Those of you who know me will recognize that I tend to pull out my copy of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address for appropriate holidays and state occasions.  I will continue to do so because I feel that it is perhaps the most remarkable statement by a political leader in my considerable library of history books. So bear with me as we are coming up to Veterans Day on November 11.

The Great War which, according to John Houseman in Three Days of the Condor, was how we referred to the War to end all wars before we knew enough to number them, officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in France on June 28, 1919.  But the fighting had actually stopped with a temporary truce or armistice agreed to the previous year with the cessation of hostilities at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – November 11, 1918. 

For those of you who are interested in the history of Veterans Day and how our government just cannot leave well enough alone, you may visit the Department of Veterans Affairs website for the details <link here>

Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, was remarkable in its simplicity (approximately two minutes) but was important for the complex political situation which existed at the time.  The battle had occurred in July of 1863.  While it was a Northern victory, it did not close the deal, so to speak.  Under cover of darkness and heavy rain, Lee moved his army out of reach back into Virginia and the war would continue.  Because of the casualties of the battle, Lincoln needed drafts to build up the strength of the army.  Political support for the war was declining and the outcome of the war and the 1864 election were not certain at the time Lincoln presented his comments at Gettysburg to dedicate a new national cemetery to handle the internment of the soldiers who died at Gettysburg.

The words delivered by the President on that day at Gettysburg as he fought to complete the war and to campaign for re-election are simple, direct, moving and beautiful – then as now:

“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
battlefield 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 cannot
dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot 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.”