expect [that] you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is
gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it."

Clearly as Mr. Lincoln had sketched and deeply as he felt Meade's fault
of omission, so quick was the President's spirit of forgiveness, and so
thankful was he for the measure of success which had been gained, that
he never signed or sent the letter.

Two memorable events are forever linked with the Gettysburg victory: the
surrender of Vicksburg to Grant on the same fourth of July, described in
the next chapter, and the dedication of the Gettysburg battle-field as a
national cemetery for Union soldiers, on November 19, 1863, on which
occasion President Lincoln crowned that imposing ceremonial with an
address of such literary force, brevity, and beauty, that critics have
assigned it a high rank among the world's historic orations. He said:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met
on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion
of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their
lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper
that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we
cannot hallow--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, the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God,
shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by
the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Having safely crossed the Potomac, the Confederate army continued its
retreat without halting to the familiar camps in central V