing to grovel at the foot of a foreign throne 
 for assistance in compassing the ruin of his country. 
 
 But the hour is coming and now is, when the 
 power of the leaders of the Rebellion to delude and 
 inflame must cease. There is no bitterness on the 
 part of the masses. The people of the South are 
 not going to wage an eternal war, for the wretched 
 pretexts by which this rebellion is sought to be 
 justified. The bonds that unite us as one People, 
 
80 ADDRESS. 
 
 a substantial community of origin, language, belief, 
 and law, (the four great ties that hold the societies 
 of men together) ; common national and political 
 interests ; a common history ; a common pride in a 
 glorious ancestry ; a common interest in this great 
 heritage of blessings; the very geographical features 
 of the country; the mighty rivers that cross the 
 lines of climate and thus facilitate the interchange 
 of natural and industrial products, while the won- 
 der-working arm of the engineer has levelled the 
 mountain-walls which separate the East and West, 
 compelling your, own Alleghanies, my Maryland and 
 Pennsylvania friends, to open wide their everlast- 
 ing doors to the chariot-wheels of traffic and travel, 
 these bonds of union are of perennial force and 
 energy, while the causes of alienation are imagina- 
 ry, factitious, and transient. The heart of the Peo- 
 ple, North and South, is for the Union. Indications, 
 too plain to be mistaken, announce the fact, both 
 in the East and the West of the States in rebel- 
 lion. In North Carolina and Arkansas the fatal 
 charm at length is broken. At Raleigh and Little 
 Rock the lips of honest and brave men are un- 
 sealed, and an independent press is unlimbering its 
 artillery. When its rifled cannon shall begin to 
 roar, the hosts of treasonable sophistry, the mad 
 delusions of the day, will fly like the Rebel army 
 through the passes of yonder mountain. The weary 
 masses of the people are yearning to see the dear 
 old flag again floating upon their capitols, and they 
 sigh for the return of the peace, prosperity, and 
 
ADDRESS. 81 
 
 happiness, which they enjoyed under a government 
 whose power was felt only in its blessings. 
 
 And now, friends, fellow -citizens of Gettysburg 
 and Pennsylvania, and you from remoter States, let 
 me again, as we part, invoke your benediction on 
 these honored graves. You feel, though the occa- 
 sion is mournful, that it is good to be here. You 
 feel that it was greatly auspicious for the cause of 
 the country, that the men of the East and the men 
 of the West, the men of nineteen sister States, stood 
 side by side, on the perilous ridges of the battle. 
 You now feel it a new bond of union, that they 
 shall lie side by side, till a clarion, louder than that 
 which marshalled them to the combat, shall awake 
 their slumbers. God bless the Union ; it is dearer 
 to us for the blood of brave men which has been 
 shed in its defence. The spots on which they stood 
 and fell ; these pleasant heights ; the fertile plain 
 beneath them; the thriving village whose streets so 
 lately rang with the strange din of war; the fields 
 beyond the ridge, where the noble Eeynolds held 
 the advancing foe at bay, and, while he gave up 
 his own life, assured by his forethought and self- 
 sacrifice the triumph of the two succeeding days; 
 the little streams which wind through the hills, on 
 whose banks in after-times the wondering plough- 
 man will turn up, with the rude weapons of savage 
 warfare, the fearful missiles of modern artillery ; 
 Seminary Ridge, the Peach-Orchard, Cemetery, Gulp, 
 and Wolf Hill, Eound Top, Little Round Top, hum- 
 ble names, henceforward dear and famous, no lapse 
 
82 ADDRESS. 
 
 of time, no distance of space, shall cause you to be 
 forgotten. "The whole earth," said Pericles, as he 
 stood over the remains of his fellow-citizens, who 
 had fallen in the first year of the Peloponnesian 
 War, " the whole earth is the sepulchre of illustrious 
 men." All time, he might have added, is the mil- 
 lennium of their glory. Surely I would do no in- 
 justice to the other noble achievements of the war, 
 which have reflected such honor on both arms of 
 the service, and have entitled the armies and the 
 navy of the United States, their officers and men, 
 to the warmest thanks and the richest rewards 
 which a grateful people can pay. But they, I am 
 sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to 
 the dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever 
 throughout the civilized world the accounts of this 
 great warfare are read, and down to the latest pe- 
 riod of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our 
 common country there will be no brighter page 
 than that which relates THE BATTLES OF GETTYSBURG. 
 
