Are all wars really the same?

Jim George, an American soldier, was shot three times during a firefight in Laos in 1971. He lay for days waiting to be evacuated. It was probably during this time that a germ invaded his immune system. Years later, after an infected ingrown toenail failed to respond to treatment, he underwent surgery. Twelve operations later he had no legs.

One day a few years ago, George sat talking with a group of old-timers at a soldiers’ home whose latest wave of residential patients included mentally tormented veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I mean, all wars are the same,” George said.

“Only the landscape changes,” a buddy added.

As I read this anecdote in Thank You for Your Service, David Finkel’s heartbreaking new book about the traumas afflicting many veterans of our country’s most recent wars, I wondered if this was true.

Actually, this is not exactly what I wondered. What I wondered was: What made these recent wars different? And: Why did so many soldiers return from them with such severe mental issues?

Thank You for Your Service suggests how mental wounds from World War II, Korea and Vietnam affected veterans’ behavior. Finkel writes of a father who is silent about his service but takes out his anger and frustration on his son with a belt. He describes veterans tormented by flashbacks. From my own research I know what gruesome events combat soldiers witness and experience in all wars.

And yet Afghanistan and Iraq seem somehow different.

It is a volunteer army now. As I read the wrenching life stories Finkel wove together, it struck me that once combat broke these men, they had no Plan B. After they came home with recurring nightmares of comrades blown to bits or guilt over buddies they could not save, they had no next act to divert them, no calling, no alternative job or profession.

In this regard the global economy offers limited help. There are ever fewer manufacturing jobs, for example, and in a buyers’ market, such jobs pay less and offer fewer benefits than they used to. The economy separates the wealthy from the toiling masses very early in life.

When I was an enlisted soldier in a mainly conscript army 45 years ago, our second most popular topic of discussion was what we were going to do when we got out. In my case the answer turned out to be college by day and work by night. I had a wife and son, and my salary was paltry, but with the GI Bill and frugal living, we saved nearly $5,000 by the time I graduated at age 26.

The combat soldiers in Finkel’s book seem to have almost no thought of what might come after the military. When their fighting is over, they struggle financially. They have too much time on their hands. Their troubles don’t just seep into their lives; they dominate their lives.

I’m not suggesting most soldiers face this situation, nor am I diminishing the very real problems some soldiers bring home or the difficulty of treating them. But veterans of America’s 20th century wars served mainly in conscript armies and came home to healthy economies. They expected to make a transition to civilian life, and society was accommodating. Those differences seem significant to me.

Thank You for Your Service is, of course, an ironic title. Finkel alludes not to the warmth of the phrase but to the slightness of it and the distance it suggests between civilians and soldiers in the post-9/11 wars. One consequence of the volunteer army is that as a country we’re not all in this together anymore. For returning veterans with mental trauma, this division only adds to the alienation.  

David Finkel's earlier book, The Good
Soldiers, is one of the best I've
read about the soldiers' experience on
the ground in Iraq.

One story Finkel follows is the military’s approach to confronting and reducing a suicide rate that spiked during the recent wars. He chronicles this effort at the highest levels as generals examine each suicide – what happened, why, what lessons they can take from it. Increasingly the emphasis is on the last question, as it should be, but the campaign goes nowhere. The suicide rate defies their good intentions. (Here and here are excellent commentaries on the suicide rate.)

In short the army has taken on this challenge as it does every challenge – through mandatory suicide training and accountability throughout the chain of command.  But there is something counter-intuitive about an institution that depends on young people’s false sense of immortality also trying to get them to take the risk of suicide seriously. And, as Finkel’s account shows, a cover-your-ass mentality and a frequent changing of the guard undermine accountability.

This is not an easy problem. Soldiers come home with demons – always have. I interviewed a World War II naval veteran once who told me about the aftermath of a Japanese attack on an aircraft carrier. As he stood on the deck of his nearby ship manning his machine gun, body after body slid over the side of the carrier in an endless series of burials at sea. When he told me this, the old sailor began to sob. “This is my nightmare,” he said.

Our conversation took place 65 years after the war. It was part of a series of World War II oral histories that I did with Meg Heckman. These became a book, We Went to War. This navy veteran, and the infantryman who shot his napalmed buddy to put him out his misery, and the airman who survived the Bataan Death March – all these men brought home the horrors of war, but they also brought home a sense of the future.

