Grand Army of the Republic Service
Below is the service performed at each of the 10 cemeteries we visit each year to honor our fallen brothers. We are accompanied by the Tri-Community marching band who perform all of the musical pieces for our service.
March onto the Cemetery
Nearer My God to The
Opening Prayer
The Gettysburg Address
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 battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
What Brings You Here
Speaker 1
We are assembled once more to pay our fathers our tribute of love and respect, and within these sacred bounds to pladge anew our fealty to their memory and to the principles for which they fought. With bowed heads, solemn tread and voices hushed we meet to remind our people of their duty to the soldiers and sailors who wore the blue, to the flag for which they fought; to the county for which they died; and that it is to keep green the memories or their heroic service and unselfish sacrifice.
May our conduct give assurance of the senserity of our purpose and our ernest appreciation of the duties and responsibilities devolving upon us as Sons of the union Veterans of the Civil War.
Speaker 2
We meet with you today to join you in paying homage to the nation's dead. We come not only mindful of our obligations as Sons of Veterans, but in response to the dictates of our own hearts, to do our duty as citizens and as sons of soldiers and sailors, to give to the loyal men who followed the flag from the shadow of Sumpter to the sunlight of Appomatox, a manifestation of our appreciation and an assurance that we shall ever hold in grateful remembrance their loyal hearts, their daring deeds and their unflinching fidelity to principle, to flag and to country.
Commander, we salute the dead.
Three Round Salute
Taps
National Anthem
Benediction
Though we are a non-profit organization and all members are volunteer, we do have annual expenses. We accept cash donations at each service. Those who donate to help defray our costs, we can not thank enough!