Speech at the Hancock Equestrian dedication

I just found this excerpt of the speech that Henry Bingham gave at the dedication of the Hancock Equestrian Statue at Gettysburg. I found this very interesting. Please read it!

"What are the lessons of this field of blood, valor, and death? Do they teach us much or little? 'A brave man knows no malice, but at once forgets in peace, the injuries of war, and gives his direst foe a friend's embrace.'

"While, as a citizen and a soldier, recalling what was done at Gettysburg for the preservation of the Union, I may venture to hope that the time is coming. If it has not already arrived, when we shall celebrate this field as a festival of peace, rather than a festival of war. I doubt if there be a d0zen intelligent men among those who followed Lee from those Cashtown Hills, or charges with Pickett over these clover-blossoming fields, who, with the knowledge open to whoever will read and think , and our recent experiences in self-government, would revive the Lost Cause, with all therein implied. It was a delusion, foolish, frenzied, impossible. The cannon shot alone could bring the true awakening. And none in our citizenship breathe more freely than those who passed through the dreadful delusion.

"The peace thus attained, and as attained, was good for the North as well as for the South. As a soldier, who in a humble way was a part of that struggle, I should feel that even that victory was barren which did not bring with it reconciliation. We bore from this field the olive branch as the unfading emblem of fraternity, rather than the laurel, with the suggestions of strife. We bear the olive branch today, and in its proffer, as well as in a loyal acceptance of that proffer by our Southern friends, we have, I am proud to believe, the consummation of an undying and invincible Union.

"We should remember that this was a war of the people: that the soldiers who came upon this field were but an armed expression of the loyalty which remained at home. Gettysburg was a people's battle. This skill of the schoolman and the training consequent upon military experience were not without their effect. But, taken all in all, it was the American man fighting the American man.

"There was reason in the provocation to war, reason and wisdom in peace. We were one at the beginning; we are one at the end, and with underlying, intervening bonds of sympathy, which not even battle could sever, but which grew in strength and grace every day. No American can regard Gettysburg with sorrow or shame. Gettysburg was the victory of knowledge over ignorance, of humanity over tyranny, of wisdom as against folly, of the schoolhouse superseding and suppressing the auction block and the shackles of the slave, of patriotism conquering rebellion, of truth opposed to falsehood. It was Lincoln taking hands with Washington to save the Republic, which our first President had founded. Upon this field caste fell, freedom arose, never to fall again and American valor found its warrant to be respected over the world.

"Stricken with heavy wounds, the mighty shade of our comrade in arms 'of stainless name, of unblotted record, of immortal memory,' our Hancock passes in review. This illustrious commander of a chivalrous army fitly represents the chivalry of the war. This is the man whom today we came to honor. And thus he passes in solemn midnight review.

"The clang and din of battle here give place to the soothing voices of the night. The furrows once torn with suffering and death now yield to the ripening grain. The fear of imminent doom no longer darkens the fireside. The Gettysburg of the Secession war, fast melting into history, will become the Marathon of a new generation. The silent host passes on to be lost in the shadows and the gloom. The shades of Gettysburg march in review before even a mightier shade than that of Napoleon. This sublime presence, before whom the shadows pass, this, their beloved, immortal Lincoln, who returns their salute with a most gracious, sad smile, likewise shed his blood, and from his heart and brain came the inspiration which impelled them to victory. Lincoln was with them in sorrow and pain; he is with them now, even in this mighty review, sharing with them the joy of silence and peace, bequeathing the lesson of his life and his death. As this silent pageant is suffused into impartial, infolding night, we pray that should the hour come to the present as it came to the past generation, our people may emulate the self-sacrificing and devotion to which this field bears everlasting tribute."

New York Times,
June 6, 1896