Gettysburg Address

by Abraham Lincoln

THE LITERARY WORK

A brief speech delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863.

SYNOPSIS

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln makes a public address in which he dedicates a cemetery for soldiers that lost their lives in a pivotal conflict of the war.

Events in History at the Time of the Speech

The Speech in Focus

For More Information

In July 1863, it was not at all clear to President Abraham Lincoln or the rest of the nation whether the North or South would emerge victorious from the Civil War that threatened to destroy the country. In the midst of all the uncertainty and bloodshed, after a battle that claimed more lives than any until that time, Northerners held a solemn ceremony to consecrate a cemetery for their fallen. In a brief address at the occasion, Lincoln spoke of the larger cause to which both sides had been devoted when founding the nation. Referring to the country’s Declaration of Independence (also covered in Literature and Its Times), his Gettysburg Address turned the idea of equality, rather than the separate causes for which each side fought, into the nation’s primary focus.

Events in History at the Time of the Speech

The war prior to Gettysburg

Pitting the Northern states of the Union against the Southern states of the Confederacy, the Civil War was a sobering experience. At an enormous cost not only in money ($20 billion) but also in lives (600,000 killed or dead from disease), the four-year conflict forced the nation to confront issues that threatened its survival.

Although scholars still debate the actual causes of the war, three main areas proved divisive—state rights, economics, and slavery. The Southern states favored state sovereignty over federal regulations, while many Northern ones did not. Tariff arguments pitted Southern plantation owners, who generally wanted low taxes on imported goods, against Northern manufacturers, who pushed for high tariffs on imports in order to protect their own products. Finally, debate escalated over the issue of slavery. Southerners argued that state sovereignty and the sanctity of private property were at stake, growing ever more vehement until they went so far as to tout slavery as a positive good. Meanwhile, Northerners used such publications as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) (also covered in Literature and Its Times) as an indictment of all slaveowners. Eventually the differences between the two regions congealed into one full-scale conflict of interest. It was a conflict that proved intolerable for the South.

On February 4, 1861, seven Southern states seceded from the Union and adopted a constitution for the Confederate States of America. A few months later four more states joined them. With Jefferson Davis as their president, the Confederacy (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) fought to gain control of federal property in the Southern jurisdiction. They focused their efforts on the acquisition of Fort Sumter on the Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The fort was a major international port, and the Confederates needed to gain control of it so that they could secure trade with outside nations. On April 12, 1861, after offering Union forces a chance to evacuate the fort, the Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War.

The conflict continued for two agonizing years before the Battle of Gettysburg. In a seesaw string of battles, the Confederate forces of the South, which had fewer resources and men, nevertheless more than held their own.

The South actually did very well in the first two years of the war. After suffering a temporary setback at Antietam in Maryland, Confederate General Robert E. Lee led his army to victories at Fredericksburg and at Chancellorsville in Virginia. His confidence boosted, Lee decided to go on the offensive and take his troops into the North. His Confederate army seemed close to total victory; another success could woo Great Britain and France into supporting the Southerners. Meanwhile, the Union struggled on, battling not only Lee’s army in the East but also other Confederates in the West.

President Lincoln put the Union’s eastern army under the command of General George G. Meade; its western troops were headed by General Ulysses S. Grant. In the first week of July 1863, Meade led Union forces into battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, while Grant and his troops were similarly engaged at Vicksburg, Mississippi. At home in the nation’s capital, Lincoln anxiously awaited the news from either front; given the recent defeats suffered by the Union army, his administration was being pressured to step down and capitulate altogether.

The Battle of Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg was one of the most important battles in the Civil War and marked a turning point in history. Fought at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from July 1 to July 3, 1863, the battle pitted seventy-five thousand Confederate soldiers against ninety thousand Union men. Of these, roughly forty thousand would suffer injury or death in the three days of fighting.

Lee’s army had started northward on June 3, 1863, moving slowly because so many men and equipment had to cover so great a distance. Following him were Meade’s Union troops. Neither

MAJOR CIVIL WAR BATTLES BEFORE GETTYSBURG

side knew exactly where the other’s force was. By the end of June, the Confederate army had arrived west and north of Gettysburg, while the Union army was located to the south of the town. The tens of thousands of soldiers dwarfed the town’s population of twenty-four hundred.

