I missed an opportunity today. A full day of events commemorating the 272 words President Lincoln spoke after the three day battle in/around Gettysburg, right up the road. Call it poor planning on my part.
Fortunately, last week I had planned a local outing to commemorate the event. Timed for the week, Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln was showing in town last night. For free~~and at the National Archives. Tough to think of a more appropriate local event to stir up deep emotions about the Lincoln presidency. A nearly packed house in a beautiful venue on a school night for a nearly two year old film of history. A testament to the ongoing interest in historical facts and figures responsible for planting the seeds of our nation. That and the acknowledgement of all the ivory tower residents in DC! Six words of Lincoln’s speech ring loudly for descendants of the men lost on that day, “Never forget what they did here.”
Some estimates put the number as high as 51,000. Almost as many people were killed, injured or declared missing in the three days of the Gettysburg battle as were killed during the entire Vietnam war. Which lasted nearly twenty years. Three days on our soil—-twenty years. How different would our nation look had General Lee’s troops not been pushed back south after those three summer days.
Pennsylvania Hall on the campus of Pennsylvania College, now Gettysburg College, was turned into a battlefield hospital for a few weeks after the battle. In a typical example of American strength, the campus was patched up and restored to enable classes to begin with that fall semester. Imagine the thoughts churning through the heads of students and faculty as they began classes. Bones, body parts and other items were found for decades in the dirt around the college campus.
In our hyper connected, frenetically paced, self-serving society I find it difficult to imagine many people stopped today to give a thought to the battle or Lincoln’s speech four months later. Conversely, some of us probably give it too much thought–count myself among them. The 272 words, deserving of the couple of minutes it takes to review them.