“As the fires of the battles still smoldered, Grant rode to the head of the column,” she said. “He rode to the intersection of Brock Road and Orange P
“As the fires of the battles still smoldered, Grant rode to the head of the column,” she said. “He rode to the intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road. And there, as the men of his army watched and waited, instead of turning north, back toward Washington and safety, Grant turned his horse south toward Richmond and the heart of Lee’s army. Refusing to retreat, he pressed on to victory.”
General Grant, President Abraham Lincoln “and all who fought in our nation’s tragic Civil War, including my own great-great-grandfathers, saved our union,” Ms. Cheney said. “Their courage saved freedom, and if we listen closely, they are speaking to us down through generations. We must not idly squander what so many have fought and died for.”
In a time-honored tradition of political candidates, Ms. Cheney described encounters with two voters who, in her telling, had approached her to say exactly what she wanted to say now.
One, she said, was a man from Brazil who told her, “I know how fragile freedom is, and we must not lose it here.” The other was a woman in Jackson, Wyo., whose grandparents survived Auschwitz and who “was afraid that she had nowhere to go if freedom died here.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, freedom must not, cannot and will not die here,” Ms. Cheney said, before urging her supporters to join her in following what she had cast as General Grant’s path.
“As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together — Republicans, Democrats and independents — against those who would destroy our republic,” she said. “They are angry and they are determined, but they have not seen anything like the power of Americans united in defense of our Constitution and committed to the cause of freedom. There is no greater power on this earth, and with God’s help, we will prevail.”
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