History 3-2-1 (2024-11-19) - Dataw Historic Foundation

3 Images, 2 Moments, 1 Memory

Three Images of History

This daguerreotype by Nicholas H. Shepherd is the earliest-known photograph of Abraham Lincoln, taken at age 37 when he was a frontier lawyer in Springfield and Congressman-elect from Illinois. Circa 1846, Library of Congress

Abraham Lincoln, candidate for U.S. president, before delivering his Cooper Union address in New York City, 27 February 1860. Photo by Mathew Benjamin Brady. Library of Congress.

Photo by Alexander Gardner of Abraham Lincoln taken in 1863 in Washington DC just a few weeks before his Gettysburg speech. Original is in the possession of the Indiana Historical Society. Image in the Public Domain.

Two Moments in History

Moment 1—November 7, 1860

Word of Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency reached South Carolina. You know the rest of the story, as sad, convoluted, and tragic as it was. On the other hand, it eventually led to the beginning of the new south. In Beaufort, native Reverend Richard Fuller spent a lifetime helping his white and black neighbors. He was a plantation owner, but after the war felt “…the freedmen deserved an opportunity to succeed or fail in the postwar society by their own merits.” (Rowland, History of Beaufort County, Vol 2, page 430.)

Reverend Richard Fuller (1804-1876) was an intellectual giant in the Baptist faith and ‘our’ Lewis Reeve Sams’s brother-in-law! As the pastor of Beaufort Baptist Church, he likely officiated at his sister Francis Younge Fuller’s wedding to Lewis Reeve Sams in 1835.

Moment 2—November 19, 1863

Thursday, November 19, 1863, at about 3 PM, as the sun broke through the clouds, President Abraham Lincoln gave his two-minute address to the 15,000 gathered for the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg, PA. We’ve all read, studied, and seen it (on the wall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.) The most interesting part of his speech is often skimmed over, “..of the people, by the people, and for the people..” Read all about this in my prior article.

By the time the Battle of Gettysburg ended four months earlier, about 175,000 combatants had died of wounds or disease. The Civil War had been raging for two years, but 72% of the mounting death toll was yet to come,i.e., another 445,000 would die before the Civil War ended. (American Battlefield Trust)

One Memory Preserved

“I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

Edward Everett

November 20, 1863

This quote is from Edward Everett, the main orator at the Gettysburg cemetery dedication, who wrote to Lincoln the day after the event, acknowledging the power and concision of Lincoln’s speech.