1 After the Battle of Gettysburg, the body of a Union soldier was found in a secluded spot, partly reclining. In his cold hand was an ambrotype likeness of three little children, upon which his open, but then rayless eye had evidently been gazing at the last moment of his life. A notice of the fact was given in a Philadelphia paper. Public curiosity was excited, for there was no clew to the name of the soldier. Copies of the ambrotype were made. The touching story found its way through numerous newspapers, with a description of the soldier and the faces of the three children. By this means the widowed mother was informed of the fate of the husband and father. The soldier proved to be Sergeant Hunniston, of Portville, in Western New York, and to his afflicted family Dr. J. F. Bourns, of Philadelphia, conveyed the precious ambrotype, and some substantial presents from citizens of Philadelphia, early in January, 1864.
2 See page 74.
3 The following is a copy of Mr. Lincoln's remarks:--
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, an 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 are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of 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 power to add or detract. The world will little note or 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 that they have thus far so nobly carried on. 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 here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom; and governments of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
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