"Please Do Not Forget - Please Do Not Forget"

By Jerry Stewart  

     The most famous speech in the history of our nation was delivered at a cemetery in a small Pennsylvania town by President Abraham Lincoln. It was not a long speech - only 272 words lasting less than three minutes. In fact the speech was so short, photographers didn't even get a picture. So, what was it that made the speech so very famous?  

     Here’s the story.  

     In 1863 when Abraham Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address, no one expected the powerful impact that event and that speech would have on history. Those present that day remarked later that it didn't appear to be a well planned speech. Some even noted that it seemed he was still writing down just what he would say while waiting on the platform to be introduced.  

     So then, what was it that made that speech so famous? It was what had happened there only a few short months before in Gettysburg. You see, our nation was in a terrible civil war, and tens of millions of men had left their farms and families to fight for their cause; and although the Northern armies were larger in number and better equipped, the South was actually winning the war and General Robert E. Lee had a plan to have his Southern armies fight their way into Washington, DC. He knew that if he could attack and take the nation's capitol, he knew that the North would have to surrender. 

     What happened in Gettysburg was not planned by any one, but two large armies totaling almost 170,000 men literally came upon each other strictly by accident near this small town of Gettysburg, and the battle that took place over the next three days was the harshest single battle in the history of our nation, with over 43,000 Union and Confederate soldiers killed or wounded.  

     The battlefield was a terrible picture of suffering and blood and death. According to one account a small creek running through the battlefield was literally turned red from the soldiers shed blood. When a local schoolhouse was turned into a makeshift hospital for the wounded, the blood ran so deep they had to drill holes in the floor just for the blood to drain.

     On July 3, 1863, when the Battle of Gettysburg ended, there were so many graves there that they actually turned part of the battlefield into a cemetery.  So when Abraham Lincoln spoke that day to commemorate that Gettysburg Cemetery he felt what ever he said would not be enough. He said,  

"We cannot consecrate 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 here living rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.” 

     You see, it wasn't what Abraham Lincoln said that day that made his speech so powerful - it was what the soldiers had done there - they had given their last full measure of devotion to a nation they each loved enough to die for.

     This is the great task we have before us this Memorial weekend - to remember, to honor, to never forget those who have given their last full measure of devotion. 

     Please do not forget, please do not forget. There is always a price to pay for freedom - that price has been paid.