Lincoln, the unknown

170 • LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNnitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday,how can you possibly do so south of the river, when youcan take with you very few more than two-thirds of theforce you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable toexpect and I do not expect that you can now effect much.Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurablybecause of it.Lincoln read this letter,and then stared out the window withunseeing eyes, and did a bit of thinking: "If I had been inMeade's place," he probably mused to himself, "and had hadMeade's temperament and the advice of his timid officers, andif I had been awake as many nights as he had, and had seenas much blood, I might have let Lee escape, too."The letter was never sent. Meade never saw it. It was foundamong Lincoln's papers after his death.The Battle of Gettysburg was fought during the first weekof July; six thousand dead and twenty-seven thousand woundedwere left on the field. Churches, schools, and barns were turnedinto hospitals; groans of the suffering filled the air. Scores weredying every hour, corpses were decaying rapidly in the intenseheat. The burial parties had to work fast. There was little timeto dig graves; so, in many instances, a little dirt was scoopedover a body where it lay. After a week of hard rains, many ofthe dead were half exposed. The Union soldiers were gatheredfrom their temporary graves, and buried in one place. Thefollowing autumn the Cemetery Commission decided to dedicatethe ground, and invited Edward Everett, the most famousorator in the United States, to deliver the address.Formal invitations to attend the exercises were sent to thePresident, to the Cabinet, to General Meade, to all membersof both houses of Congress, to various distinguished citizens,and to the members of the diplomatic corps. Very few of thesepeople accepted; many didn't acknowledge the invitation.The committee had not the least idea that the President wouldcome. In fact, they had not even troubled to write him a personalinvitation. He got merely a printed one. They imaginedthat his secretaries might drop it in the waste-basket withouteven showing it to Lincoln.So when he wrote saying he would be present, the committeewas astonished. And a bit embarrassed. What should they do?