Last week, we learned the details of Abraham Lincoln’s trip to Southern Pennsylvania 150 years ago to deliver his famous Gettysburg Address. Lincoln had left behind several frustrating battlefield situations, a feverish child and a hysterical wife at the White House to travel to this “Hallowed Ground.” Upon arrival in Gettysburg, Lincoln was handed a telegram that lifted his spirits: his son Tad was feeling much better. Lincoln enjoyed an evening dinner and a serenade by the Fifth New York Artillery Band before retiring to his upstairs bedroom in the Wills House of Gettysburg to finalize his address. The next day, the President traveled to the spot that had been the center of the Union defenses during the great battle, a place called Cemetery Hill, to dedicate a final resting place for the heroes of that awful fight.
When the president emerged from the Wills house to join the procession of dignitaries marching to the cemetery, the crowd responded enthusiastically. Lincoln was greeted with “three hearty cheers,” and clumps of people surged toward him, arms outstretched wanting to shake his hand or touch him. At first the mass of people behaved in an orderly fashion, but shortly things got out of control, and people began jostling Lincoln back and forth and cramming in all around him. Finally Ward Hill Lamon, marshal-in-chief of the day’s events and Lincoln’s unofficial bodyguard, ordered the crowd to move back. The people slowly retreated, but not before issuing a few more cheers for “Father Abraham” and “honest Old Abe.” It was a perfect day for the ceremony. “The sky was cloudless,” remembered a Gettysburg resident, “and the sun shone out in glorious splendor.”
Writing in his diary on the day of the speech, November 19, 1863, a member of the official delegation, 21-year-old Marine Corps Lieutenant Henry Clay Cochrane from Chester, Pennsylvania, noted that the crowd of about 10,000 was primed and ready for Mr. Lincoln’s arrival and impending speech. “Next morning we were up early to find a beautiful Indian summer day. The town was all agog and people pouring in from the surrounding country. Before ten we were in the saddle and assembled at the public square for the grand military and civic procession. Mr. Lincoln was mounted upon a young and beautiful chestnut bay horse, the largest in the Cumberland Valley, and his towering figure surmounted by a high silk hat made the rest of us look small. Mr. Seward and Mr. Blair rode upon his right and Judge Usher and Marshal Lamon on his left. In the next rank there were six horses ridden by General Fry, Colonel Burton, John G. Nicolay, John Hay, Captain Ramsay and myself. Of those eleven I believe that I am the only survivor. I had a mischievous brute and it required much attention to keep him from getting out of line to browse on the tail of the President’s horse. The streets, sidewalks, steps, windows and doors were crowded with eager-eyed spectators, and flags, many of them at half-mast, were everywhere. The procession started with Major-General D. N. Couch at the head of the military, about 1,200 men, of whom the 5th N. Y. Heavy Artillery were the chief part. Next came the Presidential party, then the Hon. Edward Everett, orator of the day, and the chaplain, Rev. Dr. Thomas H. Stockton, of Washington. The President rode very easily, bowing occasionally to right or left, but it soon became evident that Mr. Seward was not much of a rider. As he went along his trousers gradually worked up, revealing the tops of his home-made gray socks, of which he was entirely unconscious.
“We passed along Baltimore Street to the Emmittsburg Road, minute guns being fired, then by way of the Taneytown Road to the cemetery, where the military formed in line to salute the President at about eleven o’clock. The stand which had been erected was not very large and was soon well filled. Mr. Lincoln sat between Mr. Seward and Mr. Everett, and I was given a seat about six or seven feet distant from them. The military arranged themselves mainly upon the left of the stand, the civilian element in front, and the ladies on the right. There was a vast assemblage of people, estimated at 10,000, men, women and children, many of whom were of course out of the range of hearing, and many of whom were unavoidably tramping on the newly-made graves. When the President appeared on the stand nearly every hat in the throng was removed.”
In years past, National Park officials erected a beautiful brick speaker’s stand at the head of the Soldier’s National Cemetery, identifying it as the spot where Lincoln spoke that day. For decades, this rostrum was the site of speeches by noted dignitaries and no less than six United States presidents (Rutherford B. Hayes-1878, Theodore Roosevelt-1904, Calvin Coolidge-1928, Herbert Hoover-1930, Franklin D. Roosevelt-1934, and Dwight D. Eisenhower-1955). But in recent years, it has been discovered that the original site of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was actually nearer to the Jennie Wade grave in Evergreen cemetery.
By all accounts, the crowds were enormous. People had come from far and wide to attend the dedication ceremonies; for many, it was a journey they would never forget. Streets leading into Gettysburg were clogged to capacity, a newspaper reporter wrote, “by citizens from every quarter thronging into the village in every kind of vehicle-old Pennsylvania wagons, spring wagons, carts, family carriages, buggies, and more fashionable modern vehicles, all crowded with citizens-kept pouring into the town in one continual string.” The armies had long since left Gettysburg, but now the town was overwhelmed by a new “invading host” who came by wagon, by train, by horse, and by foot to witness history in the making. The procession soon arrived, flowing up Cemetery Hill to the marching tunes of four military bands.
