Edward Everett
Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg Address
Edward Everett is considered to be
one of the great American orators of the antebellum and Civil War era. He is
best known today as the boisterous orator who spoke for two hours at the
dedication ceremony of the Gettysburg National Cemetery immediately before
President Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous, two-minute Gettysburg Address. What follows is a transcript of his address
at Gettysburg:
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 brethren
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, — flowers, 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 funereal
cypress received the honorable deposit, one for each of the tribes of the city,
and an eleventh in 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 permitted 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
marshaled, they moved to the place of interment in that famous Ceramicus, the
most beautiful suburb of Athens, which had been adorned by Cimon, the son of
Miltiades, with walks and fountains and columns, — whose groves were filled
with altars, shrines, and temples, — whose gardens were kept forever green by
the streams from the neighboring 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 consummate 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.
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 traveler Pausanias,) and
although the columns, beneath the hand of time and barbaric violence, have long
since disappeared, 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 wandered 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 emotion 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, cemented with the blood of some of the purest
patriots 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, brethren, 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 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 admiration 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 commend 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. Consider 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 Maryland
and Pennsylvania, had been itself driven from these well-contested heights,
thrown back in confusion on Baltimore, or trampled down, discomfited, scattered
to the four winds. What, in that sad event, would not have been the fate of the
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 organization, 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 defense can be made by the inhabitants of
villages mostly built of wood, of cities unprotected by walls, nay, by a
population of men, however high-toned and resolute, whose aged parents 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 cannon planted on every commanding eminence,—
against the onset of trained veterans led by skillful 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 skillfully led. It is
no reproach, therefore, to the unarmed population of the country to say, that
we 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 General
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 tribute could
penetrate these honored graves!
In order that we may comprehend, to
their full extent, our obligations to the martyrs and surviving heroes of the
Army of the Potomac, let us contemplate 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, matured
and prepared for during an entire generation, 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 foreign 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
influential 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 treasonable 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 capital of the nation and the
archives and muniments of the government would be in the possession of 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 Washington."
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 conflict 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.
I allude to these facts, not perhaps
enough borne in mind, as a sufficient refutation of the pretense 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 Carolina, part of Tennessee, and Arkansas,
succeeded, — and then by force, and for the purpose of subjugating Maryland,
Western Virginia, Kentucky, Eastern Tennessee, and Missouri; and it is a most
extraordinary 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 inhabitants from the armies and
guerillas of the Rebels.
In conformity with these designs on
the city of Washington, and notwithstanding the disastrous results 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 maneuvering 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 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
Poolesville and thus fall upon the capital. This plan of operations was wholly
frustrated. The design of the Rebel general was promptly discovered by General
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 Washington, from Centreville up to Leesburg.
From this vantage-ground the Rebel general in vain attempted to draw him. In
the mean time, by the vigorous operations of Pleasanton's cavalry, the cavalry
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 manner,
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 demonstration northward into a real invasion of
Maryland 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 defeating his army, of making a
descent upon Baltimore and Washington. This part of General Lee's plan, which
was substantially the repetition of that 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 maneuver 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 Ridge, he was
compelled to do it at Shepherdstown 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, — a 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 Ewell'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
marauding expedition for supplies. It had, however, the salutary effect of
alarming the country; and vigorous preparations were made, not only by the
General 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 several 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
Ewell's corps crossed the river and moved up the valley. They were followed on
the 24th by Longstreet and Hill, who crossed at Williamsport 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
movements had been received by General Lee, who, having 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 Pennsylvania, and thus preserve
his communications by the way of Williamsport, he had, before his own arrival
at Chambersburg, directed Ewell to send detachments from his corps to Carlisle
and York. The 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 unskillfully
made as to place the entire Federal 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 strategically 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 detachments from Ewell's corps, of which
mention has been made, had reached the Susquehanna 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, General 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 moving on lines somewhat divergent, and all in ignorance of the
enemy's intended point of concentration, — 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 Reynolds, 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 encountered and defeated the rear of Stuart's
cavalry, 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 country swarmed with his foraging
parties. It was now too evident to be questioned, that the thundercloud, 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 preparation. At
half-past eleven o'clock in the morning General Buford passed through
Gettysburg, upon a reconnaissance in force, with his cavalry, upon the
Chambersburg road. The information obtained by him was immediately communicated
to General Reynolds, 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 Marsh's
Creek, while a reconnaissance was made by the Confederate General 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 Union army, the former refreshed by two days passed in
comparative repose and deliberate preparation 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 forever 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 officers 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 honorable
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 reporters 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.
