Writing the Gettysburg Address by Martin P. Johnson

Author:Martin P. Johnson [Johnson, Martin P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Presidents & Heads of State, History, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9780700621125
Google: fipvswEACAAJ
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2015-04-15T04:16:28+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

“What They Did Here”

With the Battlefield Draft in his coat pocket, Lincoln on the morning of Thursday, November 19, stepped from the Wills house into the crowded street and was greeted with such a cheer and welcome that the Philadelphia Press described him as “half blushing amid the intense ardor.” In his later memoir, John Russell Young, who had probably written that account thirty years before, similarly remembered, “We gathered about the house where Lincoln resided, and waited—led horses restlessly in attendance. The President came to the door, a fine flush and smile coming over his face at the rude welcome.” One person called out, “Give me your hand, Mr. President”; another, “Good morning, Mr. Lincoln”; and one simply, “Abraham.” Thousands had traveled, often hundreds of miles, for this day, and the people of Gettysburg and its environs had been anticipating it for months. “My father who was a Republican and who had voted for Lincoln in 1860, said, ‘We will go to hear him,’ ” William Storrick remembered, and so he had a story of meeting Abraham Lincoln out in front of the Wills house that he could tell to the end of his days.1 David Wills and the cemetery agents had invited Lincoln in order to give more prominence to their grand patriotic celebration, and the attendance of hundreds, or even thousands, who had come especially to see Lincoln vindicated their gamble, even aside from the “few appropriate remarks” they had solicited, almost in spite of themselves.

“Such homage I never saw or imagined could be shown to any one person as the people bestow upon Lincoln,” Josephine Roedel wrote in her diary. She had traveled from Virginia to visit family and friends and was only there by happenstance, but she still noted, “The very mention of his name brings forth shouts of applause. No doubt he will be the next President, even his enemies acknowledge him to be an honest man.” As Roedel’s diary demonstrates, the greetings that followed Lincoln everywhere did not need to be exaggerated by the predominantly Republican press corps, for it expressed genuine support and admiration for Lincoln among the thousands who had come to the little town. The soldiers, families, officeholders, veterans, politicians, and common folk who had made the journey needed no prompting to show their devotion to the Union and its fallen heroes, and they seemed eager as well to show themselves to be friends of Lincoln. Roedel’s diary, seamlessly moving from the accolades for Lincoln to his reelection prospects, also nicely illustrates the pervasive political and even partisan atmosphere of the celebrations, which was obvious to every person on the street and is apparent in virtually all the press reports. Just as for the serenades and speeches of the night before, the unprecedented popular mobilization and high political tensions of the war pervaded every movement and action of the players—not in spite of the grand, patriotic celebrations but because of them. Opposition papers like the New York World could

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