Beginning in 1868, Remembrance Day became an annual event every November 19, to commemorate the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg five years before, when President Abraham Lincoln delivered his infamous Gettysburg Address.
BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG BLOODIEST IN WAR
Hailed as the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg lasted for three days, from July 1-3, 1863, incurring over 50,000 casualties of which the dead comprised nearly 7000.
While many bodies were initially buried along fences and stone walls, heavy summer rains on July 4 undid those efforts, then excessive summer heat created more problems.
As the Union Army left on July 6, more casualties died, adding to the challenge of proper burials.
CEMETERY CREATED
Thus, a cemetery was formed through the purchase of 17-acres of land overlooking the infamous Pickett’s Charge.
On October 27, 1863, the cemetery saw the first proper burial in wooden coffins, with removal of personal effects for family members.
Buried by state, graves were arranged in a semi-circle, with smaller states nearest the monument.
Enlisted were buried with officers to emphasize brotherhood.
Over 3000 bodies of Union troops were buried at Gettysburg (reaching into the next year), while Confederate bodies were transferred to Virginia, George, and South Carolina.
DEDICATION CEREMONY
As burials continued (into the following year), the town organized a special dedication ceremony schedule for November 19.
Arriving in Gettysburg by train on November 18, Lincoln spent the evening in the David Wills house.
Shortly before leaving his room the morning of the ceremony, Lincoln was finishing his address, of which the town asked to be “a few appropriate remarks” since they had secured another for keynote speaker.
With a parade beginning at 9:30am, President Lincoln rode a horse down Baltimore Street with a procession to the cemetery where a crowd of 15,000 awaited.
During the benediction, the clouds parted to allow the sun to shine on the cemetery.
While the keynote speaker, a noted orator, spoke for nearly two hours, President Lincoln spoke for two minutes with immortal words that many can recite, today.
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
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 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 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 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.
For more photos, check my Flickr set.
RESOURCES
Details from American Battlefield Trust
