Never forget what they did here
During the first three days of July, 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.
President Lincoln delivered his famous speech at the dedication of the Gettysburg Civil War Cemetery on November 19, 1863.
The Battle of Gettysburg
From July 1-3, 1863, Confederate forces led by General Robert E. Lee clashed with the Union army led by General George Meade. The battle left more than 51,000 killed, wounded, or missing. Wounded soldiers were crowded into nearby buildings, and many of the dead lay in hastily dug and inadequate graves.
Pennsylvania's Governor Andrew Curtin responded to the crisis by purchasing 17 acres of land for a proper burial ground for the Union dead. Within four months of the battle, reinterment began on the land that became Gettysburg National Cemetery.
By the time of the dedication ceremony for the cemetery on November 19, 1863, less than half the Union battle dead had been removed from their field graves. Within a few years, however, the bodies of more than 3,500 Union soldiers killed in the battle had been reinterred in the cemetery. Following the war, the remains of 3,320 Confederate soldiers were removed from the battlefield to cemeteries in the South.
Today the cemetery is the final resting place for over 6,000 honorably discharged servicemen and their dependents from the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War.
The Dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery
The invited featured speaker at the dedication was Edward Everett, the former president of Harvard College and one of the 19th century’s most celebrated orators. Everett spoke for two hours. Following his long presentation, Lincoln, in a black suit, tall silk hat and white gloves, spoke for two minutes, delivering a powerful speech that has remained one of the most inspirational and eloquent expressions in the English language. From the time of its first delivery, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address has stood as an American touchstone, offering comfort and inspiration to the living by honoring the sacrifices of the dead.
Lincoln formulated the Gettysburg Address with great thought, but the brevity of the President’s address was in such contrast to Everett’s long oration that the audience was surprised and slow to respond, so that Lincoln feared his effort had fallen short. Everett afterwards wrote to the President: "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as close to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."
Read excerpts from Edward Everett’s Gettysburg Address