Lincoln Address Memorial Plaza

Near this place on November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the address at the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery, calling the Civil War a test of whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to equality could long endure. He said the dead who had struggled there had already consecrated the ground beyond any power of words, and he urged the living to devote themselves to the unfinished work for which those soldiers gave their lives, so that the nation would have a new birth of freedom and government of the people, by the people, for the people would not perish from the earth. The invitation to Lincoln had come from those arranging a cemetery on the battlefield for soldiers of the Army of the Potomac who were killed at Gettysburg or later died in nearby hospitals, and who wished the Chief Executive to formally set apart the grounds by a few appropriate remarks for the consolation of widows, orphans, and comrades in the field. The plaza was erected in compliance with an act of the 53d Congress, 3d Session, introduced by Major General Daniel E. Sickles, Representative from New York's 10th District, to establish a military park at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, approved by the President on February 11, 1895.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania · United States