23

In the spring of 1863, Lee, flushed with a phenomenal series of brilliant victories, determined to take the offensive and invade the North. He planned to seize the rich manufacturing centers of Pennsylvania, secure food, medicine, and new clothes for his ragged troops, possibly capture Washington, and compel France and Great Britain to recognize the Confederacy.

A bold, reckless move! True, but the Southern troops were boasting that one Confederate could whip three Yankees, and they believed it; so when their officers told them they could eat beef twice a day when they reached Pennsylvania, they were eager to be off at once.

Before he quit Richmond, Lee received disquieting news from home. A terrible thing had happened! One of his daughters had actually been caught reading a novel. The great general was distressed; so he wrote, pleading with her to devote her leisure to such innocuous classics as Plato and Homer, and Plutarch's Lives. After finishing the letter, Lee read his Bible and knelt in prayer, as was his custom; then he blew out the candle and turned in for the night....

Presently he was off with seventy-five thousand men. His hungry army plunged across the Potomac, throwing the country into a panic. Farmers rushed out of the Cumberland Valley, driving their horses and cattle before them; and negroes, their eyes white with fear, fled in terror, lest they be dragged back to slavery.

Lee's artillery was already thundering before Harrisburg, when he learned that, back in the rear, the Union Army was threatening to break his lines of communication. So he whirled around as an angry ox would to gore a dog snapping at his heels; and, quite by chance, the ox and the dog met at a sleepy little Pennsylvania village with a theological seminary, a place called Gettysburg, and fought there the most famous battle in the history of our country.

During the first two days of the fighting the Union Army lost twenty thousand men; and, on the third day, Lee hoped finally to smash the enemy by a terrific assault of fresh troops under the command of General George Pickett.

These were new tactics for Lee. Up to this time, he had fought with his men behind breastworks or concealed in the woods. Now he planned to make a desperate attack out in the open.

The very contemplation of it staggered Lee's most brilliant assistant, General Longstreet.

“Great God!” Longstreet exclaimed. “Look, General Lee, at the insurmountable difficulties between our line and that of the Yankees—the steep hills, the tiers of artillery, the fences. And then we shall have to fight our infantry against their battery. Look at the ground we shall have to charge over, nearly a mile of it there in the open, under the line of their canister and shrapnel. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle could take that position.”

But Lee was adamant. “There were never such men in an army before,” he replied. “They will go anywhere and do anything if properly led.”

So Lee held to his decision, and made the bloodiest blunder of his career.

The Confederates had already massed one hundred and fifty cannon along Seminary Ridge. If you visit Gettysburg, you can see them there to-day, placed precisely as they were on that fateful July afternoon when they laid down a barrage such as, up to that time, had never before been heard on earth.

Longstreet in this instance had keener judgment than Lee. He believed that the charge could result in nothing but pointless butchery; so he bowed his head and wept and declined to issue the order. Consequently, another officer had to give the command for him; and, in obedience to that command, General George Pickett led his Southern troops in the most dramatic and disastrous charge that ever occurred in the Western world.

Strangely enough, this general who led the assault on the Union lines was an old friend of Lincoln's. In fact, Lincoln had made it possible for him to go to West Point. He was a picturesque character, this man Pickett. He wore his hair so long that his auburn locks almost touched his shoulders; and, like Napoleon in his Italian campaigns, he wrote ardent love-letters almost daily on the battle-field. His devoted troops cheered him that afternoon as he rode off jauntily toward the Union lines, with his cap set at a rakish angle over his right ear. They cheered and they followed him, man touching man, rank pressing rank, with banners flying and bayonets gleaming in the sun. It was picturesque. Daring. Magnificent. A murmur of admiration ran through the Union lines as they beheld it.

Pickett's troops swept forward at an easy trot, through an orchard and corn-field, across a meadow, and over a ravine. All the time, the enemy's cannon were tearing ghastly holes in their ranks. But on they pressed, grim, irresistible.

