For three hot days, from July 1 to July 3, 1863, more than 150,000 soldiers from the armies of the United States of America and the Confederate States of America slashed at each other in the hills and through the fields around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
I was taken aback by Sam Waterston’ reading the Lincoln’s Address in Ken Burns’ Civil War series. Every other reading I’ve heard placed the emphasis on the prepositions in the last sentence, i.e. OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people. Waterston placed the emphasis on the word ‘people,’ i.e. of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE. It sounded odd at first. But as I thought of Waterston’s change in emphasis more and more, I began to think of us PEOPLE as active participants in assuring the all people have the right to live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rather than mere recipients of the rights, fought for by others. Now every time I read the Address, I follow Waterston’s example by emphasizing the role of the PEOPLE in assuring these rights.
Heather, I expected a photograph and your oath to rest this day. Instead, reading Lincoln’s words gave me the chills. All these many decades later, such words DO mean something! Thank you, dear friend, for your love of our history, often bloody and tragic. I will mull over those words today, as I work in my small garden in India.
In eighth grade speech class we had to memorize this speech and then give it in class. I was never more terrified of anything that I was when I got up to do this. It took me the longest time to get the first word out and then they just tumbled out. And the teacher gave me an A! This speech has always had great meaning to me as a result, and I read it every year and think about its meaning.
For me, the most moving monument in Washington, D.C. is the Lincoln Memorial. The Gettysburg Address appears on one wall; Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address on another. I don’t know how anyone with a heart can stand there and read these without becoming teary eyed.
I am reading with dismay the responses on FB that are attacking Lincoln, who was, when all is said and done, a man of his times with all the shortcomings that entails, at the same time he was an idealist dedicated to the promise and potential of a country founded on consent of the governed. it does not take perfection, nor even pure intention, to do the right thing. Do you agree with Mitt Romney on everything? Yet he voted to impeach. Do you agree with Liz Cheney’s voting record? Yet, she, too, has acted in the best interests of the country in her committee work. John McCain voted down repeals to Obamacare. And after years of hiding in silence to protect his political future, Mike Pence is one of the lynch pins, if not the central figure, in defending the Constitution on January 6, 2021. Those are just a few of the imperfect, probably or definitely biased, humans who have chosen at one critical moment after another, to act in favor of the country and the principles on which it stands. No one is all good, and no one is all bad, and recognizing that duality of human nature is critical to the type of dialogue on which democracy and equality of each person’s voice and vote must stand. It is not a bad thing, indeed it is paramount, to put preserving the country above one’s personal views, for without that Union there is no future country to become “a more perfect Union.” It makes all the more alarming those rabid Republican voices who are willing to default on debt, excuse the insurrectionists, and defy our courts. But I digress…
Wow. Lincoln was remarkable and truly singular. He represents the best of the United States. Coming from a background of poverty in a remote setting, he committed to develop himself to the best he could be, and thus self-educated so he grew and grew in stature and character. The wonderful simplicity of his approach, his attitude. I visited the cabin in Kentucky where he was born and lived a few years. I've been to the cabin in the dark forests of Southern Indiana where he grew from ages 7 to 21. And I've been to his home in Springfield, Illinois where he matured into adulthood; always searching for a portion of his spirit developed in each location.
And then he gave us the Gettysburg Address. What a person! Needless to say, we could use a few of his breed today.
I come to this letter each day knowing that I will be educated. I never had a good history teacher, and I never developed an interest in history whatsoever. Had HCR been my teacher, I would always have been enthralled by history as I am becoming now. The comment section furthers my education as well. I enjoy your comments, your knowledge, and your humor. And I am happy at age 70 to be learning something important every single day. Thanks to all of you.
The gulf between the motivation behind Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and the motivation behind Trump’s self-centered social media posts is staggering. The likes of Trump must never again be elected president.
My Great Grandfather fought in Hooker's army. He enlisted at the outset of the war, and mustered out at the end. However the dying didn't end with Lee's surrender. I found a gazetteer of the reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic. In it was listed the whereabouts and current situation of the soldiers. About every fourth member was listed as "Suicide" PTSD is as old as war.
