The DC Traveler

His place in history as one of our greatest presidents is memorialized with the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC.  And next year marks the 200th anniversary of his birth, and the memorial to his life will be rededicated in a major ceremony.

But one of the most notable moments in Lincoln’s life, and in American history, occurred in 1863 in a field in southern Pennsylvania, just 90 miles north of Washington, DC. 

The sixteenth U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln, gave a short speech, dedicating a battlefield where four months earlier saw the deadliest fighting of the Civil War.  The speech would become one of the most famous given by any U.S. President and a testament to the nation, its fallen warriors, equality and freedom.  The speech was the Gettysburg Address.

Just months before at Gettysburg, 8,000 soldiers from both sides had died, and more than 17,000 had been wounded in the bloodiest three day battle of the Civil War.

Timothy O’Sullivan, a photographer, took the now famous “The Harvest of Death” photo of the dead just after the battle.  For many Americans, after seeing the image in newspapers, it was their first exposure to the true horror,  devastation and mass death caused by the Civil War.

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address helped calm some Northerners, who were starting to think that the South should be allowed to leave the Union after hearing of the massive amount of causalities.    

Other than the founding fathers, Lincoln is probably the most significant president in America’s history, as he preserved the nation when it was most at risk, ended slavery and ultimately died serving his country.  He was shot at Ford’s Theatre just 6 days after the Confederacy surrendered, ending the war.  He died the following morning at Petersen’s boarding house, across the street from the theater.

But Lincoln also impacted the country through legislation that was not directly related to the Civil War, including signing into law, The Homestead Act.  It is considered by many historians to be one of the most landmark pieces of legislation in American history.  The act made available 270 million acres of government land in the undeveloped American western frontier, roughly 10% of all land in the nation, to men willing to homestead. Offered in 160 acre parcels, any male over the age of 21, who could pay the the $18.00 processing fee, could buy a piece of land.  The only caveat, the owner had to live on the land for at least 5 years to maintain ownership.  The act started the massive westward land rush and expanded the nation into the Great Plains and Rockies.

For some interesting fact about Lincoln and a transcript of the 1863 Gettysburg Address, CLICK MORE —>

Here’s some interesting trivia and facts about our 16th President:

• As a boy, Abe Lincoln had a couple near brushes with death, having been kicked unconscious by a horse and later, he fell into a creek and had to be saved by a neighbor. 
• Lincoln was never affiliated with an organized church, and was somewhat of an outspoken nonbeliever. His position on religion became a campaign issue when he ran for President.
• While not be religious, he used scripture in his famous Divided Nation speech, quoting “If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand,” (Mark 3:25).
• He was the only U.S. President to obtain a patent, for a device for lifting ships in shallow waters.
• Lincoln was the 1st president to publicly support giving women the right to vote.
• After his son’s death, he attended several seances with his wife.
• During the election of 1860, Lincoln received exactly zero votes from the ten southern states.
• Abe was friendly with black abolitionist Frederick Douglas. At Lincoln’s 1865 inauguration, Douglass, an invited guest, was denied entrance and almost arrested. Douglass got the president’s attention and Lincoln exclaimed loudly enough for the security guards to hear “Here comes my friend Douglass.” He was then let in without incident.
• Lincoln was the first President to fully utilize the role as Commander-in-Chief, by making many military decisions as well as appointing and firing Union generals.
• He was shot on Good Friday and died on Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday.

Here’s the text of his brief but famous Gettysburg Address, delivered November 19th in 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 that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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