Gettysburg

"In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays.  Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision – place of souls.  And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls."

                                   -JOSHUA LAWRENCE CHAMBERLIN

                                     Gettysburg, October 3, 1889

President Johnson and I loved driving through the battlefields as we entered Gettysburg for district meetings.  There is truly a scared feeling there. 

Col. Joshua Chamberlain was a professor of modern languages at Bowdoin College in Maine. He took a sabbatical to study in Europe but instead joined the Union Army.  Under his direction his regiment changed the course of history at the battle of Gettysburg!

We took an early morning walk . . .

Here at the Wills house President Lincoln composed the Gettysburgh Address -a tribute to those who gave their lives willingly, that (WE) this nation, under God, should have a new birth of freedom!