| |
KF5JRV > TODAY 19.11.24 11:30l 23 Lines 2766 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 1662_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Nov 19
Path: IW8PGT<LU4ECL<VK2RZ<VE3CGR<KF5JRV
Sent: 241119/1027Z 1662@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.23
On November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In fewer than 275 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War.
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought some four months earlier, was one of the single bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Over the course of three days, more than 45,000 men were killed, injured, captured or went missing. The battle also proved to be the turning point of the war: General Robert E. Leeâ€Ös defeat and retreat from Gettysburg marked the last Confederate invasion of Northern territory and the beginning of the Southern armyâ€Ös ultimate decline.
Charged by Pennsylvaniaâ€Ös governor, Andrew Curtin, to care for the Gettysburg dead, an attorney named David Wills bought 17 acres of pasture to turn into a cemetery for the more than 7,500 who fell in battle. Wills invited Edward Everett, one of the most famous orators of the day, to deliver a speech at the cemeteryâ€Ös dedication. Almost as an afterthought, Wills also sent a letter to Lincolnâ€öjust two weeks before the ceremonyâ€örequesting “a few appropriate remarks” to consecrate the grounds.
At the dedication, the crowd listened for two hours to Everett before Lincoln spoke. Lincolnâ€Ös address lasted just two or three minutes. The speech reflected his redefined belief that the Civil War was not just a fight to save the Union, but a struggle for freedom and equality for all, an idea Lincoln had not championed in the years leading up to the war.
This was his stirring conclusion: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before usâ€öthat from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotionâ€öthat we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vainâ€öthat this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedomâ€öand that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Reception of Lincolnâ€Ös Gettysburg Address was initially mixed, divided strictly along partisan lines. Nevertheless, the “little speech,” as he later called it, is thought by many today to be the most eloquent articulation of the democratic vision ever written.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
Email KF5JRV@gmail.com
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
