November 18, 1863---A Brief History of The Gettysburg Address

NOVEMBER 18, 1863:         

President Abraham Lincoln leaves Washington D.C. in order to travel to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in order to participate in the dedication ceremonies at the new National Military Cemetery at Gettysburg.

One of only two known photographs of President Lincoln at Gettysburg

Lincoln is not well during the trip. He is suffering from variola, which is to smallpox as shingles is to chickenpox. He is looking forward to delivering “a few appropriate remarks” to punctuate keynote speaker Edward Everett’s 13,607 word oration, which has been prepublished in most newspapers, North and South. Unfortunately, Lincoln’s remarks are unfinished and unprepublished.

The Soldiers' National Monument at Gettysburg

Although there is a popular legend (invented in a turn-of-the-century book The Perfect Tribute) that Lincoln wrote his famous speech while on the train to Gettysburg, using the back of an envelope as scrap paper, this simply isn’t true. Lincoln has been working diligently on his speech since he received his invitation on November 2nd, and he continues to redraft the speech right up until the morning of the dedication---but he has no time to work on the speech during his train trip, as he is handling matters of State in his specially-equipped railcar. He later complains that the constant interruptions, noise, and clacking and rocking of the train give him no chance either to rest nor to write.

A popular early 20th Century tourist postcard of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg

At least some of Lincoln’s famous phrases long predate the Dedication Ceremony. Lincoln, a poet and a great literary stylist, has kept to a lifelong habit of jotting ideas on bits of paper and storing them either in an envelope in his desk, on a corkboard in his office, or in his stovepipe hat. These primitive Post-It Notes make up the foundation of some of his most moving letters and speeches.

The Gettysburg Address Memorial. The actual site of the speakers' platform now lies between two graves

When Lincoln reaches Gettysburg, the town is in a carnival mood strangely enough, considering the reason that people are assembling. Parties go on all night, street singers serenade passersby, bands are playing in the public squares, fireworks are being set off, and a large group of admirers gathers at the house where the President is staying. The President, who is nearly forced to share a bed with a stranger due to a lack of accommodations (a not-uncommon arrangement in the 19th Century), addresses his admirers with “some jocular comments” that make their way into the papers. Lincoln is later lambasted for his flippancy in the face of the solemnity of the Dedication, but the editorializers consciously choose to ignore the celebratory atmosphere of the town that night (even as they report on it); after addressing the crowd, Lincoln polishes his speech some more, and goes to bed. When he awakens, he copies the speech out in a fair hand. The paper he reads from is one of five handwritten copies he eventually produces for admirers. The Address is only 276 words in length. Each copy, however, has slightly different wording.

The final landscape design of the Cemetery, which occupies only a corner of the Battlefield Park

The Gettysburg Address does not at first enter the public consciousness. Immediately after the Dedication Ceremony, Edward Everett’s speech is the one people refer to as “The Gettysburg Address.” Ponderous and windy, full of obscure references to Athenian Democracy, Everett’s two-hour speech is exactly what a mid-19th Century audience loves. 

It begins: 

"Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me must be performed; — grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy . . .” 

And it ends: 

" . . . But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country, there will be no brighter page than that which relates the Battles of Gettysburg."

The Cemetery Gatehouse, 1863

Lincoln’s remarks, on the other hand, are generally dismissed as “rough and unpolished,” and even "silly." It is not until after Lincoln’s death that critics begin recognizing the simple elegance of the President’s words. 

Edward Everett, however, immediately perceives the grandeur of the President’s speech, and in a short note written on November 2oth he tells Lincoln: 

"I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."

Memorial Day at Gettysburg

Although thousands of Union soldiers are laid to rest at Gettysburg, thousands more are taken home and laid to rest in local cemeteries. Some towns have lost so many young men in the battle that they dedicate their own Gettysburg Cemeteries to the departed. As the Union heals, former Confederate States reinterr numbers of C.S.A. soldiers at Gettysburg to rest with their former enemies.

A Gettysburg Cemetery in Ohio

The Emancipation Proclamation, formerly considered Lincoln’s magnum opus maximus fades from white America’s awareness as a rapproachment between North and South occurs in the 1890s and early 1900s. The Gettysburg Address, that brilliant, brief exposition of American ideals, replaces it as the Great Work of President Lincoln's life even as the Civil Rights of African Americans are trampled in the early years of the new century. Despite the violation of its Precepts, the Gettysburg Address cannot itself ever be sullied. Indeed, it grows in emotive power as the years pass.

The Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

The Gettysburg Address becomes a central part of the Secular Holy Writ of American Democracy, a paean to equality and representative democracy, a Statement of Intention by America’s greatest President.

President Lincoln approaches the podium