spot made proper.  In each of these respects his occasional mistakes are plain enough, but the evidence, upon which he has often been thought capable of setting aside sound military considerations causelessly or in obedience to interested pressure, breaks down when the facts of any imputed instance are known.  It is manifest that he gained rapidly both in knowledge of the men he dealt with and in the firm kindness with which he treated them.  It is remarkable that, with his ever-burning desire to see vigour and ability displayed, he could watch so constantly as he did for the precise opportunity or the urgent necessity before he made changes in command.  It is equally remarkable that, with his decided and often right views as to what should be done, his advice was always offered with equal deference and plainness.  “Quite possibly I was wrong both then and now,” he once wrote to Hooker, “but in the great responsibility resting upon me, I cannot be entirely silent.  Now, all I ask is that you will be in such mood that we can get into action the best cordial judgment of yourself and General Halleck, with my poor mite added, if indeed he and you shall think it entitled to any consideration at all.”  The man whose habitual attitude was this, and who yet could upon the instant take his own decision, may be presumed to have been wise in many cases where we do not know his reasons.  Few statesmen, perhaps, have so often stood waiting and refrained themselves from a firm will and not from the want of it, and for the sake of the rare moment of action.

The passing of the crisis in the war was fittingly commemorated by a number of State Governors who combined to institute a National Cemetery upon the field of Gettysburg.  It was dedicated on November 19, 1863.  The speech of the occasion was delivered by Edward Everett, the accomplished man once already mentioned as the orator of highest repute in his day.  The President was bidden then to say a few words at the close.  The oration with which for two hours Everett delighted his vast audience charms no longer, though it is full of graceful sentiment and contains a very reasonable survey of the rights and wrongs involved in the war, and of its progress till then.  The few words of Abraham Lincoln were such as perhaps sank deep, but left his audience unaware that a classic had been spoken which would endure with the English language.  The most literary man present was also Lincoln’s greatest admirer, young John Hay.  To him it seemed that Mr. Everett spoke perfectly, and “the old man” gracefully for him.  These were the few words:  “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 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 on a great battlefield of that war.  We have come to dedicate a portion