First let me say how much I enjoy your daily letters in the perspective that you bring to the volatility uncertainty chaos ambiguity of our world.
Also, please forgive this long missive, and, the need to be thorough in sharing this correction, With all due respect, to today’s letter.
I just had the privilege of taking my 93 or old mother. Phoebe, to the Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg in September, where we sang ‘let it be’ to her great great great … grandmother Elizabeth McConaughy, 1610 to 1706, and the rest of our ancestors buried 100 feet from where the cemetery hosted Abraham Lincoln and the platform for the Gettysburg Address. As our national park guide, Mr. Ed Guy, shared with us at the beginning of our tour, the renowned local lawyer who founded both the Evergreen Cemetery itself and the National Cemetery, and the national war memorial park, was not Judge David Wills, but rather David McConaughy Jr, who practiced law in Gettysburg from 1850 to 1900, after his father who practiced from 1800 to 1850.
He founded the Evergreen Cemetery by subscription, starting in 1852, formally opening in 1854. The 24-inch high stone wall along the crest of cemetery ridge that the union soldiers fell over at the end of the first day was created by the digging of graves in the Evergreen Cemetery, which yielded many rocks with every grave. The founding of the cemetery was accomplished under a great deal of local church resistance headed up by none other than Judge Wills, whom you credited today. Further fact is that 18 months before the battle, David McConaughey optioned the 9 acres next to Evergreen toward town specifically for a Civil War cemetery.
David hosted the Abraham Lincoln to speak on the Evergreen Cemetery property, facing the crowd on the 9 acres that he had optioned 18 months earlier. I would appreciate knowing the source where you got the information crediting David Wills, so our family can have an opportunity to correct the record in that case, as we are so thrilled has now happened very thoroughly at the Gettysburg Foundation, the Museum and on the Tours.
Thank you for always being so clear and productive. And thanks again for the consistent daily context. I find it very helpful.
ps. All of this was explained to my grandmother, my mother and myself by President Eisenhower’s caddy when he was president, and golf partner of Ike’s in Gettysburg, Art Kennel, who died 11/9/2013. His son Brian runs Evergreen today.
Art related to us that David McConaughy had been spying for Pinkerton and the army of the Potomac for the months leading up to the battle, going around Pennsylvania trying to find Lee’s army. He said it was David who met the Army of the Potomac in the middle of the night after the first day and placed all the Union Canyon wheel-to-wheel along cemetery ridge in the pitch dark so that the union had command of the high ground on the second day.
Art believed that David had been standing next to General Crouch and General Meade on the third day and had seen pickets charge happened right in front of his eyes, in which 8 to 10,000 men died in 56 minutes of continuous firing of grapeshot. David was impacted, began buying up pieces of the battlefield the next day, personally purchasing pieces of Culps Hill, Picket’s charge and Little Round Top. As Mr. Guy explained to us at the beginning of our tour, David then assembled a group to begin the development of the cemetery and national memorial, which then purchased back the option and property from him at the prices that he paid for them. He made no money on the deal. As Mr. Guy was very clear to point out.
David and the group then invited officers, ultimately of both sides to come back to the field to identify the fallen, which they did for decades after that.
The head of the historical society gave us a letter for our file in which general Robert E Lee respectfully declined invitation to the picnic. As an oral historian of this country I am continually saddened at the way the actual work that people of great character have done to build the great comments of this country.
Working as a cultural architect, cultural anthropologist an applied sociologist, I have been conducting many dozens of participatory democratic experiments through action research, and collecting what I called the greatest stories never told about the true history of this country and what it really is, not all the BS that we are fed Through the mass perceptual monopoly.
At www.commons.org we hold record of the many, many, people who actually did the work, who have been written out of the story because they weren’t trying to get the credit they were just trying to get it done. You have likely never heard the names of some others who were written out of the story until recently, James Wilson, according to Mitchener and Hancock, the architect of this country. It was Wilson who said, “ I wish for vigor in the government, but I wish that vigorous authority to flow from the legitimate source of all authority, the people. The government are to possess not only the force but the mind or sense of the people at large”.
