American Voices: 1860s

Gettysburg
Fig 1 = Wayne MacVeagh (PA Unionist); Fig 2 = John Hay (White House aide); Fig 3 = John Nicolay (White House aide); Abraham Lincoln (circled); Fig 4 = William Seward (Secretary of State); Fig 5 = Edward Everett (main orator); Fig 6 = John Forney (PA newspaper editor); Fig 7 = Andrew Curtin (PA gov with son); Fig 8 = Horatio Seymour (NY gov); Fig 9 = David Tod (OH gov) (Library of Congress)

TEXT:  Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)

  • Ten sentences, about 272 words (depending on which draft)
  • Delivered at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery dedication ceremony in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863
  • There are five versions of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln’s handwriting; the last one (created in March 1864) is the version that appears in textbooks and on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial
  • The lectern from the November 19th ceremony is featured each spring at Dickinson during the annual Wert Lecture hosted by the House Divided Project

CONTEXT:  Election of 1864

  • “Let the dead bury the dead.”  That was a comment reported in the newspapers in mid-November 1863 by one of Secretary of Treasury Salmon Chase’s top aides, dismissing Lincoln’s decision to attend the cemetery dedication at Gettysburg.  At that time, Chase was quietly campaigning to replace Lincoln as the Union (or Republican) party’s presidential nominee.

SUBTEXT:  Identifying Omissions