Abraham Lincoln His Essential Wisdom

You have been called upon to make a terrible sacrifice for the Union, and a visit to that spot, I fear, will open your wounds afresh. But oh! my dear sir, if we had reached the end of such sacrifices, and had nothing left for us to do but to place garlands on the graves of those who have already fallen, we could give thanks even amidst our tears; but when I think of the sacrifices of life yet to be offered and the hearts and homes yet to be made desolate before this dreadful war, so wickedly forced upon us, is over, my heart is like lead within me, and I feel at times, like hiding in deep darkness.

- Reply to a man who told Lincoln that his only son was lost at Gettysburg while Lincoln was on board the train taking him there to deliver his address, November 18, 1863 from Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguihed Men of His Time, edited by Allen Thorndike Rice