Lt. Cochrane described the field as it appeared in 1863 as naked, dirty, stinking, and barren — not at all the beautifully manicured place we see today. “The scene presented that fine morning was one of great Grandeur,” Cochrane wrote. “A full view of the battlefield, with the Blue Mountains in the distance, was spread out before us, and all about were traces of the fierce conflict. Rifle pits, cut and scarred trees, broken fences, pieces of artillery wagons and harness, scraps of blue and gray clothing, bent canteens, abandoned knapsacks, belts, cartridge boxes, shoes and caps, were still to be seen on nearly every side — a great showing for relic hunters.
“After the performance of a funeral dirge by the band, an eloquent though rather long prayer was delivered by the Chaplain of the U. S. Senate. This was followed by music by the Marine Band and then Mr. Everett delivered the oration. It was an exceedingly long production, beginning with the custom of the ancient Greeks of burying their dead heroes with public ceremony, continuing with a full history of the campaign of which Gettysburg was the culmination, giving a picture of the result had the battle been a failure; a statement that the Rebellion had been planned for thirty years before it came to pass, and an essay upon national affairs, which consumed two full hours. Notwithstanding the fame of the speaker the audience became tired and impatient. Mr. Everett apparently regarded the occasion as one of the most notable of his life, and had written and rehearsed every word of that long address. His periods were polished, his diction graceful, and his language classical, but his great effort is forgotten.” recalled Cochrane.
The witness continued, “The Baltimore Glee Club then sang an ode written for the occasion by Commissioner B. B. French, of Washington, and Lincoln arose. He was dressed as usual in a black frock coat with turned down shirt collar, and held in his hand only two or three sheets of paper. He began in a slow, solemn and deliberate manner, emphasizing nearly every word.”
Lincoln bodyguard and biographer Ward Lamon walked to the center of the platform and proudly introduced his friend, “The President of the United States.” Lincoln uncoiled his 6’ 4” frame to it’s full height, adjusted his spectacles and began to speak.
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.
Lt. Cochrane continued, “And in two minutes sat down. To the surprise of his auditors the address which has become of world renown was finished. Its full import was not comprehended and it was received with faint applause. Lincoln thought that he had scored a failure, and it was not for weeks afterward that it began to dawn upon the minds of his countrymen that in his simple wisdom and eloquence something had been said which would live forever.” Cochrane continues, “Another dirge and the benediction by the Rev. Dr. H. L. Baugher succeeded, and then, at 2 P. M., the assemblage was dismissed. The program had been carried out successfully, and the first event of the kind probably since those held by the great race of men who originated free government was accomplished. That afternoon Lincoln walked arm in arm to the Presbyterian Church with John Burns, the heroic old man of Gettysburg, who figured in the three days’ fight, and that evening we left on the return trip to Washington.”
Over the years, historians have dissected Lincoln’s speech in every possible way and readily point to Lincoln’s sources as the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, William Shakespeare and the ancients. Perhaps the most startling analysis cites the human body as the main source. Lincoln’s usage of the imagery of birth, life, and death in reference to a nation “brought forth,” “conceived,” and “shall not perish” has been likened to telling a child the facts of life.
The President stunned the crowd with his short address, in fact, most in attendance missed it entirely. Lincoln judged the crowds’ silence as disappointment and left Gettysburg himself disappointed. He turned to his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, compared the speech to bad plow by saying that speech “won’t scour.” It is closer to the truth to say that the crowd was overcome by the emotion elicited by those most powerful words. Applause seemed to them as inappropriate as clapping after a preacher’s sermon. Reverential silence might be the best way to describe the crowd’s reaction.
One Union officer, present at the battle, was powerfully — and spiritually— moved by Lincoln’s remarks. As the president spoke, the officer realized that they all stood “almost immediately over the place where I had lain and seen my comrades torn in fragments by the enemy’s cannon-balls-think then, if you please, how these words fell on my ears.”
What the evidence really tells us is that the people who heard Lincoln’s speech reacted very differently, but emotionally, to the president’s words. Some people clapped wildly during the speech; others regarded the address as a solemn expression of sentiment and stood in silent awe of the man and his eloquence. The emotional response to Lincoln’s address was deep and varied. And it was, indeed, very emotional. An army captain sobbed openly and then, according to a reporter who saw him, “lifted his eyes to heaven and in low and solemn tones exclaimed ‘God Almighty, bless Abraham Lincoln.’”
Historians are not quite sure what actually took place at Gettysburg, and the fact is that we may never know for certain the details of that day. We are left with a multitude of conflicting evidence and eyewitness testimony. What cannot be denied is that it was a magical moment in American history. As with the man himself, that magic did not come without a cost. Although short, the speech took a toll on the President. The stress at home, the stress of the war and the stress of the day weighed heavily on the Great Emancipator. Lincoln had sat exposed to the elements on the platform for over two hours while classical scholar Edward Everett spoke. All the while Lincoln was feeling weaker and weaker and observers recalled his color as “ghastly.” On the train back to Washington Lincoln grew feverish and weaker still.
Next week: Part 3 — Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
Al Hunter is the author of “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Indiana National Road” and “Haunted Irvington” book series. Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
