Gettysburg Address Boulder

On the Town Common in Franklin sits the Gettysburg Address Boulder, one of the town’s meaningful Civil War Memorials. Dedicated in 1913 by the Grand Army of the Republic Post 60, an organization of Union veterans who served during the Civil War. This is the first monument that I have seen that has the full text of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address delivered on November 19, 1863, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. 

The memorial reflects the important role that Civil War veterans played in shaping public memory during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Grand Army of the Republic, known as G.A.R. became one of the most influential veteran’s organizations in American history. Across the country, its members worked to honor fallen soldiers, preserve the memory of the Union Cause, and remind future generations of the sacrifices made during the Civil War.

By the time this monument was dedicated in 1913, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address had already become one of the most important statements of national purpose and democratic ideals. The speech transformed the meaning of the Civil War by describing it as a test of whether a nation conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal could endure. For Civil War veterans, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, captured a deeper meaning of the sacrifices made by those who fought and died during the war.

The veterans who placed this monument here understood that remembrance is about carrying ideals forward into the future. The Gettysburg Address Boulder stands as a reminder that democracy and civic responsibility are values that belong in communities like Franklin.