Thank You for Your Service should be required reading for every American, but I especially hope former President George W. Bush reads it. In Days of Fire, Peter Baker’s new book on the Bush-Cheney presidency, Bush often exhibits a genuine interest in speaking with veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq and the families of soldiers who died in the wars there. Finkel’s book would give him a good idea about how these wars affected veterans and families he is unlikely ever to meet.

*

[A note about David Finkel: In 1977, half a lifetime ago, I was David’s first city editor at the Tallahassee Democrat. He wanted to be a feature writer. Right out of college, he brought with him remarkable writing talent and a reporter's skill for noticing the details with which to enrich a story. He also had a habit I looked for in young reporters: He turned in clean copy, almost daring an editor to touch it. My only contribution to his future was to ease him gently away from features toward news. I can’t pretend this required a lot of convincing.]

'Days of Fire'

As mentioned in an earlier post, here is a review of Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House by Peter Baker. It appears in today's Sunday Monitor in Concord, N.H., where Baker has an appearance scheduled this week.

And here is an accompanying interview with Baker.

Beaufort, S.C., July 15, 1862: a soldier's snapshot

Fort Jefferson, west of Key West

Private Onville Upton was 18 years old when he went to war with Co. D of the 7th New Hampshire Volunteers in late 1861. Nine months later, when he wrote to his sister Mary in Contoocookville, a section of Hopkinton in central New Hampshire, the 7th had yet to see battle.

The regiment arrived at Beaufort, S.C., on June 22, 1862, after several months posted at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas 70 miles west of Key West. The chief enemy there had been formidable enough: smallpox.

Upton remained with the 7th through its many battles, two of which, Fort Wagner and Olustee, Fla., are chronicled in Our War. He made corporal in 1863 and was wounded near Chester Station on the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad on May 10, 1864, during the Petersburg campaign. He was mustered out just after Christmas that year and returned to New Hampshire. He settled in Concord, where, in the late 1890s, he helped found a the Friends' Christian Union, a religious society along Putiran Baptist lines.

Tents of the 7th New Hampshire pitched on Morris Island in 1863.
The photographer, Henry P. Moore of Concord, traveled to the South
Carolina coast to take pictures at the front and did a thriving business.  

In the letter below, which was sold recently on eBay, Onville gives his sister a sharp snapshot of life at his new post at Hilton Head. He is eager for men back home in Hopkinton to join the army and fight at his side. He is collecting war booty, enjoying the bounty of the Carolina coast and anticipating battle at any moment.

Upton shares camp rumors about the fate of George McClellan's campaign on the Virginia Peninsula. The first assessment, judging McClellan's Seven Days retreat a defeat, is closer to the mark. McClellan did capture a large number of prisoners but not Joseph Johnston, who was replaced as commanding general of Confederate forces after being wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines. His successor was Robert E. Lee. 

Here is a transcript of Upton's letter:

Co. D 7^th Regt N.H. Vols.

Beaufort, S.C., July 15, 1862

Dear Sister Mary

I now take my Pen in hand to write a few lines to you to let you know that I am well now but have been unwell for the past two days after eating meat after Returning from Picket. I was Pretty hungry, but I made some herb tea and the next morning I was well.

On the fourth of July the Rebels attacked out Pickets. As I have wrote before today, the 7th, they are going to be Paid for the gun Boats are going around the island to-night to attack there Battery in the morning. The Pa. 100 Reg., or Round heads as they call them, has just arrived and are going up there to Cross over after the gun Boats begin. We have got a strong Picket out to-night and the Rebels have got to take it. I will Close for to-night and write more in the morning.

The first page and envelope of Private Upton's letter.

This morning at about 6 o’clock the Boats opened fire on the Rebel Battery and they fired a few times and left. There was brisk firing for a short time. Our men then took there guns and there Small Boats that that Came acrost to attack our Pickets and anumber of the things and brot them off. Our men drove them on five miles to there Reserve and then the Rebels drove them back till more of the federals landed he 50th Pa. Reg. has left for fortress monroe to help reinforce McClellan. It is said he got whiped at Richmond.

At church this forenoon the 8th Maine Band played Old hundred and it sounded good, I tell you. It made me think of the Contoocook Band. It played just like that when it went up to the Academy.