Suddenly the Union infantry rose from behind the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge where they had been hiding, and fired volley after volley into Pickett's defenseless troops. The crest of the hill was a sheet of flame, a slaughter-house, a blazing volcano. In a few minutes, all of Pickett's brigade commanders, except one, were down, and four fifths of his five thousand men had fallen.

A thousand fell where Kemper led;

A thousand died where Garnett bled;

In blinding flame and strangling smoke

The remnant through the batteries broke,

And crossed the fine with Armistead.

Armistead, leading the troops in the final plunge, ran forward, vaulted over the stone wall, and, waving his cap on the top of his sword, shouted:

“Give 'em the steel, boys!”

They did. They leaped over the wall, bayoneted their enemies, smashed skulls with clubbed muskets, and planted the battle-flags of the South on Cemetery Ridge.

The banners waved there, however, only for a moment. But that moment, brief as it was, recorded the high-water mark of the Confederacy.

Pickett's charge—brilliant, heroic—was nevertheless the beginning of the end. Lee had failed. He could not penetrate the North. And he knew it.

The South was doomed.

As the remnant of Pickett's bleeding men struggled back from their fatal charge, Lee, entirely alone, rode out to encourage them, and greeted them with a self-condemnation that was little short of sublime.

“All this has been my fault,” he confessed. “It is I who have lost this fight.”

During the night of July 4 Lee began to retreat. Heavy rains were falling, and by the time he reached the Potomac the water was so high that he couldn't cross.

There Lee was, caught in a trap, an impassable river in front of him, a victorious enemy behind him. Meade, it seemed, had him at his mercy. Lincoln was delighted; he was sure the Federal troops would swoop down upon Lee's flank and rear now, rout and capture his men, and bring the war to an abrupt and triumphant close. And if Grant had been there, that is probably what would have happened.

But the vain and scholarly Meade was not the bulldog Grant. Every day for an entire week Lincoln repeatedly urged and commanded Meade to attack, but he was too cautious, too timid. He did not want to fight; he hesitated, he telegraphed excuses, he called a council of war in direct violation of orders—and did nothing, while the waters receded and Lee escaped.

Lincoln was furious.

“What does this mean?” he cried. “Great God! What does this mean? We had them within our grasp, and had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours; yet nothing that I could say or do could make the army move. Under the circumstances, almost any general could have defeated Lee. If I had gone up there, I could have whipped him, myself.” In bitter disappointment, Lincoln sat down and wrote Meade a letter, in which he said:

My dear General, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within our easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so south of the river, when you can take with you very few more than two-thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect and I do not expect that you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it.

Lincoln read this letter, and then stared out the window with unseeing eyes, and did a bit of thinking: “If I had been in Meade's place,” he probably mused to himself, “and had had Meade's temperament and the advice of his timid officers, and if I had been awake as many nights as he had, and had seen as much blood, I might have let Lee escape, too.”

The letter was never sent. Meade never saw it. It was found among Lincoln's papers after his death.

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought during the first week of July; six thousand dead and twenty-seven thousand wounded were left on the field. Churches, schools, and barns were turned into hospitals; groans of the suffering filled the air. Scores were dying every hour, corpses were decaying rapidly in the intense heat. The burial parties had to work fast. There was little time to dig graves; so, in many instances, a little dirt was scooped over a body where it lay. After a week of hard rains, many of the dead were half exposed. The Union soldiers were gathered from their temporary graves, and buried in one place. The following autumn the Cemetery Commission decided to dedicate the ground, and invited Edward Everett, the most famous orator in the United States, to deliver the address.

Formal invitations to attend the exercises were sent to the President, to the Cabinet, to General Meade, to all members of both houses of Congress, to various distinguished citizens, and to the members of the diplomatic corps. Very few of these people accepted; many didn't acknowledge the invitation.

The committee had not the least idea that the President would come. In fact, they had not even troubled to write him a personal invitation. He got merely a printed one. They imagined that his secretaries might drop it in the waste-basket without even showing it to Lincoln.

So when he wrote saying he would be present, the committee was astonished. And a bit embarrassed. What should they do? Ask him to speak? Some argued that he was too busy for that, that he couldn't possibly find time to prepare. Others frankly asked, “Well, even if he had the time, has he the ability?” They doubted it.

