President McKinley composed a 358-word speech to deliver on Decoration Day 1900. He fashioned it after Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which was short, but yet poignant to the events of the Battle of Antietam which he was honoring.
I feel it is important in these current days of division about the Civil War, that these thoughts be taken into consideration. Among the invited guests were General and Mrs. Longstreet of the Confederacy.
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THE SPEECH
"In this presence and on this memorable field I am glad to meet the followers of Lee and Jackson and Longstreet with the followers of Grant and McClellan and Sherman and Sheridan, greeting each other, not with arms in their hands or malice in their souls, but with affection and respect for each other in their hearts.
"Standing here today, one reflection only has crowded my mind, the difference between this scene and that of 38 years ago. Then the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray greeted each other with shot and shell, and visited death upon their respective ranks.
"We meet after these intervening years, as friends, with a common sentiment that of loyalty to the government of the United States, love for our flag and our free institutions, and determined men of the North and men of the South, to make any sacrifice for the honor and perpetuity of the American Nation."
Too Bad This Can't Be the Sentiment of Today As I Watch What Charlottesville Is Preparing To Do. --Old Secesh
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