General Reynolds, on arriving at
Gettysburg in the morning of the 1st, found Buford with his cavalry 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 relative to the battle from Major-General
Halleck, Commander-in-Chief of the army, and have been much assisted in drawing
up the sketch of the campaign, 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
explanations 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 Campaign of Pennsylvania," by an officer,
apparently a colonel in the British army, in Blackwood's Magazine for
September. The value of the information 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
complete stand-still." He also, under date of 4th July, speaks of Lee's
retreat being encumbered by "Ewell'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
retiring, and had been doing so all day long." At a consultation at
head-quarters on the 6th, between Generals Lee, Longstreet, Hill, and Wilcox,
this writer was told by someone, 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 refutation of his own account of its good
condition. I much regret that General Meade's official report was not published
in season to enable me to 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 (General 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 action 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 neighborhood, and by the divisions of Rodes and Early, coming down
by separate lines from Heidlersberg and taking post on our extreme right,
turned the 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 Hill to be occupied by General Steinwehr, with the second
division of the Eleventh Corps. About the time of the withdrawal of our troops
to the hill, General Hancock 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 gallantly sustained themselves during the
toil and peril of the day, were cheered by the arrival of General 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-important position. To you,
fellow-citizens of Gettysburg, 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 intelligence of the events in progress, and
informed by the reports of Generals Hancock and Howard of the favorable
character of the position, he determined 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 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 assembled 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, overlapping our
position on either wing, and probably exceeding by ten thousand the army of
General Meade.
And here I cannot but remark on the
providential inaction of the Rebel 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 miracle could
have saved the army from a great disaster. 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 tremendous 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 Longstreet'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 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 decisive, and the enemy was
driven back in confusion. The most important service was rendered toward the
close of the day, in the memorable advance between Bound Top and Little Round
Top, by General Crawford'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 evening 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 gaining 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.
In the course of the night, General
Geary returned 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 brigade 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
themselves for the supreme effort. At length the awful silence, more terrible
than the wildest tumult of battle, 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 center and left wing of our
army. Having attempted in this way for two hours, but without success, 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 infantry moved forward with equal spirit and steadiness from their
cover on the wooded crest of Seminary 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 u a determined and gallant struggle,"
as it is pronounced by General Lee, the Rebel advance, consisting of two thirds
of Hill's corps and the whole of Longstreet's,— including Pickett's division,
the SMte 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 considerable 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 prisoner, General Garnett was killed, and
thirty-five hundred officers and men made prisoners.
These were the expiring agonies of
the three 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 service, 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 advantage of
a strong position, the Confederates had that of choosing time and place, the
prestige of former 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
patriotism that animated them, and a consciousness that they were fighting in a
righteous cause.
All 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, 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 precipitation, 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 intentions 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 attacked at
Fairfield; a great number of wagons and ambulances were captured in the passes
of the mountains; the country swarmed with his stragglers, 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 conveyed into Virginia, somewhat overstating their number. He states,
also, that " such of his wounded as were in a condition to be
removed" were forwarded 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
possible, under the circumstances of the case, to afford them, not one of whom,
certainly, has been put upon Libby-prison fare, — lingering death by
starvation. Heaven forbid, however, that we should claim any merit for the
exercise of common humanity.