Oh, yes, he could make a stump speech in Illinois; but speaking at the dedication of a cemetery? No. That was different. That was not Lincoln's style. However, since he was coming anyway, they had to do something. So they finally wrote him, saying that after Mr. Everett had delivered his oration, they would like to have him make “a few appropriate remarks.” That was the way they phrased it—“a few appropriate remarks.”

The invitation just barely missed being an insult. But the President accepted it. Why? There is an interesting story behind that. The previous autumn Lincoln had visited the battle-field of Antietam; and, one afternoon while he and an old friend from Illinois, Ward Lamon, were out driving, the President turned to Lamon and asked him to sing what Lincoln called his “sad little song.” It was one of Lincoln's favorites.

“Many a time, on the Illinois circuit and often at the White House when Lincoln and I were alone,” says Lamon, “I have seen him in tears while I was rendering that homely melody.”

It went like this:

I've wandered to the village, Tom; I've sat beneath the tree

Upon the schoolhouse play-ground, that sheltered you and me;

But none were left to greet me, Tom, and few were left to know

Who played with us upon the green, some twenty years ago.

Near by the spring, upon the elm you know I cut your name,—

Your sweetheart's just beneath it, Tom; and you did mine the same.

Some heartless wretch has peeled the bark—'twas dying sure but slow,

Just as she died whose name you cut, some twenty years ago.

My lids have long been dry, Tom, but tears came to my eyes;

I thought of her I loved so well, those early broken ties:

I visited the old churchyard, and took some flowers to strow

Upon the graves of those we loved, some twenty years ago.

As Lamon sang it now, probably Lincoln fell to dreaming of the only woman he had ever loved, Ann Rutledge, and he thought of her lying back there in her neglected grave on the Illinois prairie; and the rush of these poignant memories filled his eyes with tears. So Lamon, to break the spell of Lincoln's melancholy, struck up a humorous negro melody.

That was all there was to the incident. It was perfectly harmless, and very pathetic. But Lincoln's political enemies distorted it and lied about it and tried to make it a national disgrace. They made it appear like a gross indecency. The New York “World” repeated some version of the scandal every day for almost three months. Lincoln was accused of cracking jokes and singing funny songs on the battle-field where “heavy details of men were engaged in burying the dead.”

The truth is that he had cracked no jokes at all, that he had sung no songs, that he had been miles away from the battlefield when the incident occurred, that the dead had all been buried before that, and rain had fallen upon their graves. Such were the facts. But his enemies didn't want facts. They were lusting for blood. A bitter cry of savage denunciation swept over the land.

Lincoln was deeply hurt. He was so distressed that he could not bear to read these attacks, yet he didn't feel that he ought to answer them, for that would merely dignify them. So he suffered in silence, and when the invitation came to speak at the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery, he welcomed it. It was just the opportunity he desired to silence his enemies and pay his humble tribute to the honored dead.

The invitation came late, and he had only a crowded fortnight in which to prepare his speech. He thought it over during his spare moments—while dressing, while being shaved, while eating his lunch, while walking back and forth between Stanton's office and the White House. He mused upon it while stretched out on a leather couch in the war-office, waiting for the late telegraphic reports. He wrote a rough draft of it on a piece of pale-blue foolscap paper, and carried it about in the top of his hat. The Sunday before it was delivered he said: “I have written it over two or three times, but it is not finished. I shall have to give it another lick before I am satisfied.”

He arrived in Gettysburg the night before the dedication. The little town was filled to overflowing. Its usual population of thirteen hundred had been swelled to almost thirty thousand. The weather was fine; the night was clear; a bright full moon rode high through the sky. Only a fraction of the crowd could find beds; thousands paraded up and down the village until dawn. The sidewalks soon became clogged, impassable; so hundreds, locked arm in arm, marched in the middle of the dirt streets, singing, “John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave.”

