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>> Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War.
Over 3 days of fighting roughly 51,000 men would become causalities.
Again, 51,000 men killed, wounded, missing or captured.
Of those 51,000 men roughly 28,000 would be wounded and every church, farmhouse, barn,
building, shed for miles around the town
of Gettysburg would be transformed into a field hospital.
Ultimately as many as 10,000 men would die as a result of the fighting at Gettysburg
and at least 7,000 are shot dead, killed outright on the battlefield.
Initially following the battle many
of these dead are hastily buried often by comrades in shallow graves.
Union soldiers more often than not would get, again, a shallow grave with some loose earth
or rocks thrown on top and often a headboard, a simple piece of wood with that man's name
and maybe regiment carved or written on it.
Confederates by and large were buried by the victorious Union Army and more often
than not they were thrown in a mass grave, a burial trench with 10, 20, 30 other men.
After the battle as the days turned into weeks heavy rains would wash open a lot
of these graves and it's not uncommon to walk through the battlefield and see legs,
heads, arms protruding from the ground.
Animals running around, particularly hogs, would uproot a lot of these bodies,
and it's not uncommon to see a hog with an arm or a leg
in its mouth running across the battlefield.
The rain is going to rot and erode away a lot of the men who were fortunate enough
to have headboards and these men are going to become unknown.
Andrew Curtin, Governor of Pennsylvania, will visit the battlefield only
about a week following the fighting and Andrew Curtin is determined to do something to clean
up the town of Gettysburg, but also to ensure that the men
who died fighting this battle get a decent and honorable burial.
He'll work with a 32-year old lawyer from Gettysburg named David Wills
to create the cemetery you can see behind me.
The Soldiers' National Cemetery is the final resting place for 3,500 Union men
who were killed during the Battle of Gettysburg and of these roughly 979 are completely unknown
and they lie under the individual white stone blocks behind me.
Otherwise the men who fought here are buried by state.
All the New Yorkers are in the New York plot, all the men from Massachusetts are
in the Massachusetts plot, and these plots stretch
across the hillside in a giant semi-circle.
No one state has a better spot than another, no one state or no individual is elevated
above another and in that way the cemetery reflects the ideals
and ideas of the men buried in it.
But the men buried here they never got a funeral.
Words were never said over their graves and on November 19, 1863, David Wills
and Andrew Curtin will arrange for a giant consecration ceremony, a dedication ceremony
to set aside this new cemetery as hallowed ground.
They'll invite dignitaries, politicians, men who fought in the battle
and they'll also invite President Abraham Lincoln.
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On November 2, 1863, Gettysburg attorney David Wills would write to Abraham Lincoln,
President of the United States, inviting Lincoln to travel to Gettysburg to take part
in the consecration ceremony here at the Soldiers' National Cemetery.
Wills invited Lincoln to give "a few appropriate remarks".
Lincoln accepted and not long after would begin working
on the speech he would deliver here at Gettysburg.
On November 18, Lincoln left Washington,
D.C. via train to travel to this small Pennsylvania town.
He arrived late in the evening and that night spent the evening at the David Wills home,
still standing in the Square of Gettysburg today,
and there in the upstairs bedroom put the finishing touches
on the speech he would give the next day.
November 19, 1863, the day of the dedication ceremony, began with a parade.
The parade wound its way through the streets of Gettysburg ending here on the hillside.
As many as 15,000 people would have been on hand to take part
in the ceremony, to hear Abraham Lincoln.
Many of them were the townspeople of Gettysburg, who had survived the battle.
Others were soldiers who had fought here.
Still more were widows who had lost husbands or mothers who lost sons.
The consecration ceremony itself began with a prayer and a band played
and then Edward Everett, the main orator of the day, would stand up
and give a stirring 2-hour oration.
Then it was Lincoln's turn.
Lincoln stood up on the platform, pulled a small piece of paper
out of his pocket and began to speak.
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>> Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon 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 they
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 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 here 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.
>> Abraham Lincoln only spoke for 2 minutes that day.
He only said 272 words, but his Gettysburg Address not only paid tribute to the men
who died at Gettysburg, the men buried in the Soldiers' National Cemetery,
but it also encouraged the people of the United States, the people of the north,
to continue the unfinished work which "the men buried in this cemetery so nobly advanced".
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was a source
of inspiration not only during the American Civil War but also to Americans today.
It defines who we are as a nation and what we're still striving for,
the "great task remaining before us".
We invite you to come to Gettysburg to explore the battlefields,
to visit the dead in the Soldiers' National Cemetery and to read the words
of the Gettysburg Address yourself.