ST. HELENA’S CATHOLIC CHURCH
602 Philadelphia Pike, Wilmington, DE 19809

St. Helena’s is a vibrant community of faith for the Roman Catholic people or Northeast Wilmington and the adjacent suburbs. The parish features several masses each week and provides religious education and faith-based social activities for hundreds. It boasts an active and accomplished music ministry under the leadership of Music With A Mission contributor Joe Louden. 

Lincoln Legacy is the latest of several Wilson Gault Somers performance to be presented at St. Helena’s. The church features wonderful acoustics and has a capacity of well over 600.

BENEFICIARIES

A significant portion of the proceeds from the performance will benefit Wilmington’s Nativity Preparatory School and Serviam Girls Academy. The mission of these schools is completely in synch with President Lincoln vision for opportunity. 

Both schools are part of the NativityMiguel Coalition of schools. They offer students a uniquely structured program including small class sizes, and an extended 10-hour school day and 10-month school year, reducing the students’ exposure to the difficulties and temptations of inner city life. Each school provides a tuition-free, faith-filled education that prepares students to earn acceptance and achieve success in a college preparatory school and beyond.

Nativity Preparatory School of Wilmington, now in its 23rd year, is a catholic middle school dedicated to transforming lives, thriving by serving low-income boys of all faiths in grades fifth through eighth by instilling values and empowering them through rigorous academics, strong values, and high expectations. 

Every day, Nativity students are challenged by the teachings of St. Francis De Sales as he asks them to, “be who you are and be that well”. Following graduation, Nativity graduates take this motto and the values gained at Nativity with them into the world, as they are productive, contended, and dynamic members of an ever-changing world. 

Today, Nativity has over 50 students enrolled at the school along with 19 graduating classes consisting of over 160 alumni. Learn more about Nativity at nativitywilmington.org

Serviam Girls Academy opened its doors in 2008 to a group of pioneering 5th and 6th grade students, Today, Serviam is proudly educating 60-65 girls in grades 5 through 8, and supporting 115 alumnae.

In addition to its NativityMiguel roots, Serviam Girls Academy is also rooted in the rich tradition of Ursuline education. Inspired by the vision of St. Angela Merici and the traditions of the Ursuline Order, the Ursuline heritage emphasized the education of women and girls for close to 475 years and has spread to six continents. St. Angela lived a life of prayer and love of neighbor, dedicating herself to both, especially to the education of girls. Following her lead, Ursuline sisters throughout the world continue to empower others through education and service. Learn more about Serviam at serviamgirlsacademy.org.

The Lincoln Legacy - A New Birth of Freedom
Symphony No. 3, Opus 55
Wilson Gault Somers

Part I - Prelude to War/The Battles

On April 12, 1861 forces from the newly formed Confederate States of America fired a barrage of artillery attacking the United States military garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Less than two days later, the fort surrendered and no one was killed. However, the incident began the Civil War, as known in the North and as known in the South,’ the War between the States’.
It was by far the bloodiest conflict in American History on American soil.

The battles began after Fort Sumter in 1861: First Bull Run/First Battle of Manassas; Hatteras
Inlet; Ball’s Bluff; Belmont; in 1862, the Monitor and the Merrimac; Antietam; Second Battle of Manassas;
In 1863, Chancellorsville and then….On July 1st, 1863 the most horrific three-day battle began at the Pennsylvania town of
Gettysburg, with 51,000 causalities of both Union and Confederate soldiers.

These were American armies, brothers in battle.

Part II - The Aftermath of Gettysburg

Confederate General Robert E. Lee suffered his first defeat at the battle of Gettysburg. Prior to this battle, the Army of Northern Virginia was thought to be invincible. On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln traveled to that small Pennsylvania town to deliver the most famous address ever spoken by an American President. President Lincoln
views the rows upon rows of caskets and newly dug graves of the fallen as he approaches the newly constructed platform at the Gettyburg National Cemetery.

(The Gettysburg Address is read by the narrator beginning at measure 29. The Chorus enters at measure 37 with ‘that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…)

Part III - The Sacrifice of the Faithful

In 1863 at Gettysburg…both armies thought God was on their side. Both armies read from the same Bible and prayed to the same God. President Lincoln said in his first inaugural address that he was elected to ‘preserve the Union’. He soon came to know that this country could not be part free and part slave.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would be the cornerstone of his legacy.

It was at Gettysburg that the North proved it could withstand the ‘invincible’ Army of Northern Virginia. In this third summer of the war, the stories of Union Generals: John Buford, John Reynolds, Lawrence Chamberlain, George Gordon Meade and Winfield Scott Hancock were countered by the esteemed Confederate Generals: Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, George Pickett, Richard Ewell, A.P. Hill, Lewis Armistead, Richard Garnett, J.E.B. Stuart and Jubal Early. Many of these Generals were graduates to the US Military Academy at West Point and had fought together in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). At Gettysburg, there were over 70,000 men who fought for the South and over 90,000 for the North. There were Confederate regiments from Georgia to Texas as well as Union regiments from Maine to Wisconsin. The casualties exceeded 51,000 wounded or killed. It was by far the largest battle of the Civil War and remains the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil. For three long days over July 1st through July 3rd, Gettysburg marked the turning point of the Civil War along with the news of the fall of Vicksburg, the Confederate fortress on the Mississippi River which finally surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on July 4th, 1863.

Part IV - The Bridge of Hope and Atonement

The late Secretary of State and former US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin L. Powell spoke of this legacy in the 2013 PBS special ‘Lincoln@Gettysburg, marking the 150th Anniversary of Lincoln’s speech. Secretary Powell said that “the Civil War preserved the Union, the Civil War ended legal slavery. But for the next almost 100 years, we found that with segregation and Jim Crow, the reconstruction period failed. Slavery existed by yet another name. So, we needed another Civil War, a Civil War of the mind, A Civil War of Courage, A Civil War of Character. That Civil War was not led by Lincoln, but by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” This fourth movement is dedicated to the memory of Dr. King and his three historic marches across the Edmund Pettis
Bridge in Selma, Alabama during March 1965.

Part V. Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Renewal

Lincoln completed his first inaugural address with these words:

‘I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.'

At his second inauguration, Lincoln left us with these final words:

‘With malice toward none; With charity for all; With firmness in the right, Let us strive on…
To finish the work we are in; To bind up the nation’s wounds; To care for him who shall have borne the battle,
And for his widow, And his orphan - - To do all which may achieve and cherish,

A just, And a lasting Peace, among ourselves, And with all nations.’