would never have been the will to start fighting again. No, sir, this victory was a long way from inevitable, and every young American ought to learn just how important one man can be. How one man can shape history and, in that moment, save a nation.
'And General Lee as well. He stood up for the honor of the South at the end. His actions in Richmond spared us a year or more of terrible conflict, and he is now helping to heal the wounds. I thank God for him as well.'
The band finished playing, and ever so slowly Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States, came to his feet and stepped up to the lectern. Reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled out several sheets of paper, laid them out, and then raised his head and began to speak, his high tenor voice carrying far across the cemetery and the fields beyond…
'Four score and seven years ago…'
