Fourth of July, 2011~~Rebirth of Freedom

On this day in 1863, General Robert E. Lee watched as his tattered, beaten army retreated back into Maryland and Virginia from the horrific battle at Gettysburg.

Today, we remember the birth of our nation. We also remember what that great battle, a turning point in the Civil War, meant.

In the fall of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln visited the battlefield where a formal cemetery was the beginning of a great park. Bruce Catton writes in Gettysburg: The Final Fury:

“…Lincoln spoke the few sentences that made cemetery and park something more than a simple memorial to human courage.

“…When he said that people would never forget what the soldiers had done on this battlefield, he added that no one would long remember what anyone said there; and this was a slight mistake, because what he said there is something the American people will always turn to when they want to know why this great hour of tragedy had to take place and what it meant in the growth of a great nation.

“…Lincoln reminded his listeners, the American people had brought forth a nation ‘conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’ The terrible Civil War itself, he said, was simply a matter of testing whether that nation and the dream that inspired it could go on living. The unlimited potential embodied in the great word 'America' depended on the way the challenge was met. The soldiers had done their part…to the last full measure of their devotion. The rest, then and thereafter, would be up to the living.

“To the living of all subsequent generations, including this one, Gettysburg left an unending responsibility. A nation built on the idea that all men—all men—are of equal worth and equal rights summons everyone of its citizens to the life-long commitment to put that idea into practical effect.

“Gettysburg, then, was the price we paid for our service under that great concept. It was one step in a long progression; not an end, but a beginning—a pledge written in blood that freedom should be reborn in every generation.”

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“The soldiers had done their part…to the last full measure of their devotion. The rest, then and thereafter, would be up to the living.”

Today we remember the price of freedom and the ideals for which we sacrifice, then and now.

God bless America.

Fly our flag proudly and humbly remembering its challenge to the living.

Taylor Hicks sings our National Anthem at San Francisco Giants' Opening Day Ceremonies, 2009.

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Quote Source: Catton, Bruce. Gettysburg: The Final Fury. Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York. 1974.

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Thanks to a friend who reminded me of my history. Thanks to a departed friend who read much about the Civil War, loved his books, and served his country as a proud Marine.

And thanks to Mr. Catton who reminded us of the price of freedom and that freedom comes with responsibility.