(Thursday)

Tuesday the 15th was a very fine day and after 9 o’clock at night I went in to the tent to lye down and rest a Little. The enemy was troublesome all day. The Caveldry had bin Called out as they thought  the Rebels were coming and soon after 10 o’clock Orders came for us to go out So I sprang up and dresed, loaded my Revolver and we went out. We only went out for the night to Strengthen the Pickets. We have to in Case the enemy is approaching, but next Monday the 21st we have got to go on the out Poasts and stay 15 days. Then we Shall have to look out for our selves and then you must not expect letters from me because I Cant write on the B----.

Magor Smith of this Regiment [Major Daniel Smith died of disease two months after this letter was written.] and three mor men are going home to Recruit for this Regiment. You tell Barlow to tell the Boys to Come out and joine this Reg. if they think of enlisting.

I am going to send you a few Pieces of the Distroyed Secesh Organ that I took out of one of the Churches of the city of B. [Beaufort]. The houses, Churches and other Buildings are left empty and the doors wide open.

There are any quantity of figs here. They are just getting ripe. They are very nice. Oranges are about full size but not ripe as yet. The government has got large fields of Cotton. There is a suprentendent apointed to keep the Nigers at work. They have got Corn to. There is any quantity of Mellons and green Corn to Boil and rost.

Last night the 16th after 9 o’clock the mail Come in and I received your letter Dated the 2nd of July and was very glad to hear from home. I see that you are very Prompt in Answering my letters. I have wrote to grafton and Frank quite anumber of times and have not received a single letter since I left N.Y. City, but you have Answered every letter and that is just what I like.

I have got my Box ready to send home. I have got a regular Secesh Port-mony [wallet] for you in alittle Box in the Corner of the large one. I got it of one of the fellows that was in Beaufort. He found it among other things that the Rebels left in there flight.

Does Barlow use my wagon eny. If he does tell him to be very Careful of it for I set a good deal of it. If I ever Come home again I shall want to keep it. Has he fixed his drum yet. I hear that McClellan has Captured Old Johnston and fifteen thousand troops and is near Richmond, but I don’t know how true it is. There will Probably be amovement here before long.

I have bin out and got some figs  just before I began to write this and now I am going to stew them for supper.

I don’t think of eny thing more to write this time so good by. My love to all.

Please excuse.

From Onville.

Write soon.

As its centenary nears, the Easter Rising provokes debate

Tour leader under the Irish tricolor shows the spot where the 1916 martyrs were shot. 

Patrick Pearse, one of the 1916 martyrs

Only after a couple of days of walking past the post office in Dublin did it dawn on me that it was the post office  – the General Post Office, main headquarters of the Easter Rising in 1916. This was the Irish equivalent of the American colonies' revolt in 1775-76, complete with a proclamation that read: “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.”

Inside the post office are a statue and a plaque. The legend reads: “Here on Easter Monday 1916 Patrick Pearse read the proclamation of the Irish republic. From this building he commanded the forces that asserted in arms Ireland’s right to freedom.”

Pearse was a poet, as were other leaders of the Rising. The British army, though preoccupied with fighting a world war, easily put down the rebellion, which did not initially arouse the popular support its leaders had hoped for.

At the Kilmainham Gaol, you can stand in the courtyard where firing squads shot Pearse and 15 other leaders of the Rising. It was their near-summary executions that made them martyrs and turned public opinion toward their cause.

William Butler Yeats 

You don’t have to look far in Dublin for further references to the Rising. At the National Library, two current exhibits both relate to it. One is about the Irish in World War I, the other about William Butler Yeats.

The Yeats exhibit is absorbing in many ways, with moving readings of his best poems, displays of early manuscripts, candid documentary films about his politics and his love life, and ample information about his life as a public man. As a senator, Yeats led the committee that designed the coinage for the Irish Free State in 1926. He also argued eloquently against a ban on divorce in the Free State’s constitution. One of his best known poems, Easter 1916, is about the Rising.

Debate over the Rising and its aftermath has never ended, but with its 100th anniversary near, the arguments will surely sharpen. Here is a salvo fired under the headline “How should we remember 1916?” in The Irish Times during my stay in Dublin. The writer is Paddy McAvoy of Holywood in County Down. His mention of Scotland refers to a referendum on independence scheduled for next September. An early poll shows 29 percent in favor of independence, 44 percent opposed, the rest undecided. At 7-1 against, current betting odds are even starker. “Casuistry,” by the way, means the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions.

