chattanooga, chickamauga, lookout mountain. lincoln’s gettysburg speech.
in the west the war was now in two parts. the un-ion troops had won their first point, which was to hold the mis-sis-sip-pi riv-er. but there had to be a long, fierce fight ere they could gain cen-tral ten-nes-see and north geor-gi-a. the foe led by bragg, and the un-ion troops by ro-se-crans fought their best but it was not till the warm months, and the fall of 1863 that ro-se-crans, at last, made bragg fall back, bit by bit, un-til chat-ta-noo-ga was in the hands of the un-ion for-ces. then more of the foe went to help bragg, and the great fight of chick-a-mau-ga came on sept. 19 and 20, 1863.
the first day the un-ion ar-my won; but the next day the right half of ro-se-crans’ ar-my was bro-ken and fled to chat-ta-noo-ga. george h. thom-as, a brave man and a hard fight-er, by great skill held the left wing a-gainst charge af-ter charge that the foe made up-on it, and gave ro-se-crans time to take such steps
[116]
as would make safe the un-ion men who had fled to chat-ta-noo-ga.
grant then had all the troops west of the moun-tains in his charge. he gave ro-se-crans’ place to thom-as, who was called “the rock of chick-a-mau-ga.” grant him-self, with thom-as next, then took com-mand of the be-sieged for-ces at chat-ta-noo-ga.
some of bragg’s men had been sent off to make a strike at burn-side in east ten-nes-see, so grant saw that he had a good chance to make a move on the rear of bragg’s ar-my.
the line of the foe was twelve miles long, ’twixt mis-sion-a-ry ridge on the east and look-out moun-tain on the south. the last is a height which makes a sharp rise of 2,000 feet.
[117]
grant’s plan was to have his troops climb the two heights and storm the works that had been built on them. if he could take them, he would then com-mand the val-ley in which bragg’s troops lay, and could force him to give up the siege. he gave hoo-ker the task of mak-ing a strike at look-out moun-tain and sher-man had his work to do at the ridge.
at missionary ridge.
there was a dense mist on the morn-ing of nov. 23. sher-man went to work and got up-on the north end of the ridge, while hoo-ker did his part on look-out moun-tain. hoo-ker’s troops fought their way right up to the top and when there flung to the breeze the stars and stripes.
grant stood on or-chard knob and gave the or-der for 20,000 men to take a line of earth works which lay at the base of the ridge. this they did and grant then saw that the time was ripe for a great move. he gave the word for a charge to be made a-long the whole line of bat-tle.
a charge all along the line.
the day drew near its close. the shad-ow of look-out moun-tain fell far a-cross the plain. the last rays of the sun, ere it sank from sight, shone bright on the arms of the troops as on they came.
[118]
fierce was the fire which struck them, but on they went up the steep height, climb, climb as best they could, with the flags wav-ing be-yond them.
when the sun went down, with it went the hopes of the foe, for they fled and their own guns were turned up-on them.
af-ter the bat-tle of chat-ta-noo-ga, east ten-nes-see was in the hands of un-ion troops. the troops of the south that had held the field there, re-tired to guard geor-gi-a, al-a-bam-a, and north and south car-o-li-na.
the state of penn-syl-va-ni-a bought a part of the get-tys-burg bat-tle-field for a place of bur-i-al for the
[119]
un-ion sol-diers who there had fought their last fight. on nov. 19, 1863, that rest-ing place for the dead was to be “con-se-cra-ted.” ed-ward ev-e-rett, of mas-sa-chu-setts, was to give the o-ra-tion, or chief speech of the day.
some one told pres-i-dent lin-coln, that he, too, might be asked to speak. he said he would “put some stray thoughts to-geth-er,” and so, while in the cars on his way from the white house to the bat-tle-field, he took a pen-cil from his pock-et, and on bits of pa-per wrote the best speech of his life and one of the great-est speech-es of the world.
each word was of use. there were 267 words in all and they came straight from lin-coln’s heart. here they are:
“four score and sev-en years a-go our fa-thers brought forth on this con-ti-nent a new na-tion, con-ceived in lib-er-ty, and ded-i-ca-ted to the prop-o-si-tion that all men are cre-a-ted e-qual. now we are en-gaged in a great civ-il war, test-ing wheth-er that na-tion or an-y na-tion so con-ceived and so ded-i-ca-ted can long en-dure. we are met on a great bat-tle-field of that war. we have come to ded-i-cate a por-tion of that
[120]
field as a fin-al rest-ing place for those who here gave their lives that that na-tion might live. it is al-to-geth-er fit-ting and pro-per that we should do this. but, in a lar-ger sense, we can-not ded-i-cate—we can-not con-se-crate—we can-not hal-low this ground. the brave men, liv-ing and dead, who strug-gled here, have con-se-cra-ted it far a-bove our poor pow-er to add or de-tract.
“the world will lit-tle note, nor long re-mem-ber, what we say here; but it can nev-er for-get what they did here. it is for us, the liv-ing, rath-er to be ded-i-ca-ted here to the great task re-main-ing be-fore us—that, from these hon-ored dead, we take in-creased de-vo-tion to that cause for which they gave the last full meas-ure of de-vo-tion; that we here high-ly re-solve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this na-tion, un-der god, shall have a new birth of free-dom, and that gov-ern-ment of the peo-ple, by the peo-ple, for the peo-ple shall not per-ish from the earth.”