George Reed, his partner consensus builder for processes from the Declaration of Independence to the drafting of the constitution, James McKay, Whose Indian office map and introductions to all the indigenous tribes along the Missouri river enables Lewis and Clark to be successful after he had tried and failed twice to go overland to the Pacific, David McConaughy Jr, Founder of the Evergreen Cemetery and the Gettysburg national monument, and his son David McConaughy, Founder of the world stewardship Council and early innovator of systematic giving in modern philanthropy, and last but certainly not least, unknown to many, the astonishing Walter Russell, appropriately known as the Leonardo da Vinci of America and yet almost unknown to vast majority Americans.
The number of indigenous, black, immigrants, and people of color who have literally created our modern world with their technical inventions, only to have the acknowledgment for what they did be nonexistent (see Indian Givers book). They and so many thousands of other stewards who have made great contributions to benefit all because their character drove them to do it.
This is the true triumphant story of this country and the levels of trust and exchange of mutual benefit never before seen in the history of humanity as we know it.
How can the citizens of this country possibly be more successful when we don’t know the actual story of what created what we have today?
Like so many school children, I was required when very young to memorize Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I had no idea then what it meant, nor the postscript to battle it powerfully punctuated, but I managed to rattle it off acceptably.
Over the years, it’s meanings have filtered down, so that I eventually achieved understandings of racism, slavery, economies, war, diplomacy, and the substantial difficulties of democratic institutions!
Democracy, real democracy, is not for adolescents, which is why we have a minimum voting age. It is neither for immature adults, of which we have far too many; adults who cannot tolerate the seeming lack of control, or chaos of differences and diversity, the slowness to politically get somewhere.
Perhaps mothers who have the patience for their children is my most poignant metaphor. Children need time to explore, develop agency and mature in their empathy for others, and their resilience to how difficult a world we live in. And the future is about our children, grandchildren and the world we will leave them, isn’t it?
I was taken aback by Sam Waterston’ reading the Lincoln’s Address in Ken Burns’ Civil War series. Every other reading I’ve heard placed the emphasis on the prepositions in the last sentence, i.e. OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people. Waterston placed the emphasis on the word ‘people,’ i.e. of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE. It sounded odd at first. But as I thought of Waterston’s change in emphasis more and more, I began to think of us PEOPLE as active participants in assuring the all people have the right to live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rather than mere recipients of the rights, fought for by others. Now every time I read the Address, I follow Waterston’s example by emphasizing the role of the PEOPLE in assuring these rights.
Heather, I expected a photograph and your oath to rest this day. Instead, reading Lincoln’s words gave me the chills. All these many decades later, such words DO mean something! Thank you, dear friend, for your love of our history, often bloody and tragic. I will mull over those words today, as I work in my small garden in India.
In eighth grade speech class we had to memorize this speech and then give it in class. I was never more terrified of anything that I was when I got up to do this. It took me the longest time to get the first word out and then they just tumbled out. And the teacher gave me an A! This speech has always had great meaning to me as a result, and I read it every year and think about its meaning.
For me, the most moving monument in Washington, D.C. is the Lincoln Memorial. The Gettysburg Address appears on one wall; Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address on another. I don’t know how anyone with a heart can stand there and read these without becoming teary eyed.
I am reading with dismay the responses on FB that are attacking Lincoln, who was, when all is said and done, a man of his times with all the shortcomings that entails, at the same time he was an idealist dedicated to the promise and potential of a country founded on consent of the governed. it does not take perfection, nor even pure intention, to do the right thing. Do you agree with Mitt Romney on everything? Yet he voted to impeach. Do you agree with Liz Cheney’s voting record? Yet, she, too, has acted in the best interests of the country in her committee work. John McCain voted down repeals to Obamacare. And after years of hiding in silence to protect his political future, Mike Pence is one of the lynch pins, if not the central figure, in defending the Constitution on January 6, 2021. Those are just a few of the imperfect, probably or definitely biased, humans who have chosen at one critical moment after another, to act in favor of the country and the principles on which it stands. No one is all good, and no one is all bad, and recognizing that duality of human nature is critical to the type of dialogue on which democracy and equality of each person’s voice and vote must stand. It is not a bad thing, indeed it is paramount, to put preserving the country above one’s personal views, for without that Union there is no future country to become “a more perfect Union.” It makes all the more alarming those rabid Republican voices who are willing to default on debt, excuse the insurrectionists, and defy our courts. But I digress…
EquALLity. Pass it on.