“Stephen Collins’s thoughts on how 1916 should be commemorated should be welcomed. (‘Present-day politics has no place in 1916 remembrance,’ Opinion, November 9th). It is going to be a feat of high-wire casuistry for a nation looking back ruefully on a century of hardship and mismanagement – does anybody really know how many Irish people have been ‘disappeared’ by emigration in that period, for instance – to appear to be upbeat about an event that begs so many questions.

At  Kilmainham Gaol, a cross marks the spot of the execution of one of the 1916 Easter Rising martyrs. 

“The Big Bang of 1916 has fuelled division and discord on this island, and further afield, ever since. It is by no means established that anything like a majority of the Irish people wished to leave the union, in that particular way, and at that particular time. What is even more certain is that only a small fraction would have chosen the route hacked-out by Pearse, Connolly, and latterly Adams, et al. If “Better Together” is true for Scotland in 2013, it was true for Ireland in 1916.

Inside the Kilmainham Gaol, which has been used as a setting
for many television shows and movies.

“Violence has been a curse on our people and those who have been its godfathers need to be constantly apprised of the cloud they have brought down on all of us. There were civilised alternatives, whatever ‘republican’ propagandists say.

“Had the people been consulted about a precipitate lurch out of the union, it is unlikely that the leaders of the carnage would have got away with the thorny way they proposed.

“But no such consultation was offered. Rather than go through a hollow travesty in 2016 which puts those who oppose(d) violent methods, then and now, in the position of having to appear to be faking enthusiasm, (so as not to be accused of being West Britons, by the usual ‘guardians of the threshold’), for an event many wish hadn’t happened in the first place, I propose that a plebiscite be held on the role which guns, bombs, and intimidation, have played in this distressful country over the past 100 years.

“Violence, and its justification, have become a cancer in our society and those who have taken any act or part in it, and the many grisly forms it which has manifested itself, have made the rest of us pay a heavy price for their two-faced and delinquent recklessness. But for the Irish people to be asked to celebrate the bitter fruits sown by the gunman is surely too much, considering the other charades they are currently being forced to go along with?

“The Irish people should have been consulted about ‘armed struggle’ in 1916.

“Ask them now, in a belated bid to collectively turn a corner, and in an overdue attempt to clean out our stinking stables.”

With my bride Monique on the jail tour, highlight of a recent trip of Dublin.

W. redux, and Cheney, too

Felice Belman, the editor of the new, expanded Forum pages at the Concord Monitor, emailed three weeks ago and asked me to review Days of Fire. This is Peter Baker’s new book on the George W. Bush years. The subtitle is Bush and Cheney in the White House. I said yes. Reluctantly.

I’m one of those people who tried to forget the Bush years even as they were happening. This was difficult, as I was the Monitor’s editor throughout his two terms, and presidential politics is New Hampshire’s official state pastime. A few months before his second term ended, my brother Robin gave me one of those baseball caps sporting the legend “1-20-09,” the day Bush was to leave office. I wore the cap – not in public, where my neutrality was vital to my work – but when I walked in the woods.

So, with what I consider the Bush-Cheney nightmare finally fading, I was not eager to read an 800-page book about their administration.

But Peter Baker has delivered an account that is informative, entertaining and straight down the middle. Baker has been a top-level political reporter for 20 years, much of it covering the White House. It is as a reporter, not a historian, that he approached the story of the Bush administration. His research was prodigious: 400 interviews, memoirs by key White House players, documents public now that were not public then.

I interviewed Baker by phone the other day, and he described his intentions for the book. A newspaper reporter gets only a snatch of what happens on a given day and distills the information into a deadline story that captures the essence and the broad strokes of an event. Only later are the participants willing to fill in the larger picture. And that was Baker’s aim in Days of Fire: to give readers the more nuanced story of the Bush presidency – an account unavailable as events were unfolding. He wasn’t out to make a point or posit a major historical revision.

Peter Baker

Baker is a companionable writer. His prose is vivid and moves quickly, and he explains complex issues without dragging the reader away from the story. After interviewing most of the participants in a meeting where a big issue was decided, he can – and does – put the reader in the room.

For me, the joy of reading history is to see major characters come alive. The central figure in Baker’s book is, of course, George W. Bush himself. Baker's Bush is a three-dimensional character, a flawed human being but in some ways a sympathetic one. His ego vacillates between neediness and hubris. Baker delves into his relationship with his father, his fanatic bicycle riding, his recovery from alcoholism, his maddening blind spots, his competitiveness and his stubborn streak.