Lincoln devoted all that evening to giving his speech “another lick.” At eleven o'clock he went to an adjoining house, where Secretary Seward was staying, and read the speech aloud to him, asking for his criticisms. The next morning, after breakfast, Lincoln continued working over it until a rap at the door reminded him that it was time for him to take his place in the procession headed for the cemetery.

As the procession started, he sat erect at first; but presently his body slouched forward in the saddle; his head fell on his chest, and his long arms hung limp at his sides.... He was lost in thought, going over his little speech, giving it “another lick.”

Edward Everett, the selected orator of the occasion, made two mistakes at Gettysburg. Both bad—and both uncalled for. First, he arrived an hour late; and, secondly, he spoke for two hours.

Lincoln had read Everett's oration and when he saw that the speaker was nearing his close, he knew his time was coming, and he honestly felt that he wasn't adequately prepared; so he grew nervous, twisted in his chair, drew his manuscript from the pocket of his Prince Albert coat, put on his old-fashioned glasses, and quickly refreshed his memory.

Presently he stepped forward, manuscript in hand, and delivered his little address in two minutes.

Did his audience realize, that soft November afternoon, that they were listening to the greatest speech that had ever fallen from human lips up to that time? No, most of his hearers were merely curious: they had never seen nor heard a President of the United States, they strained their necks to look at Lincoln, and were surprised to discover that such a tall man had such a high, thin voice, and that he spoke with a Southern accent. They had forgotten that he was born a Kentuckian and that he had retained the intonation of his native State; and about the time they felt he was getting through with his introduction and ready to launch into his speech—he sat down.

What! Had he forgotten? Or was it really all he had to say? People were too surprised and disappointed to applaud.

Many a spring, back in Indiana, Lincoln had tried to break ground with a rusty plow; but the soil had stuck to its moldboard, and made a mess. It wouldn't “scour.” That was the term people used. Throughout his life, when Lincoln wanted to indicate that a thing had failed, he frequently resorted to the phraseology of the corn-field. Turning now to Ward Lamon, Lincoln said:

“That speech is a flat failure, Lamon. It won't scour. The people are disappointed.”

He was right. Every one was disappointed, including Edward Everett and Secretary Seward, who were sitting on the platform with the President. They both believed he had failed woefully; and both felt sorry for him.

Lincoln was so distressed that he worried himself into a severe headache; and on the way back to Washington, he had to lie down in the drawing-room of the train and have his head bathed with cold water.

Lincoln went to his grave believing that he had failed utterly at Gettysburg. And he had, as far as the immediate effect of his speech was concerned.

With characteristic modesty, he sincerely felt that the world would “little note nor long remember” what he said there, but that it would never forget what the brave men who died had done there. How surprised he would be if he should come back to life now and realize that the speech of his that most people remember is the one that didn't “scour” at Gettysburg! How amazed he would be to discover that the ten immortal sentences he spoke there will probably be cherished as one of the literary glories and treasures of earth centuries hence, long after the Civil War is all but forgotten.

Lincoln's Gettysburg address is more than a speech. It is the divine expression of a rare soul exalted and made great by suffering. It is an unconscious prose poem, and has all the majestic beauty and profound roll of epic lines:

Four score and seven years ago

Our fathers brought forth upon 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 battle-field 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 can not dedicate—we can not consecrate

We can not 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.

23

一八六三年春，李将军被一系列显著而非凡的胜利冲昏了头脑，意气风发地决定入侵北方。他计划先占领宾夕法尼亚州富庶的制造业中心，确保自己那些衣衫褴褛的士兵有足够的食物、药品和衣物，然后设法攻占华盛顿，接着迫使英国和法国承认南方联盟。

这是一场大胆又鲁莽的行动。南方军自大地认为，一个南方勇士抵得上三个北方佬。他们对于这一点深信不疑，于是当他们的长官告诉他们，到了宾夕法尼亚州后一天可以吃两顿牛肉时，他们恨不得立刻出发。

