The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-03
GETTYSBURG.
From, the N. Y. Tribune.

From the NJ y. Tribune
Six years ago the soldiers of the Union, on
the heights of Gettysburg, beat off the Con-
federate host, in it's last desperate effort to
invade the North, and won the critical vic
tory of the war. On Thursday the survivors of
the desperate struggle, with thousands of the
who recognize in that heroic battle the tri-
umph of American liberty, met to dedicate
monument to the men whose blood purchased
our victory-the heroes whose names will
live for generations in the pages of our his
tory, and the nine hundred undistinguished
dead whose memories are cherished only by
the tears of the widow and the fatherless
No solemnity can be too impressive to beft
this anniversary. At Gettysburg we fought
for nothing less than our country's existence.
Had the gallant dead whose graves we have
just honored wavered in their patriotic devo-
ton, the Union would have been irremedia-
bly, destroyed, and our future history a record
of continual subdivision and secession. Free
dom, overthrown in America, would have felt
the disaster in every country in the world
| So, for many year to come, we trust the first
days of this month, which witnessed the be-
| ginning of American Independence, and its
| final triumph after eighty-seven years trial,
will be piously remembered wherever politi-
| cal freedom is appreciated.
1t will be long, however, before July recurs
without bringing back the remembrance of
| those few eloquent words which Abraham
Lincoln spoke on this historic field only
| few months after the battle, and which orator
| and poet alike accepted on Thursday as their
text and inspiration: -"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 1t is for us, the living, rather to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work that
they have thus far so nobly carried on. 1t 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 the cause for which they here gave the
last full measure of deyotion-that we
here highly resolve that the dead shall not
have died in vain, that the nation shall,
under God, have a new birth of freedom,
| and that the government of the people, by
the people, and for the people, shall not
perish from the earth. Thank God! we have
thus far been faithful to this high resolve.
! Thousands more were to fall for it upon the
field; Lincoln was to give his life for it; the
nation was to fight and struggle for it with
open enemies and false friends; but the new
freedom has steadily adyanced; and the
dead SO far have not died in vain.
Having chosen our course withcui guile
and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust
in God, and go forward without fear and
with manly hearts. There is something yet
10 DO, and nom celebrations like that OF Ihurs
day we may gather courage for the onward
march, and resolution to take no step back
wards. From the lowly graves, too, of the
Confederate dead, who sleep in the valley be
fore our lines victims of an honest faith in 1
bad cause, shall there not come up, on our an
niyersaries of mingled sadness and triumph,
reminder of that Christian counsel which bid
us pursue our healing and restoring work witt
malice towards none, with charity for ell
| fIa OH n,
memory, stretching from every battlefield
and patriot grave to every living heart an,
hearthstone all over this broad land, shal
swell the chorus of the Union, when again
touched, as surely they viii be, by the bette
angels Of our nature p