HYMN COMPOSED BY B. B. FRENCH, ESQ., AT 
 GETTYSBURG. 
 
 'T is holy ground, 
 This spot, where, in their graves, 
 We place our country's braves, 
 Who fell in Freedom's holy cause, 
 Fighting for liberties and laws ; 
 
 Let tears abound. 
 
 Here let them rest ; 
 And summer's heat and winter's cold 
 Shall glow and freeze above this mould, 
 A thousand years shall pass away, 
 A nation still shall mourn this clay, 
 
 Which how is blest. 
 
 Here, where they fell, 
 Oft shall the widow's tear be shed, 
 Oft shall fond parents mourn their dead ; 
 The orphan here shall kneel and weep, 
 And maidens, where their lovers sleep, 
 
 Their woes shall tell. 
 
 Great God in heaven ! 
 Shall all this sacred blood be shed ? 
 Shall we thus mourn our glorious dead ? 
 Oh, shall the end be wrath and woe, 
 The knell of Freedom's overthrow, 
 
 A country riven ? 
 
 It will not be ! 
 
 We trust, O God ! thy gracious power 
 To aid us in our darkest hour. 
 This be our prayer, " O Father ! save 
 A people's freedom from its grave. 
 
 All praise to Thee ! " 
 
DEDICATORY ADDRESS 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 
 
 FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth 
 upon 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 are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting- 
 place of 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot con- 
 secrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, 
 living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it 
 far above our 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 that they 
 have thus far so nobly carried on. 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 the 
 cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devo- 
 tion, that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not 
 have died in vain, that the nation shall, under God, have a 
 new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, 
 by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the 
 earth. 
 
DIRGE, 
 
 SUNG AT THE 
 
 CONSECRATION OF THE SOLDIERS' CEMETERY, 
 GETTYSBURG, PA. 
 
 Words by JAS. G. PERCIVAL. Music by ALFRED DELANEY. 
 
 GRAVE. 
 
 PIANO. 
 
 Il^;=^ii|=^=iil!fi^3| 
 
 TREBLE. 
 
 1. O! it is great for our Country to die, whose ranks are contend -ing, 
 ALTO. 
 
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 3. Not in E - ly - si - an fields, by the still ob - liv - i - ous riv - er, 
 TENOR. 
 
 4. ! then how great for our Country to die, in the front rank to per - ish, 
 BASS. 
 
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86 
 
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 Bright is the wreath of our fame; glo - ry a - waits us for aye; 
 
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 87 
 
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BENEDICTION 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. H. L. BAUGHER, D. D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE, GETTYSBURG. 
 
 O THOU King of kings and Lord of lords, God of the 
 nations of the earth, who by Thy kind providence hast per- 
 mitted us to engage in these solemn services, grant us Thy 
 blessing. 
 
 Bless this consecrated ground, and these holy graves. 
 Bless the President of these United States, and his Cabinet. 
 Bless the Governors and the Representatives of the States 
 here assembled with ah 1 needed grace to conduct the affairs 
 committed into their hands, to the glory of Thy name, and 
 the greatest good of the people. 
 
 May this great nation be delivered from treason and rebel- 
 lion at home, and from the power of enemies abroad. And 
 now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of 
 God our Heavenly Father, and the fellowship of the Holy 
 Ghost, be with you all. Amen. 
 
 THE END. 
 
M10247G 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY