The Civil War

Location: National Cemetery

Erected: January 24, 1912

Dedicated: Never

The bill of representative Daniel Sickles, passed into law February 11, 1895, created the Gettysburg National Military Park. It also contained a provision for the creation of a memorial tablet commemorating the Gettysburg Address. Nearly $5,000 was appropriated to accomplish this. Designed by Louis Henrick, the monument consists of a carved wall containing two bronze plaques. On the left is the letter of Judge David Wills to Abraham Lincoln, inviting the president to come to Gettysburg. the plaque on the right contains a copy of the Gettysburg Address. Flanking each plaque are bundles of fasces with protruding ax heads, the ancient symbol of strength and unity.

The stars carved above the plaques are representative of the states that remained loyal to the union.

The central feature of the monument is a bust of Abraham Lincoln sculpted by Henry Bush-Brown. It was decided not to pursue a full protrait statue as it would detract from the theme of the monument. Disagreements over where to locate the memorial delayed construction for nearly a decade. It was finally completed in 1912. Today, it stands as one of the few memorials in the world built to honor a speech.

Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

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 this government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

The Above Photograph's are from the David Will's House which is located on 8 Lincoln Square in Gettysburg PA. it opened on February 2009.

In a second floor bedroom Abraham Lincoln put the finishing touches on the Gettysburg Address-the speech transformed Gettysburg from a place of sorrow to the symbol of our nation's new birth of freedom.

The above photograph's taken by me show the bed that Abraham Lincoln slept in for the night.