Under the protection of the
mountain-ridge, whose narrow passes are easily held even by a retreating 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 Middletown, Turner's Pass having been secured by General
French. Passing through the South Mountain, the Union army came up with that of
the Kebels on the 12th, and found it securely posted on the heights of Marsh
Run. The position was reconnoitred, and preparations made for an attack on the
13th. The depth of the river, swollen by the recent rains, authorized the
expectation that the enemy would be brought to a general engagement the
following 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 night, with such haste that Ewell's
corps forded the river where the water was breast-high. The cavalry, which had
rendered the most important services during the three days, and in harassing
the enemy's retreat, was now sent in pursuit, and captured 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 approaches 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 defended position. The tremendous losses on both
sides are a sufficient answer to this misrepresentation, and attest the courage
and obstinacy with which the three days' battle was waged. Pew of the great
conflicts of modern times have cost victors and vanquished so great a sacrifice.
On the Union side, there fell, in the whole campaign, of generals killed,
Reynolds, Weed, and Zook, and wounded, Barlow, Barnes, Butterfield, Doubleday,
Gibbon, Graham, Hancock, Sickles, and Warren; while of officers below the rank
of general, and men, there were 2834 killed, 13,709 wounded, and 6643 missing.
On the Confederate side, there were killed on the field or mortally wounded,
Generals Armistead, Barksdale, Garnett, Pender, Pettigrew, and Semmes, and
wounded, Heth, Hood, Johnson, Kemper, Kimball, and Trimble. Of officers below
the rank of general, and men, there were taken prisoners, including the
wounded, 13,621, an amount ascertained officially. Of the wounded in a
condition to be removed, 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, 28,178 small arms, and
41 standards; and 24,978 small arms were collected on the battle-field.
I must leave to others, who can do it
from personal 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 saddest thing is a
victory. The horrors of the battlefield, 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 ceased to roar, when the brethren and
sisters of Christian benevolence, ministers of compassion, angels 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." "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 performed 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 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 country,— 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 question 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 constitutional government of
the United States, or the ambitious 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 Scotland, seems to intimate that no prejudice ought to attach to that word,
inasmuch as our English forefathers 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 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
Confederacy, in November, 1860, charged, them with doing. They do not create a
presumption even in favor of the disloyal slaveholders of the South, who,
living 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, unexceptionable administered, and under
which the people have been prosperous beyond comparison with any other people
whose career has been recorded 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 enjoyed the confidence of the sovereign and
administered 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 accession to the throne, and
then, on account of a 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 establishing 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
constitutional liberty. If they had risen against Charles and James because
those monarchs favored equal rights, and in order themselves " for the
first time in the history of the world" to establish an oligarchy
"founded on the corner-stone of slavery," they would truly have
furnished a precedent for the Rebels 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 definition
of treason, and that crime is by every civilized 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 metropolitan
cathedrals of Europe to the humblest missionary 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 conspiracy, 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 rebellion of ambitious
men against a beneficent government, 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
Serpent," against which the Supreme Majesty of heaven 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 marshaling of the sovereign degrees
of honor," assigns the first place to "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
influences of climate and geographical position, the accidents of peace and war
accumulated for ages,— to build up from these oftentimes warring elements a
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, Caesar, 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, Eversores
Imperiorum, destroyers of States, who for base and selfish ends rebel against
beneficent governments, 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 equal reason,
I say, yes, a thousand fold 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 conveniently administer themselves. It happens, unfortunately
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 constitutions
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, moreover, 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 officers, shall be bound
by oath or affirmation to support 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 heard before of sovereigns being bound by oath to
be faithful to their agency.