在离开里士满之前，李收到了家里传来的令人心烦的消息。他家里发生了一件很糟糕的大事：他的一个女儿被抓到偷看小说。这位伟大的将军非常忧虑，于是提笔给女儿写信，恳求她将自己的空余时间用在阅读经典作品上，例如柏拉图和荷马的作品，以及普鲁塔克的名人传。写完信后，李和往常一样读了会儿《圣经》，然后跪下祷告。接着他吹灭了蜡烛，上床睡觉去了。

没过多久，李率领着七万五千人出发了。这支饥饿的军队横渡波托马克河，整个国家因此陷入了惊慌。农民们驾着牛马仓皇逃出了坎伯兰山谷。黑人们眼中满是恐惧，四处逃命，唯恐再被抓回去做奴隶。

当李将军的炮火在宾夕法尼亚州首府哈里斯堡前轰隆响起的时候，李发现北方军正试图切断他的后方通讯线。于是，他就像一头愤怒的公牛一样回转枪头，想要凶狠地顶伤在他身后撕咬他的脚跟的小狗。机缘巧合之下，公牛和小狗在宾夕法尼亚州一处有着一所神学院的静谧小乡村相遇了。这个地方名为葛底斯堡，正是在这里，双方发动了美国历史上最为著名的一场战役。

在战役的前两天，北方军损失了两万人。战役第三天，李让乔治·皮克特（George Pickett）将军带领生力军向北方发起一波强攻，希望能借此彻底摧毁敌人。

这是李的新战略。到目前为止，李和他的部下都是通过躲在胸墙后面或隐藏在树林里的方式进行战斗，现在他计划在空地上发动一次猛烈的正面攻击。

李最杰出的副将朗斯特里特将军经过仔细考虑，对这个战略提出了质疑。

“上帝啊！”朗斯特里特大喊道，“李将军，你看一下这些横在我军和北方军之间的障碍——陡峭的山坡，层层的炮火，还有围墙——这些几乎是不可攻克的。即便越过了这些障碍，我们的步兵还要面对敌军的炮兵连。你看，我们的冲锋区域是一片接近一英里的开阔之地，到时我们会完全暴露在敌军的霰弹筒和弹片之下。我认为，从没有哪支一万五千人的军队攻下过这样的地方。”

但李固执己见。“那是因为那些军队里没有我们的士兵。”他回答道，“只要引领恰当，我们的士兵可以去任何地方，做任何事。”

李坚持自己的意见，于是犯下了职业生涯中最为致命的大错。

南方军已沿着神学院山脊调集了一百五十枚加农炮。如果你去葛底斯堡参观，便能看到它们仍立在原地，和那个在宿命的七月下午，发动的有史以来最为密集的火力网时的样子一模一样。

此时此刻，朗斯特里特的判断比李更准确。他认为这次出击是毫无意义的，只会血流成河，于是他低下头忍不住哭泣，拒绝发布攻击命令。结果，另外一位指挥官代替他下达了命令。在这项命令的指引下，乔治·皮克特率领着南方军进行了一场西方世界从未有过的最戏剧化、伤亡最惨烈的进攻。

有意思的是，这位带兵侵犯联邦军防线的将军，是林肯的一位旧识。事实上，是林肯促成了他去西点军校。皮克特是一个很有个性的人。他留着一头赤褐色的披肩长发，在战场上几乎每天都会写热烈的情书，就像在意大利战场的拿破仑一样。那天下午，在忠诚的士兵们的欢呼声中，他潇洒地向右边歪戴着军帽，得意扬扬地骑着马朝北方军的防线进军。士兵们兴高采烈地跟在他身后，摩肩接踵，一个阵列接着一个阵列。旌旗飘扬，一排排锋利的枪刺在阳光下闪烁着白光。这是一幕别开生面的场景，壮观又豪情万丈。北方军看到这一景象，羡慕之情在心中悄然蔓延开来。

皮克特的部队一路小跑着前进，穿过了果园和玉米地，越过了草场和山涧。一路上，北方军的炮火在他们的阵列中撕开了一个又一个可怕的口子，但他们仍旧义无反顾地带着肃穆的神情相互拥挤着向前行进。

