November 19, 1863

Just over four months later, President Abraham Lincoln will travel to Gettysburg to offer a few remarks at the opening of the National Cemetery. Included in his iconic Gettysburg Address is a final tribute to the soldiers who fought there.

We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion
of that field, as a final resting place for 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 can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow
– this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far
above our poor 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 which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

The End