His Gettysburg Address offered Americans a chart and a prayer for years to come. The passage of time, however, has immortalized the 270 well-chosen words that Lincoln spoke. Thereafter, the pressures of war were such that neither Lincoln nor anyone else gave second thoughts to his “few appropriate remarks” at Gettysburg. On arrival at the White House, he went straight to bed with a mild form of smallpox. He would have felt more disappointed at his Gettysburg performance had he not been so ill. Lincoln returned to Washington that night. Yet the Chicago Times sneered at what it termed “the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States”. Some individuals, including Everett, praised Lincoln’s statements. A photographer was still fussing with his camera when the President sat down. He finished almost before many in the large audience were aware that he had begun. He shambled to the podium, put on his spectacles, unfolded a single sheet of paper, and began speaking in a high-pitched Midwestern twang. Lincoln then rose awkwardly from his seat. The white-haired, well-attired Everett spoke for two hours as the crowd leaned forward to listen. ![]() Lincoln to attend the ceremony, and the President surprised one and all by accepting, the committee hastily asked him to “make a few appropriate remarks” at the end of the program.Ĭlose to 20,000 people gathered in the cemetery for the dedication. When the program committee courteously invited Mr. The distinguished orator, Edward Everett of Boston, was to give the main address. Now, in the quiet autumn of that year, Pennsylvania officials planned to dedicate part of a new cemetery containing the bodies of some of the 3,100 Union soldiers hastily interred after the battle. The battle of Gettysburg had produced almost 50,000 casualties. Back in July, this little community in the southern part of the state had been the scene of three days of intense combat. On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln was an unanticipated guest in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Originally aired on NovemIn part 12 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson provides the story behind that famous speech President Lincoln gave in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863
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