My "150th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address"

[David Lockmiller]

When Lincoln was on his way to the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, an old gentleman told him that his ony son fell on Little Round Top at Gettysburg, and he was going to look at the spot.

Mr. Lincoln replied:

"You have been called on to make a terrible sacrifice for the Union, and a visit to that spot, I fear, will open your wounds afresh.

"But, oh, my dear sir, if we had reached the end of such sacrifices, and had nothing left for us to do but to place garlands on the graves of those who have already fallen, we could give thanks even amidst our tears; but when I think of the sacrifices of life yet to be offered, and the hearts and homes yet to be made desolate, before this dreadful war is over, my heart is like lead within me, and I feel at times like hiding in deep darkness."

--E. W. Andrews in "Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln" at pages 510-11.

And, yet, President Abraham Lincoln carried on to save democracy for the world!

Question: Did this chance encounter on the train to Gettysburg lead President Lincoln to add the profound last paragraph of the Gettysburg Address?

"It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated, here, to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. 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 the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

[Plutarch: "So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out truth of anything by history."]