Gettysburg, addressed
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — One hundred and fifty years ago, on the eve of the epic Civil War battle that bears its name, Gettysburg was a farming town of 2,400 people. After three days of fighting, for each one of those residents, 20 Confederate and Union soldiers were dead, wounded, or missing. The casualties totaled 46,000, the most of the war in one battle. There were 8,000 dead. The carnage from the pivotal July battle prompted President Abraham Lincoln to visit in November to dedicate a national cemetery. Toward the end of the ceremony, he delivered his landmark Gettysburg Address, 270 words that strove to give meaning to death on a vast scale and to enlist the dead in a higher national purpose, for “a new birth of freedom.” To honor the battle, remember the soldiers, and commemorate the 150th anniversary of the address, Harvard President Drew Faust and other dignitaries took the...