Memorial Day

Two of my favorite writings to share :
The first is from the PBS Civil War series by Ken Burns, I don't remember and didn't keep track of the name of the soldier who wrote this, but I believe he was a casualty of war, hence the reason I post it today, in honor of Memorial Day and all those who have given their lives in service to our country.

The second, the beautiful Gettysburg Address, it is a poem to me and I've tried a few times to memorize it-hasn't happened yet.  I was reminded again of it today as we read from the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 29:32  "And now I desire that this inequality should be no more in this land, especially among this my people; but I desire that this land be a land of liberty, and every man may enjoy his rights and privileges alike, so long as the Lord sees fit that we may live and inherit the land, yea, even as long as any of our posterity remains upon the face of the land."




July 14, 1861
Washington D.C.

Dear Sarah,
     The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow, and lest I should not be able to write you again I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.
     I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter.  I know how American civilization now leans upon the triumph of the government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the revolution.  And I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government and to pay that debt.
     Sarah, my love for you is deathless.  It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break.  And yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield.  The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me and I feel most deeply grateful to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long.
     And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years when God willing we might still have lived and loved together and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us.
     If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battle field it will whisper your name.
     Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you, how thoughtless, how foolish I have sometimes been.
     But oh Sarah~
          If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you in the brightest day and the darkest night, always~always~and when the soft breeze fans your cheek it shall be my breath, or the cool air your throbbing temple it shall be my spirit passing by.
                                      Sarah, do not mourn me dead,
                                            think I am gone and wait for me,
                                                  for we shall meet again.

Gettysburg Address

     Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and 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 battlefield of that war.  We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for 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 poor power to add or detract.  The world will little note nor 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 which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  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 gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.