Certainly I do not deny that the
separate States are clothed with sovereign powers for the administration of
local affairs. It is one of the most beautiful features of our mixed system of
government; but it is equally true, that, in adopting the Federal Constitution,
the States abdicated, by express renunciation, all the most important functions
of national sovereignty, and, by one comprehensive, self-denying clause, gave
up all right to contravene the Constitution 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 actually invaded; to enter
into compact with another State or a foreign power; to lay any duty on tonnage,
or any impost on exports or imports, without 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 expressly vested in the General Government. To ascribe to political
communities, thus limited in their jurisdiction, — who cannot even establish a
postoffice on their own soil, — the character of independent sovereignty, and
to reduce a national organization, clothed with all the transcendent powers of
government, to the name and condition of an agency" of the States, proves
nothing but that 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 Constitution, supposed to provide for "reserved rights," is constantly
misquoted. By that amendment, "the
powers 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 reserved under a constitution which expressly
prohibits 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 secession,
acquire the right to do the prohibited things, —to say, for instance, that
though the States, in forming the Constitution, delegated to the United States
and 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 delegated to the
United States the entire treaty making power, they reserved by implication (for
an express reservation is not pretended) to the individual States, to Florida,
for instance, the right to secede, and then to make a treaty with Spain
retroceding 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 egregious trifling.
Pardon me, my friends, for dwelling
on these wretched sophistries. But it is these which conducted 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 permanent 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 important lines of internal communication; deprive the 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 individual State, — some
of them with a white population 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 eternal
border-war, consent to this hideous national suicide.
Do not think that I exaggerate the
consequences of yielding to the demands of the leaders of the Rebellion. 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 Virginia and the whole of Western Virginia; the
seacoast of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; Kentucky,
Tennessee, and Missouri; Arkansas, and the larger portion of Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Texas, — in most of which, 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 perilling their lives in the ranks of our
armies, to a bondage rendered tenfold more bitter by the momentary 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 terror as remorseless as that of Robespierre, which has
been the chief instrument by which the Rebellion has been organized and
sustained, and which has already 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 discussion, to the mass of the people in any single
Southern 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 abandoned 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 prosecution 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 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
miseries 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 feeling?
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 sympathizers that the war has been carried on by the
United States without entire regard to those temperaments 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 European 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 manner 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 occasional 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 gigantic dimensions where so little
has been done in the spirit of vindictiveness as in this war, by the Government
and commanders of the United States; and this notwithstanding the provocation
given by the Rebel 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 military operations
of the war, the confiscation acts and emancipation proclamations have
embittered the Rebels 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 Congress 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, the bitterest contempt is bestowed upon those at the North who
still speak the language of compromise, and who condemn those measures of the
administration 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 direction is generally followed by a reaction
in an opposite 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 accumulating 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 Bosworth 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 extraordinary
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 vindictive spirit which was considered a point of honor,
rendered the great families implacable in their resentments, 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
Bosworth Field, to mount the throne, he was everywhere received with joyous acclamation "as one ordained and sent from heaven to put an end to the dissensions"
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 Parliament in 1640, and to have ended with
the return of Charles II. in 1660, — twenty years of discord, conflict, 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 despotism established on the
ruins of a monarchy which had subsisted seven hundred years, and the legitimate
sovereign 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 contending 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 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 Clarendon, a 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 circumstances 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 indiscernible as, in respect of the
deepness, was possible, which was a glorious addition to the deliverance."
In Germany, the wars of the
Reformation 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 centuries. 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, comprehended in the Empire, fermented with the fierce
passions of proud and petty States; at the commencement 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 controversies 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 Empire, 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 secular 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 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 Prance, 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 permanent 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, Louis
XVIII was restored to his throne, he
took the regicide Fouche", who had voted for his brother's death, to his
cabinet and confidence.
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,— 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
wonder-working arm of the engineer has leveled the mountain-walls which
separate the East and West, compelling your own Alleghenies, my Maryland and
Pennsylvania friends, to open wide their everlasting 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 imaginary, factitious, and
transient. The heart of the People, 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 rebellion. 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 unsealed, 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 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
occasion 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 marshaled 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 defense. 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 Reynolds 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 ploughman will turn up, with the rude weapons of savage warfare, the
fearful missiles of modern artillery; Seminary Ridge, the Peach-Orchard,
Cemetery, Culp, and Wolf Hill, Bound Top, Little Round Top, humble names,
henceforward dear and famous,—no lapse 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 sepulcher of illustrious
men." All time, he might have added, is the millennium of their glory.
Surely I would do no injustice 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 whosesoever throughout the civilized world the
accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period 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.
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