I don’t want to give away too much – or repeat myself – before the Monitor publishes the review and interview a week from tomorrow. As I’m sure you can guess, despite my reservations about a major dose of Bush and Cheney so soon after their White House years, I enjoyed the assignment.

The Monitor is sponsoring an appearance by Baker on Dec. 5 at 7 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord. Seating is limited, so if you want to reserve a seat, best call Cathy Valley at 603-369-3210 ASAP.

A picture is worth . . .

Like many of my friends who have an interest in New Hampshire's role in the Civil War, I keep an eye on eBay. When this search is successful, it usually provides a fleeting look at a face or a letter or a document.

It's a shame so much such material useful to historians remains on the collector market, but this is America. I witnessed the flip side as I was researching Our War. Several people who lent me family letters from their Civil War ancestors later gave these personal collections to public archives. Others may do the same as time goes by.

Anyway, below is a beautiful soldier ambrotype that showed up on eBay recently. It is of a young private in the 14th New Hampshire Volunteers. He served in Company F, whose members came mainly from Winchester, Chesterfield, Richmond and Milan, N.H.. This regiment mustered in the late summer of 1862 for three years' service, and from the crispness of the private's uniform, I'd guess the picture was made then.

Members of the 14th initially served as prison guards in Washington, D.C., but two years into their service, they fought bravely and lost heavily at the third battle of Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley.

Even though the man pictured is not named, the ambrotype sold on eBay for a whopping $565.36. Perhaps the buyer (and other bidders) knew he was, but even with the subject unidentified the picture has two features that collectors prize. One is condition. It's gorgeous, the frame apparently undamaged, the picture unusually bright and clear. Collectors also like weapons in a portrait, and this man is grasping his rifle with fixed bayonet. (I'm no expert, but it looks like a Springfield rifle to me.)

There are also intangibles here: the resolve in the private's face and the clear identification of his company, regiment and state. But I'm sure the new owner would love to know Private John Doe's name.

Can anyone help?

On the platform with Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg as he spoke 'a few brief, but most appropriate, words'

The historian James McPherson has described Benjamin Brown French’s account of the cemetery dedication at Gettysburg as “the best we have.” French was a New Hampshireman, born in Chester in 1800. His nephew, Daniel Chester French, would one day sculpt the seated Lincoln statue in the Lincoln Memorial.

Benjamin Brown French

B.B. French was Lincoln’s commissioner of buildings, including the White House and the Capitol. As such, his most challenging duty was keeping First Lady Mary Lincoln’s expenses under control.

French makes multiple appearances in Our War. He went for a walk the morning after the first battle of Bull Run and happened upon the wagon that had carried Gilman Marston, the wounded congressman-colonel of the 2nd New Hampshire, back to Washington. On inauguration day in 1865, he helped frustrate a gunman in the Capitol, realizing only later that the man was John Wilkes Booth (You can read more about that here). French was also at Lincoln’s deathbed and looked after his body until it left Washington for Springfield.

At Gettysburg 150 years ago today, French served as a marshal under Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln’s bodyguard. He had written a poem for the occasion, and it was sung as a hymn between the oration of Edward Hale Everett and the remarks of President Lincoln.

French wrote in his journal on Nov. 6, 1863: “Col. Lamon is to be Marshal-in-Chief at Gettysburg on the 19th inst., when the grand inauguration of the Cemetery for soldiers killed, or who died there, takes place, and he has asked me to aid him, which I have agreed to do. This will be a task. But we are all in for doing what we can to show our Patriotism, and I should not think I was doing my duty were I to decline. If alive & well, I shall be there.”

Ward Hill Lamon

And there he was. He wrote his account on Nov. 22, a Sunday, three days after the Gettysburg Address, which he described as “a few brief, but most appropriate, words.” Donald B. Cole and John J. McDonough transcribed a large portion of French’s diary for their wonderful Witness to the Young Republic, published in 1989. With a few excisions, here is French’s diary entry on the dedication of the cemetery:

We arrived at Gettysburg at ½ past one P.M. [on Tuesday, Nov. 17]. Quite a crowd accompanied us from Baltimore & Hanover Junction. . . . Finding that there was no certainty of my being accommodated at the hotel I went to Brother Robert Goodloe Harper’s [publisher of the Adams Centinel in Gettysburg], whose name had been given to me by Bro. Creigh [a Masonic friend of French’s], and he at once said that he would take care of me, and to him and his excellent wife and daughter am I indebted for as much comfort and happiness as any man in Gettysburg enjoyed from 2 o’clock on Tuesday until 1 o’clock P.M. on Friday [Nov. 20].

