Little Falls weekly transcript., 1894-07-20
The Gettysburg Anniversary.

the southwest was massed at Vicksburg.
On the battlefield at Gettysburg ora
tions as eloquent as any delivered by
Patrick Henry have been uttered. The
first were heard when, Nov. 10, 1868, the
blood soaked ground was dedicated as a
national cemetery by Edward Everett
and President Lincoln. Less famous
speeches, though more eloquent than
Everett's, were made in 1887, "a years
after the fight, when the blue and the
gray held their first reunion together.
On the very ground where the Union
cannon, loaded with pebbles, bayonet
points and fragments of shell, had pour
ed death into the faces of Pickett's men,
Confederate and Union soldier walked
arm in arm and recalled the incidents
of the Bloody Angle.
After the Confederate General Armi-
stead was killed in Pickett's charge,
Colonel William B. Aylett succeeded
him as brigade commander and led the
men till the charge failed. At the first
reunion of the blue and gray in 1887
Colonel Aylett responded to Pennsyl-
vania's welcome to the Confederates in
speech whose eloquence has been rarely
equaled. In it these words occurred:
We have come forth from the baptism of
blood and fire in which we were consumed as
the representatives of a new south, and we
have, long years ago, ceased to bear in our
loo, A..
the conflict. Did an unmanly feeling linger in
our bosoms we would not be here today to
grasp the hands of those who have met US with
a brothers greeting and a brothers love.
Above the ashes left by the war and over the
tomb of secession and African slavery we have
created a new empire and have built a temple
to American liberty in which you and 1 can
worship together, and over it we have run up
the star spangled banner, and we cling to it
with all that ancient love which should ever
dwell in the hearts of the men and women
from the lands of George Washington and
William Penn.
Last year, 1898, occurred the thirtieth
anniversary of the battle which was the
turning point Of the civil war. General
Daniel E. Sickles and the governors of
New York and Pennsylvania took part
in the exercises, and other eloquent ora
tions were spoken. General Henry w.
Slocum was there, too, among the most
honored of the visitors, in full health
and happy spirits. But before another
Gettysburg anniversary rounded the
turn of the year he was buried with a
soldiers funeral.
And yet Of all the words of eloquence
uttered on the battlefield of Gettysburg
perhaps only two short paragraphs will
live as long as the English language is
spoken. They are the sentences which
fell from the lips Of Lincoln, Nov. 10,
1868. They cannot be recalled too
often. Gray haired Americans in all
time will read them with tears upon
their cheeks. Bright eyed, eager boys
and girls, while their hearts thrill with
pride and love of country-as long as
the republic lasts-will recite the words:
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers
brought forth upon this continent q new nar
ton, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in great civil war, test
Ing Wuotuoi Cudt ubClOu VI t1uy udC1Cu, SD con.
ceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We
are met on 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 the nation might live. It is al
together fitting and proper that we should dc
this. But in a large 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 remem.
Der what we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here. 1t is for us, the living.
rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus
far 80 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 to which
they here gave the last full measure of devo-
ton: that we here highly resolve that these
dead shall not have died in vain; that this ma.
ton, under God, shall have new birth of free.
dom, and that government Of the people, by
the people and for the people shall not perish
from the earth.