突然，躲藏在墓园山脊石墙后的北方军步兵冲了出来。一波又一波的子弹扫向皮克特那毫无防备的大军。山顶就像喷发的火山一样满是火光，俨然已成了一片屠宰场。几分钟后，皮克特手下的旅级指挥官只剩下一名，其余都阵亡了。五千士兵死了四千人。

坎伯领军的地方，倒下了一千人，

加尼特牺牲的地方，死了一千人，

在迷人眼的火焰和令人窒息的硝烟中，

剩余的将士在枪林弹雨中冲锋，

跟着阿米斯特德冲过防线。

阿米斯特德率领军队进行最后的冲锋。他勇往直前，跃过石墙，将帽子挑在刀尖上，一边挥舞一边喊道：

“兄弟们，让他们尝尝尖刀的滋味。”

士兵们十分英勇。他们越过石墙，用刺刀疯狂地攻击敌人，用枪托敲碎敌人的头颅，将南方军的战旗插上了墓园山脊。

然而，那面战旗只飘扬了一小会儿。这短暂的一小会儿成为南方军在这场战役中的巅峰时刻。

皮克特的指挥是明智且英勇的，但却是南方战败的开始。李将军败了。他无法攻入北方，而他自己也很清楚这一点。

南方军注定要失败了。

皮克特带着被打得落花流水的残部狼狈地从生死一线的战场撤回后，李独自一人骑着马去慰问他们。他用略带黯淡的口吻自责道：“这都是我的错。是我输了这一战。”

七月四日晚，李开始撤退。当晚大雨滂沱，当他到达波托马克河时，河水已暴涨。李过不了河。

李陷入了困境：前有汹涌的河水，后有得胜的追兵。看起来，李的命运已掌握在北方军将领米德手中。林肯非常高兴，他认为联邦军完全可以从李的左右两翼和后方发动袭击，击溃李的大军，从而以迅雷不及掩耳之势取得战争的胜利。如果当时格兰特在那里，事情大概会按照林肯的预想发生。

但是米德不是斗牛犬似的格兰特，他是徒有其表的学究派。李被困的那一周，林肯每天都不断地催促、命令米德发动攻击。但米德太谨慎，也太胆怯。他根本不想打仗，于是总是犹豫，还发电报找借口，甚至抗命召开军事会议——最后当河水退去李率部逃走时，他什么都没做。

林肯愤怒了。

“这是什么意思？”林肯大叫道，“上帝啊，这是什么意思？敌人就在我们的掌控之下，只要伸一伸手就能拿下他们，但是不管我说什么、做什么，军队就是不作为。在那种情况下，随便哪个将军都能击败李。如果我在那里，我也能打得李满地找牙。”

在极度的失望下，林肯坐下给米德写了封信。林肯这样写道：

亲爱的将军，我认为你并不理解让李逃脱这件事是一场多么巨大的灾难。他就在我们的掌控之下，只要你往前走几步，战争就可以结束了。但是现在，战争将会无限期地拖延下去。

上周一你没有把握击败李，那么之后等你带着只有现在三分之二的兵力到达河南岸时，你又凭什么有把握呢？指望你还能有所作为是一件不理智的事。我现在根本不指望你还能有什么作为。你错失了最佳的机会，对此我感到万分苦恼。

林肯重读了一遍这封信，眼神空洞地望着窗外，陷入了沉思。“如果我在米德的位置，”他也许这样对自己说，“性格和米德一样谨慎，耳朵里塞满了怯懦的军官们提出的建议；如果我和他一样常常半夜惊醒，和他一样见过鲜血淋漓的场面，我也许也会放走李。”

林肯没有寄出这封信，米德也没有读过这封信。直到林肯死后，人们才看到这封和其他文件放在一起的信。

葛底斯堡战役是在七月的第一周打响的。六千人丧生，两万七千名伤者被留在了战场上。教堂、学校和谷仓都变成了临时医院。空气中满是痛苦的哀号。每个小时都有伤员濒临死亡。将士的尸体在酷热的天气下快速地腐烂。埋葬工作必须加快。没有时间挖坑，于是很多时候，只能就地在尸体上覆一层薄土。下了一个星期大雨后，很多尸体都露了出来。于是人们将这些为联邦牺牲的士兵放在了一起，然后统一埋了起来。第二年秋天，墓地委员会决定为这片墓地举办命名仪式，并邀请美国最著名的演说家爱德华·埃弗里特（Edward Everett）致辞。