Mr. Harper is 64 years old & moves about with all the elasticity of a boy. He owns & edits the Adams Sentinel, a paper established many years ago by his father. He has had twelve children, 10 by his first wife, who died 20 years ago, & 2 by his present wife, to whom he has been married some 8 or 10 years. She is now 32 years old. He has grandchildren who are grown up. The whole family are remarkably hospitable and pleasant.

I spent the afternoon and evening in listening to Mrs. Harper’s account of the battle, and the many incidents accompanying it which fell under her observation. She remained in her house through the whole of it, and it became a hospital after the battle was over. Two bullets came into the house through the windows, one of which struck a crib at the bedside of a wounded officer, the other passed within a few inches of Mrs. Harper. One shell fell in the garden within a few feet of the house, but did not explode. It was picked up, the charge extracted, & now lies on the parlor table, where I saw it. . . .

At 6 P.M. [on Wednesday, Nov. 18] came the President of the U.S., Secretaries Seward & Usher, and P.M. Gen. Blair of the Cabinet [Secretary of State William H. Seward, Interior Secretary John P. Usher and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair], the French and Italian Ministers and their Secretaries, & Messrs. [John] Nicolay & [John] Hay, Private Secretaries to the President. Mr. Seward, Mr. Berchenatti (the Italian Minister) & his Secretary, Mr. Cova, stayed at Mr. Harper’s, where I did, and the President and the others of his party at Mr. Wills’s [David Wills, chairman of the cemetery board, had invited Lincoln to speak at the dedication] next door to Mr. Harper’s.

In the evening the President came into Mr. Harper’s and spent an hour. That evening there was a large influx of visitors, and the President and Mr. Seward were serenaded and made brief speeches. . . .

Secretary of State William H. Seward

At this point let me say that I have seldom, if ever, met a man whose mind is under such perfect discipline, and is so full of original and striking matter as Secretary Seward’s. His conversation, no matter on what subject, is worthy of being written down and preserved, and if he had a Boswell to write, as Boswell did of Johnson, one of the most interesting and useful books of the age might be produced from the conversations and sayings of William H. Seward. He is one of the greatest men of this generation.

After I retired to rest, the public square on which Mr. Harper’s house fronts seemed to be filled with people. They sang & hallooed and cheered. Among other things they sang in full chorus & admirably, the whole of that well known production whose refrain is –

We are coming Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.

I went to sleep between 1 & 2 A.M. & arose at daylight [Nov. 19]. As soon as breakfast was over I set about procuring a horse, which I got of the Quartermaster, Capt. [Henry Bloyden] Blood. A shaggy, unpromising looking nag he was, but on mounting him & using the spurs pretty freely, I found that he was a spirited and easy-going breast, and he performed all I desired admirably.

The Marshals were all assembled, mounted, in the square, with sashes on and batons in hand, at 9 o’clock, and by 10 the procession commenced moving. Never was a procession better formed or more orderly. It was escorted by nearly 2,000 troops of all arms under command of Major Gen. [Darius] Couch. . . .

As soon as the dignitaries who occupied the stand, numbering perhaps 250, were seated, Hon. Edward Everett & Rev. Thomas H. Stockton [Methodist minister and chaplain of the U.S. Senate] appeared, escorted by a Committee of Governors of States, and being seated, one of the bands struck up and performed a solemn piece of music in admirable style. That over, Mr. Stockton made one of the most impressive and eloquent prayers I ever heard. The band then played, with great effect, Old Hundred.

Mr. Everett then arose, and without notes of any kind, pronounced an oration. He occupied two full hours in the delivery, and it was one of the greatest, most eloquent, elegant, and appropriate orations to which I ever listened. I stood at his very side, through it, and I think the oratory could not be surpassed by mortal man.

I stood at the side of John Quincy Adams when he delivered his great Eulogy on Lafayette, in the old Hall of the House of Representatives, Dec. 31, 1834, and standing there, by Everett’s side at Gettysburg, how the past came back upon me, and I thought if Adams could be alive, & here today, how his pure and honest heart would swell with the patriotism that has followed his own great efforts to bring about the emancipation of the negro race which is so rapidly approaching. I hope his immortal spirit could look down upon us with an approving smile, on that auspicious day.

