Dedication Day 2022 aka the Gettysburg Address

NOVEMBER 2022

I had wanted to visit Gettysburg at peak leaf peeping season but October was full of more deadlines than lead time. The earliest I could get to town was the weekend of November 19. Which actually really worked out – it was the 159th Dedication Day event, which I hadn’t realized until I couldn’t find a hotel room for under $200.

In all my visits to Gettysburg, I had not yet experienced anything surrounding the dedication of the cemetery. So it was nigh time to cross that off the list.

On a parallel note, if you read my post on The Frozen Hours, a novel of the Korean War, this was also the trip that set all of that into motion …

HISTORY

(Paraphrased from the Soldiers National Cemetery NPS.gov website)

Three days of fighting at Gettysburg took a horrible toll on both armies: roughly 10,000 soldiers killed or mortally wounded, 30,000 injured, and 10,000 captured or missing. The dead were hastily buried in shallow graves on the battlefield, crudely identified by pencil writing on wooden boards. As weeks passed rain and wind eroded the impromptu graves. In response, Gettysburg’s citizens called for the creation of a soldiers’ cemetery for the proper burial of the Federal dead. The reburial process began on October 27, 1863.

…

A few weeks after the burial process started, a dedication ceremony was held at the unfinished Soldiers’ National Cemetery. The cemetery committee chose Massachusetts statesman and orator Edward Everett to deliver the main speech. The committee asked President Abraham Lincoln to deliver “a few appropriate remarks.” After Everett’s lengthy remarks, Lincoln rose and spoke for two minutes; his brief speech today is known as the “Gettysburg Address.” His speech honored the men who fought at Gettysburg and invoked their sacrifice as a cause to continue fighting for the preservation of the United States.