同时，委员会还向总统、内阁、米德将军、国会两院所有成员、诸多杰出市民和外交使节团的成员发出了正式邀请。接受邀请的人很少，很多人甚至不承认收到了邀请。

委员会根本没预料到总统会来。事实上，他们甚至没有给总统发一封私人请柬，只给林肯发了一张和别人一样的印刷请柬。他们觉得总统的秘书大概会将请柬直接扔进垃圾桶，根本不会拿到总统面前。

因此当总统回信说自己会参加时，委员会震惊了，同时也很为难。他们该怎么办呢？

邀请总统讲话？有人认为总统太忙了，没有时间准备讲话。其他人直白地表示：“即便他有时间准备，他有这个能力吗？”对此，委员会表示十分怀疑。

是，他在伊利诺伊州成功地做了竞选演说，但是为墓地致辞……不，这完全是两码事。这不是林肯的风格。但是他既然来了，总得让他做点什么。所以他们最终在给林肯的回信上表示希望林肯能够在埃弗里特先生演讲结束后“适当地讲两句”。他们原话就是这样说的——“适当地讲两句。”

这样的邀请几乎是一种侮辱，但林肯仍接受了。为什么？这背后还有一个有趣的故事。去年秋天，林肯访问了安提塔姆河战场。一天下午，林肯和伊利诺伊州的旧友沃德·拉蒙（Ward Lamon）一同驾车出行。林肯面朝拉蒙，请他唱那首林肯称之为“悲伤小调”的歌曲。这是林肯最爱的曲子。

“很多次，在伊利诺伊州巡回办案的时候，或者是单独和林肯在白宫的时候，”拉蒙说，“当我唱起这支平凡的曲子时，林肯总是泪流满面。”

这首歌是这样的：

我向着村庄走去，汤姆

我坐在学校操场上

那棵曾经为我们挡风遮雨的树下

可是汤姆，没有人来迎接我

也没有人知道，二十年前

当我们还年幼时

是谁陪在我们左右

泉水旁的榆树上，我刻下你的名字

还在你的名字下方刻上了你心中的挚爱

汤姆，你也在树上刻上了我的名字

一些无情的可怜人剥下了树皮

榆树正在缓缓地死去

就像二十年前刻在上面的名字一样

我的眼睑已干涸许久，汤姆

可现在泪水又涌上了眼眶

我想起了曾经挚爱的她，还有那早已断绝的情愫

我去了教堂的墓地，将花瓣撒在坟上

二十年前，我曾深爱过她

也许，拉蒙唱这首歌的时候，林肯回想起了自己唯一爱过的女人——安·拉特利奇，想起了她正长眠在伊利诺伊平原上冷清的荒冢中。往昔那心酸的回忆让他的眼中蓄满了泪水。为了打破林肯悲伤的魔咒，拉蒙又唱起了一首幽默的黑人歌曲。

事情就是这样。这本是一件无伤大雅又充满哀伤的小事，但林肯的政敌却恶意曲解了这件事，并试图让它成为一件全国性的丑闻。他们将这件事描绘成了一副有伤风化的样子。关于这件丑闻的各种不同的说法，纽约《世界报》连续刊登了三个月。他们谴责林肯在“人人都在忙着掩埋将士尸体”的战场上说说笑笑，唱滑稽的歌曲。

事实是，林肯根本没有说说笑笑，也没有唱歌。当这件事发生的时候，林肯离战场足有数英里远。在这件事发生之前，亡者早就埋葬妥当，是大雨冲开了他们的坟墓。这才是事实。但林肯的政敌并不需要事实。他们渴望看见鲜血，希望全国上下一起强烈谴责林肯。