Mr. Everett was listened to with breathless silence by all that immense crowd, and he had his audience in tears many times during his masterly effort. When he had finished, the following, headed “Consecration Hymn,” was sung beautifully, & with much effect, by a Musical Association from Baltimore. [This was the poem/hymn French had written.] I can say here, that I never was so flattered at any production of my own, as in relation to that same Hymn. All who heard it seemed to consider it most appropriate, and most happily conceived.

As soon as the hymn was sung, Marshal Lamon introduced the President of the United States, who, in a few brief, but most appropriate words, dedicated the cemetery. Abraham Lincoln is the idol of the American people at this moment. Anyone who saw & heard as I did, the hurricane of applause that met his every movement at Gettysburg would know that he lived in every heart. It was no cold, faint shadow of a kind reception – it was a tumultuous outpouring of exultation, from true and loving hearts, at the sight of a man whom everyone knew to be honest and true and sincere in every act of life, and every pulsation of the heart. It was the spontaneous outburst of heartfelt confidence in their own President. . . .

For about an hour after the return of the President to Mr. Wills’s, he received all who chose to call on him, and there were thousands who two took him by the hand. At ½ past 6 he left in a special train for this City [Washington], and arrived home about midnight. That evening and the succeeding morning, a vast multitude left Gettysburg.

John B. Bachelder

The Marshals all procured horses about 10 o’clock Friday [Nov. 20] and rode out to and over the Battleground in a body. A Mr. [John B.] Bachelder, a native of Gilmanton, N.H., who is preparing a map of the battleground, and has studied the localities thoroughly, rode out with us and described the battleground from a number of points in a very clear and interesting manner.

I had a very hard going horse, & headstrong, & found the labor of riding so severe that when the cavalcade left the Cemetery for more distant points, I trotted down the southern slope of the hill to the house occupied by Gen. Meade as his headquarters, it being a very interesting point to me, as Capt. William H. Paine, an Engineer in the Army, was with Gen. Meade, and when the Gen. left for another part of the field, Capt. P. was left in charge of the house and remained in it, as he supposed alone, through all the tremendous cannonade, during which shells & shot passed again and again through the house, and 17 horses were killed all around it. After the firing ceased, several men appeared to Capt. Paine’s astonished vision ascending from the cellar where they had been keeping themselves out of harm’s way!

This same Capt. Paine was born in the same town in which I was, and within ten rods of my father’s house. I knew him when a boy, he being many years my junior. He was at my house several times summer before last.

Well, I went to the house mentioned [Meade’s headquarters]. The door was locked, and a little girl was on the piazza, or porch, who told me that the people were at the barn. I looked particularly at the outside of the house & saw where the shot and shell perforated it. On my way to the barn I passed the carcasses of two dead horses, which were very offensive. I found a young man at the barn who said his mother occupied the house. He was at Fortress Monroe when the battle occurred, as a soldier in the three months service. Since his return he had mended up the barn, which was shattered worse than the house. He showed me many shot holes which still remain. He said he burned the carcasses of 15 of the horses that were killed, but the two that remained were so near the outbuildings that he could not burn them without endangering the buildings.

Alexander Gardner

After making all the observations I desired, I started to return to my horse when I saw two men with a camera down in the field n front of the house. I walked down and found Mr. [Alexander] Gardner, a Photographer of this City, was the man. At his urgent request I walked back to the house and took a position on the porch where I was, I suppose, photographed with the house. There were, then, two children on the porch with me.

I then mounted my horse and rode leisurely up through the clump of trees on top of the hill every one of which had been hit with some missile, and many of the largest were cut off at from 6 to 10 feet above the ground by shot or shell. I then rode into town along the street where stands a house, the south end of which was torn nearly to pieces by shells fired into it, as I was told, by our batteries at the request of its owner, the rebels having taken possession of it.

In last than 10 minutes after I passed, a man and boy who were engaged in unloading a shell, were blown up by its exploding – the boy killed instantly & the man losing both arms & probably his eyes. The Doct. pronounced  his case almost hopeless, and he is probably dead ere this. Mr. [Nathan Henry] Barrett, who went out with me, was opposite the place when the shell exploded, and at the request of the screaming women, went after a surgeon, whom he found on the street and sent to them.

We all returned to town about 12, and about ½ past one were off to Washington. . . .