Plan of the national cemetery drawn in the autumn of 1863 by the notable landscape gardener, William Saunders.
MAP OF
THE GROUNDS
and
DESIGN FOR THE IMPROVEMENT
of
THE SOLDIERS’ NATIONAL CEMETERY,
GETTYSBURG, PA.
1863.
By
WILLIAM SAUNDERS,
Landscape Gardener Germantown, Penn.
1. UNKNOWN. 2. ILLINOIS. 3. VIRGINIA. 4. DELAWARE. 5. RHODE ISLAND. 6. NEW HAMPSHIRE. 7. VERMONT. 8. NEW JERSEY. 9. WISCONSIN. 10. CONNECTICUT. 11. MINNESOTA. 12. MARYLAND. 13. U. S. REGULARS. 14. UNKNOWN. 15. MAINE. 16. MICHIGAN 17. NEW YORK. 18. PENNSYLVANIA. 19. MASSACHUSETTS. 20. OHIO. 21. INDIANA. 22. UNKNOWN. 23. MONUMENT. 24. GATE-HOUSE. 25. FLAGSTAFF, ETC.
The Lincoln Address Memorial, the only monument ever erected to commemorate an address, stands near the west gate of the national cemetery.
GENESIS OF THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.
The theme of the Gettysburg Address was not entirely new. “Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its people,” Lincoln had once asked, “or too weak to maintain its own existence?” Speaking of war aims, he said, “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” When he referred at Gettysburg to “the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced,” he had in mind the high purpose of the preservation of the Union and the welfare of all the people. More than a year after Gettysburg, Lincoln in his Second Inaugural address uttered words which might very well be considered a companion sentiment to those expressed at Gettysburg: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.” This profession of faith came from the heart of a man of humility who sought then, as he did throughout the war, to assuage suffering and anxiety everywhere.
Rather than accept the address as a few brief notes hastily prepared on the route to Gettysburg (an assumption which has long gained much public acceptance), it should be regarded as a pronouncement of the high purpose dominant in Lincoln’s thinking throughout the war. Habitually cautious of words in public address, spoken or written, it is not likely that the President, on such an occasion, failed to give careful thought to the words which he would speak. After receiving the belated invitation on November 2, he yet had ample time to prepare for the occasion, and the well-known correspondent Noah Brooks stated that several days before the dedication Lincoln told him in Washington that his address would be “short, short, short” and that it was “written, but not finished.”