In early July 1863, the Union Army defeated the Confederate Army on the battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa., in the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.
The townspeople of Gettysburg took in wounded soldiers, cleaned the battlefield, and set out to create a large cemetery for the deceased soldiers. Local lawyer David Wills organized the cemetery’s opening ceremony and invited President Lincoln to give a “few appropriate remarks” after the keynote address by famed orator Edward Everett.
“It will kindle anew in the breasts of the Comrades of these brave dead,” wrote Wills, “who are now in the tented field or nobly meeting the foe in the front, a confidence that they who sleep in death on the Battle Field are not forgotten by those highest in Authority; and they will feel that, should their fate be the same, their remains will not be uncared for.”
Read Full Article »