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Rays of Hope
Category: Pennsylvania  

Tags: canon Civil_War Gettysburg  

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Rays of Hope

On these fields, just outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, thousands of men gave their lives to defend the cause of Freedom and keep this country unified under the statutes set forth in our constitution. May they rest in peace knowing that their fight for justice was won. Most of these men, many actually boys, did not fight for such high ideals but they fought for their fellow soldier, their comrade in arms, for if they did not fight the man beside them might not see the mornings light or they would be labeled a coward if they ran. So to them I give my salute and say, "Thank you for your service" even if it was nearly 150 years ago. The best way to describe what these men accomplished is to read the words of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

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 here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it 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 can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. 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 here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Camera: FinePix A900 (FUJIFILM)
Focal Length: 14 mm
Exposure: 1/320 sec
Aperture: f/9
ISO: 100














  • Great picture which matches the text. Thank you for the text: I read quite a few articles about the Civil War but I usually read it in my own language. So I don't get the original. Thank you again :-)
    Gerd @ 2009-08-05 05:30:12
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