The two armies together suffered at least 50,000 casualties (killed, injured, captured, and missing). The Union loses were counted at 23,055 (over 3,000 killed, 14,000 injured, and the rest missing or captured). Confederate casualties are estimated at around 28,000, including several of Lee’s top generals. The dead, lying in the hot July sun, had to be buried swiftly by the people of Gettysburg. It was not until nearly 5 months later that a grave site was dedicated after Union soldiers were reburied in the newly constructed National Cemetery at Gettysburg. The committee invited the President to speak, almost as an afterthought, saying, “It is the desire that, after the Oration, you, as Chief Executive of the nation, formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks.”
When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, I learned the Gettysburg Address, just for fun. The teacher was so impressed that she made me go around to all the other classes and recite the speech. Lincoln's words still resonate with me and perhaps with you too.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 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. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Lincoln’s words were met with mixed reactions that were divided along party lines. (sound familiar?) The Democratic-leaning Chicago Times called it "silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States." The Springfield Republican (Massachusetts) called it "a perfect gem…deep in feeling…"
Despite the criticisms, the Gettysburg Address does remain a call to action for all Americans. What Lincoln said about the dead of Gettysburg can be said of all the brave military men and women lost in every conflict throughout the history of this nation. We must remember the past so that these “dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
May you have fun this 4th of July, while remembering the cost to give and maintain the freedoms we sometimes take for granted. Only 87 years before Lincoln spoke, the United States was born. Men and women for generations before and since have bled and died so that the nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” might grow and prosper. Let us remember that equality, under God, is not something to be taken lightly but to be shared generously and fearlessly.