Wow. Lincoln was remarkable and truly singular. He represents the best of the United States. Coming from a background of poverty in a remote setting, he committed to develop himself to the best he could be, and thus self-educated so he grew and grew in stature and character. The wonderful simplicity of his approach, his attitude. I visited the cabin in Kentucky where he was born and lived a few years. I've been to the cabin in the dark forests of Southern Indiana where he grew from ages 7 to 21. And I've been to his home in Springfield, Illinois where he matured into adulthood; always searching for a portion of his spirit developed in each location.
And then he gave us the Gettysburg Address. What a person! Needless to say, we could use a few of his breed today.
Why are so many people in this day and age choosing to ignore that equality is for all......not just them and their white neighbors?
I come to this letter each day knowing that I will be educated. I never had a good history teacher, and I never developed an interest in history whatsoever. Had HCR been my teacher, I would always have been enthralled by history as I am becoming now. The comment section furthers my education as well. I enjoy your comments, your knowledge, and your humor. And I am happy at age 70 to be learning something important every single day. Thanks to all of you.
Beautiful. For the first time in six years, I have hope that Lincoln's inspired words of profound dedication may yet inspire us to long endure.
Lincoln combined empirical clarity with poetic delivery, on this and many occasions. A very beneficial trait for a democratic leader.
The gulf between the motivation behind Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and the motivation behind Trump’s self-centered social media posts is staggering. The likes of Trump must never again be elected president.
My Great Grandfather fought in Hooker's army. He enlisted at the outset of the war, and mustered out at the end. However the dying didn't end with Lee's surrender. I found a gazetteer of the reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic. In it was listed the whereabouts and current situation of the soldiers. About every fourth member was listed as "Suicide" PTSD is as old as war.
Always stirring words. The crafting of such eloquence and impact in brevity masterful.
Thanks for bringing them to us today to savor.
Heather,
First let me say how much I enjoy your daily letters in the perspective that you bring to the volatility uncertainty chaos ambiguity of our world.
Also, please forgive this long missive, and, the need to be thorough in sharing this correction, With all due respect, to today’s letter.
I just had the privilege of taking my 93 or old mother. Phoebe, to the Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg in September, where we sang ‘let it be’ to her great great great … grandmother Elizabeth McConaughy, 1610 to 1706, and the rest of our ancestors buried 100 feet from where the cemetery hosted Abraham Lincoln and the platform for the Gettysburg Address. As our national park guide, Mr. Ed Guy, shared with us at the beginning of our tour, the renowned local lawyer who founded both the Evergreen Cemetery itself and the National Cemetery, and the national war memorial park, was not Judge David Wills, but rather David McConaughy Jr, who practiced law in Gettysburg from 1850 to 1900, after his father who practiced from 1800 to 1850.
He founded the Evergreen Cemetery by subscription, starting in 1852, formally opening in 1854. The 24-inch high stone wall along the crest of cemetery ridge that the union soldiers fell over at the end of the first day was created by the digging of graves in the Evergreen Cemetery, which yielded many rocks with every grave. The founding of the cemetery was accomplished under a great deal of local church resistance headed up by none other than Judge Wills, whom you credited today. Further fact is that 18 months before the battle, David McConaughey optioned the 9 acres next to Evergreen toward town specifically for a Civil War cemetery.
David hosted the Abraham Lincoln to speak on the Evergreen Cemetery property, facing the crowd on the 9 acres that he had optioned 18 months earlier. I would appreciate knowing the source where you got the information crediting David Wills, so our family can have an opportunity to correct the record in that case, as we are so thrilled has now happened very thoroughly at the Gettysburg Foundation, the Museum and on the Tours.
Thank you for always being so clear and productive. And thanks again for the consistent daily context. I find it very helpful.