林肯非常受伤。他很伤心，甚至不愿看那些攻击他的报道，但同时他也不认为自己应该做出回应，因为那样只会让对方的气焰更加嚣张。他只能默默地忍受着一切。因此当他收到为葛底斯堡墓地致辞的邀请时，他欣然接受了。他正需要这样的机会让政敌闭嘴，同时也向那些光荣牺牲的将士表达自己卑微的哀思。

邀请函来得有些晚，林肯只有两周时间来准备他的发言。他利用一切空闲的时间思考发言稿——穿衣服的时候，刮胡子的时候，吃午饭的时候以及在来往斯坦顿的办公室和白宫的路上。甚至躺在战争办公室的皮沙发上等待最新的电报时，他也在思考发言的内容。他将初稿写在一张淡蓝色的大号书写纸上，塞在帽子里随身携带。在发言前的那个礼拜天，林肯说：“我已经修改了两三遍，但还没有定稿。我得再润色一遍才能安心。”

他在致辞前一天抵达了葛底斯堡。整个小镇早已人满为患，原本只有一千三百常住人口的小镇挤入了近三万人。当晚天气很好，夜空明朗，一轮圆月高高地挂在空中。只有一小部分人找到了住处，剩余的人只能彻夜在镇里走来走去。人行道很快便挤得水泄不通，无法通行。于是数百人手挽着手，一边在泥泞的街道中央游行，一边大声唱着“约翰·布朗，你的身躯在坟墓中腐朽”。

那天晚上，林肯一直在“润色”他的发言稿。十一点钟的时候，林肯去了旁边苏华德的房间，将发言稿大声地朗读给他听，并征求他的意见。第二天早上吃过早饭后，林肯继续斟酌他的发言稿。直到门外响起一阵敲门声，他才想起是时候和大部队一起去公墓了。

队伍出发的时候，一开始林肯笔直地坐在马鞍上，但没过多久，他的背便开始向前弯曲，他的头垂在胸口，而那双颀长的双臂则软绵绵地垂在身体两侧……林肯陷入了沉思，一遍又一遍地在脑海中回顾他的发言稿，并将稿件又“润色”了一遍。

爱德华·埃弗里特是墓地委员会指定的演说家，但他在葛底斯堡犯了两个错误。这两个错误既无必要，影响也很坏。首先，他迟到了一个小时；其次，他说了两个小时。

林肯静静地听着埃弗里特的演讲。当他意识到埃弗里特正在收尾时，他知道该轮到自己了，但他十分诚实地认为自己并未做好充分的准备。林肯十分紧张，坐在椅子里不安地扭来扭去。他从双排扣长礼服的口袋中拿出了发言稿，戴上他那副老式的眼镜，迅速地重温着发言的内容。

接着，他拿着发言稿，向前走去。他花了两分钟完成了他的讲话。

听众知道在那个柔和的十一月的下午，他们听到了一场有史以来最伟大的演说吗？他们不知道。大多数听众只觉得好奇，他们从没见过美国总统，也没亲身听过总统讲话。他们伸长脖子打量林肯，却惊讶地发现眼前的这位大高个儿竟然有着一副高亮尖细的嗓音，而且还带着南方口音。他们忘记了林肯本就是肯塔基州人，肯塔基的方言本就带着一股南方口音。当他们以为林肯说完了介绍词，即将开始正式演讲的时候，林肯却坐了下来。

怎么回事？总统是不是忘词了？这就是他的讲话？人们沉浸在震惊和失望之中，甚至忘记了鼓掌。

在印第安纳州的时候，每逢春天，林肯总是用一把生锈的犁耕地，结果泥全沾在了犁板上，弄得一塌糊涂。人们常用“擦不亮”这个词来形容糟糕的情况。在林肯的一生中，每当他想暗示一件事情失败了，他便会借用这句农田上流传的土话。关于那场演说，林肯这样对沃德·拉蒙说：

“拉蒙，那场讲话彻底失败了。擦不亮了。人们都很失望。”

林肯说得没错，每个人都感到失望，包括爱德华·埃弗里特以及和总统一起坐在台上的国务卿苏华德。他们都认