Dr. Craig Symonds

Remarks at the Gettysburg National Cemetery

November 19, 2025

Thank you, Wendy, not only for that generous introduction but for all you do to support the memory of the Civil War, and of American history generally.  

     It is a daunting responsibility to stand here, near where Abraham Lincoln spoke 161 years ago, and try to contribute something meaningful.

     I will be guided in this effort by Lincoln himself, who, when he was asked to name the three most important aspects of a good speech, replied: “Short, short, short.”

     Others on this dais have noted that we occupy sacred ground. It is a place of both sorrow and hope, of past and future. Today is a Day of Remembrance. But what is it we are to remember? Lincoln’s words, to be sure. No one has more closely captured the meaning and the magnitude of our national experiment in self-government that our 16^th president here on these grounds. And yet it was Lincoln himself who reminded us that we cannot hallow this ground with any words, however soaring or noble. It was the men who fought here, and especially the men who died here, that we are to remember. Those who here gave their lives for a cause that they believed was greater than themselves: the survival of democracy and the expansion of freedom, causes not only worth fighting for, but worth dying for. And that includes those buried here from other wars: The Great War, the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere.

    There are some six thousand graves on this hill, more than half of them from the Battle of Gettysburg. And there are others who died here who are buried elsewhere. 

      I will name one of them . . . .  Amos Humiston. He was a harness maker from from Oswego, New York, 32 years old when he enlisted in 1862. That is seven years older than the typical Union soldier. He had delayed enlisting, hoping the war could be won without him, especially since he was married, with three small children, and the sole support of his family. But in July of 1862, in the wake of heavy losses in the peninsular campaign, and exactly one year before the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln issued a new call for 300,000 more volunteers. And this time, Amos Humiston answered the call. Some sense of the national mood in that moment can be gleaned from a poem written by James Gibbons that was published in the New York papers on July 16, 1862, the week that Hutchinson enlisted:

          We are coming Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more . . . ,

          We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children dear,

          With hearts too full for utterance, but with a silent tear.

And so, Amos Humiston bade goodbye to his family and joined others from his home town in what eventually became Company C of the 154^th New York regiment. He was homesick almost at once. “I would give almost anything,” he wrote his wife, “if I could make you a good long visit. When I do come home,” he wrote, “those red cheeks will get kissed more than once, I can tell you.” 

    In July of 1863, the 154^th came to Gettysburg, and took up a position north of town. Outflanked and overwhelmed by superior numbers on that first day of the battle, the 154^th made a fighting retreat to an area known as Kuhn’s Brickyard about a mile behind you on North Stratton Street, before falling back again . . . here, to Cemetery Hill. 

     By then, Amos Humiston was no longer among them. His body was found after the battle near the foot of this hill, and since soldiers then did not wear dog tags, those who found him had no idea who he was—just another dead Union soldier. The only clue to his identity was that in his hands he clutched a small ambrotype—a sepia-toned photograph—of three young children, all of them under ten, sitting side-by-side, with serious, unsmiling expressions. Humiston had focused on that photograph until his eyes closed in death.

     The tableau of a man holding a photo of his children in fingers stiffened by death was heart wrenching. It still is. And because it was, even though he remained unidentified, the story of the man with the photograph was subsequently printed in several northern newspapers. His wife saw one of them, and, fearing the worst, wrote to ask if a copy of the photograph could be sent to her. It arrived in November of 1863—the same week that Abraham Lincoln made his way here to dedicate this cemetery. When she opened the envelope, she knew that her husband would never be coming home.  

     Amos Humiston is one of many buried here. And though his grave now is marked with his name, there are hundreds of others, indeed, nearly a thousand—979 to be exact—who are buried here who were never identified. Many of them no doubt, had life stories as haunting or as tragic as Humiston’s, yet who died mostly alone in compete anonymity. 

     When you leave this Remembrance Ceremony today, I invite you to take a look at some of the grave markers that surround you. Fully 30% of them bear the same label: “UNKNOWN.” You might pause on your way out to consider who might be there: Another husband, father, family man? Somebody’s son, somebody’s brother.  All of whom gave, to borrow Lincoln’s words, “the last full measure of devotion” here at Gettysburg. As Lincoln noted in his immortal address, it is their sacrifice, and not our words, that make this ground sacred. 

     So, my plea to you today is that in addition to recalling, and honoring, Lincoln’s words spoken here 161 years ago, words that remind us still of the true meaning of America, we should also remember those he came here to commemorate.  

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