Respectfully,
Jahn Ballard, www.commons.org
Cell: 707-548-6796
ps. All of this was explained to my grandmother, my mother and myself by President Eisenhower’s caddy when he was president, and golf partner of Ike’s in Gettysburg, Art Kennel, who died 11/9/2013. His son Brian runs Evergreen today.
Art related to us that David McConaughy had been spying for Pinkerton and the army of the Potomac for the months leading up to the battle, going around Pennsylvania trying to find Lee’s army. He said it was David who met the Army of the Potomac in the middle of the night after the first day and placed all the Union Canyon wheel-to-wheel along cemetery ridge in the pitch dark so that the union had command of the high ground on the second day.
Art believed that David had been standing next to General Crouch and General Meade on the third day and had seen pickets charge happened right in front of his eyes, in which 8 to 10,000 men died in 56 minutes of continuous firing of grapeshot. David was impacted, began buying up pieces of the battlefield the next day, personally purchasing pieces of Culps Hill, Picket’s charge and Little Round Top. As Mr. Guy explained to us at the beginning of our tour, David then assembled a group to begin the development of the cemetery and national memorial, which then purchased back the option and property from him at the prices that he paid for them. He made no money on the deal. As Mr. Guy was very clear to point out.
David and the group then invited officers, ultimately of both sides to come back to the field to identify the fallen, which they did for decades after that.
The head of the historical society gave us a letter for our file in which general Robert E Lee respectfully declined invitation to the picnic. As an oral historian of this country I am continually saddened at the way the actual work that people of great character have done to build the great comments of this country.
Working as a cultural architect, cultural anthropologist an applied sociologist, I have been conducting many dozens of participatory democratic experiments through action research, and collecting what I called the greatest stories never told about the true history of this country and what it really is, not all the BS that we are fed Through the mass perceptual monopoly.
At www.commons.org we hold record of the many, many, people who actually did the work, who have been written out of the story because they weren’t trying to get the credit they were just trying to get it done. You have likely never heard the names of some others who were written out of the story until recently, James Wilson, according to Mitchener and Hancock, the architect of this country. It was Wilson who said, “ I wish for vigor in the government, but I wish that vigorous authority to flow from the legitimate source of all authority, the people. The government are to possess not only the force but the mind or sense of the people at large”.
George Reed, his partner consensus builder for processes from the Declaration of Independence to the drafting of the constitution, James McKay, Whose Indian office map and introductions to all the indigenous tribes along the Missouri river enables Lewis and Clark to be successful after he had tried and failed twice to go overland to the Pacific, David McConaughy Jr, Founder of the Evergreen Cemetery and the Gettysburg national monument, and his son David McConaughy, Founder of the world stewardship Council and early innovator of systematic giving in modern philanthropy, and last but certainly not least, unknown to many, the astonishing Walter Russell, appropriately known as the Leonardo da Vinci of America and yet almost unknown to vast majority Americans.
The number of indigenous, black, immigrants, and people of color who have literally created our modern world with their technical inventions, only to have the acknowledgment for what they did be nonexistent (see Indian Givers book). They and so many thousands of other stewards who have made great contributions to benefit all because their character drove them to do it.
This is the true triumphant story of this country and the levels of trust and exchange of mutual benefit never before seen in the history of humanity as we know it.
How can the citizens of this country possibly be more successful when we don’t know the actual story of what created what we have today?
Like so many school children, I was required when very young to memorize Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I had no idea then what it meant, nor the postscript to battle it powerfully punctuated, but I managed to rattle it off acceptably.
Over the years, it’s meanings have filtered down, so that I eventually achieved understandings of racism, slavery, economies, war, diplomacy, and the substantial difficulties of democratic institutions!
Democracy, real democracy, is not for adolescents, which is why we have a minimum voting age. It is neither for immature adults, of which we have far too many; adults who cannot tolerate the seeming lack of control, or chaos of differences and diversity, the slowness to politically get somewhere.
Perhaps mothers who have the patience for their children is my most poignant metaphor. Children need time to explore, develop agency and mature in their empathy for others, and their resilience to how difficult a world we live in. And the future is about our children, grandchildren and the world we will leave them, isn’t it?