Your golden opportunity is
gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it."
Clearly as Mr. Lincoln had sketched and deeply as he felt Meade's fault
of omission, so quick was the President's spirit of forgiveness, and so
thankful was he for the measure of success which had been gained, that
he never signed or sent the letter.
Two memorable events are forever linked with the Gettysburg victory: the
surrender of Vicksburg to Grant on the same fourth of July, described in
the next chapter, and the dedication of the Gettysburg battle-field as a
national cemetery for Union soldiers, on November 19, 1863, on which
occasion President Lincoln crowned that imposing ceremonial with an
address of such literary force, brevity, and beauty, that critics have
assigned it a high rank among the world's historic orations. He said:
"Fourscore 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.
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