emory of those gone down in the storm.
Most of the men in that group of honor are now passed over to the
majority, but their names are not dead in American history--great
ghosts who walk still in the annals of their country, their
flesh-and-blood faces were turned attentively that bright, still
November afternoon towards the orator of the day, whose voice held the
audience.

For two hours Everett spoke and the throng listened untired,
fascinated by the dignity of his high-bred look and manner almost as
much, perhaps, as by the speech which has taken a place in literature.
As he had been expected to speak he spoke, of the great battle, of
the causes of the war, of the results to come after. It was an oration
which missed no shade of expression, no reach of grasp. Yet there
were those in the multitude, sympathetic to a unit as it was with the
Northern cause, who grew restless when this man who had been crowned
with so thick a laurel wreath by Americans spoke of Americans as
rebels, of a cause for which honest Americans were giving their lives
as a crime. The days were war days, and men's passions were inflamed,
yet there were men who listened to Edward Everett who believed that
his great speech would have been greater unenforced with bitterness.

As the clear, cultivated voice fell into silence, the mass of people
burst into a long storm of applause, for they knew that they had heard
an oration which was an event. They clapped and cheered him again and
again and again, as good citizens acclaim a man worthy of honor
whom they have delighted to honor. At last, as the ex-Governor of
Massachusetts, the ex-ambassador to England, the ex-Secretary of
State, the ex-Senator of the United States--handsome, distinguished,
graceful, sure of voice and of movement--took his seat, a tall, gaunt
figure detached itself from the group on the platform and slouched
slowly across the open space and stood facing the audience. A stir
and a whisper brushed over the field of humanity, as if a breeze
had rippled a monstrous bed of poppies. This was the President. A
quivering silence settled down and every eye was wide to watch this
strange, disappointing appearance, every ear alert to catch the first
sound of his voice. Suddenly the voice came, in a queer, squeaking
falsetto. The effect on the audience was irrepressible, ghastly.
After Everett's deep tones, after the strain of expectancy, this
extraordinary, gaunt apparition, this high, thin sou