By chance, some Confederates close to Gettysburg fired on some Union cavalry men on July 1. Neither Lee nor Meade had planned to initiate a fight at that locale, but what began as a small skirmish mushroomed into a full-scale battle. The Confederates captured the town of Gettysburg, pushing the Union troops back to Cemetery Hill. General Lee and his troops charged the right flank of the Union force on July 1. On the following day Lee attacked the left. After both attacks were thwarted, Lee made a frontal attack that was daring, considering the circumstances. Gettysburg was mostly an infantry battle, with soldiers fighting in lines. Both sides used muzzle-loading rifles. Each round took thirty seconds to load and fire, which made a frontal attack a great gamble. The attackers became easy targets.

Nevertheless, on July 3, in what some scholars term the most famous charge in American military history, the Confederates attacked the Union center. The attack turned into a disaster for Lee’s forces. By the time the smoke cleared, Lee’s army listed 3,903 dead, 18,735 wounded. The North totaled 3,155 dead, 14,529 injured. The number of soldiers killed at Gettysburg thus amounted to more than twice the number of casualties that the armies had endured to that point. On July 5 Lee began his retreat to Virginia, leading his depleted and drastically weakened troops toward the Potomac River, which was swollen due to heavy rains in the area.

Meanwhile, in the West, Grant had laid siege to and won Vicksburg for the Union. With this victory the North gained control of the Mississippi River and cut the Confederacy in two, dividing the Southern states west of the river thoroughfare from those east of it. Lincoln rejoiced. The end of the war seemed near. If Meade’s army chased and caught Lee’s remaining forces, the Confederacy could be crushed once and for all. But Meade let Lee escape, and the war continued.

Still, Gettysburg had done irreversible damage to the South. Never again would Lee’s army be strong enough to take the offensive. There was symbolic value in the battle, too. Out of a ceremony to consecrate a cemetery for the soldiers who perished in the fighting, the primary reason for the war became clear. Ironically, remarked one historian, “out of all this muddle, these missed chances, all the senseless deaths, [Gettysburg] would become a symbol of national purpose, pride, and ideals” because of President Lincoln’s brief address (Wills, p. 20).

The cemetery at Gettysburg and the dedication

In his pursuit of Lee, Meade wired Union headquarters that he could not “delay to pick up the debris of the battlefield” (Meade in Wills, p. 20). The “debris” referred to rotting horses and human bodies left to the exposure of the July sun. As they slid the soldiers into shallow graves, spading a little earth over the bodies, the burial crew roughly recorded the names of the Union dead. The same consideration was not shown to the fallen Confederate soldiers. Within a short span of time, these graves suffered from ransacking as anguished family members searched for their missing relatives.

Andrew Curtin, the governor of Pennsylvania, quickly assigned a prominent citizen in Gettysburg, Judge David Wills, to form an interstate commission and gather funding for a proper cemetery. Wills hoped to dedicate the ground for the cemetery before the dead bodies were removed from their scattered, shallow graves and placed into it. In preparing a program, he asked several speakers to attend the ceremony. Poets such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, and John Greenleaf Whittier were invited to speak, but they refused.

Nineteenth-century public oratory addresses typically lasted for several hours, and audiences delighted in the duration. Wills desperately wanted Edward Everett, a noted public speaker, to dedicate the land at Gettysburg. States one scholar, “Everett was that rare thing, a scholar and Ivy-League diplomat who could hold mass audiences in thrall” (Wills, p. 24). As he had already given famous speeches about the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord and of Bunker Hill, a speech by Everett at Gettysburg would help to soothe some of the local inhabitants’ ire over the treatment of their town. Everett agreed to attend, but he required two months from his September 23 invitation to prepare. A commemorating date of November 19, 1863, was set.

At the beginning of November, Wills also issued a rather casual invitation to President Lincoln to speak at the ceremony. The program for the ceremony lists Everett as the orator and Lincoln as the dedicator. The presence of the president was not intended to lend an aesthetic contribution to the ceremony; rather it was for the sake of formality.

While history gives various accounts of the composition of Lincoln’s address, more likely than not the president wrote at least one draft of it while still in Washington. He wrote at least six versions of the address in his own hand, making some minor revisions in the drafts. There is uncertainty about the draft that he eventually delivered. It may have been the second version, finished the morning of the ceremony in the house of his host Judge Wills.

The ceremony included band music and a formal procession that had Lincoln riding on horseback in the company of three cabinet members to the commemoration spot. At least fifteen thousand spectators descended on the small town to watch the service. The keynote speaker, Everett, and a consecration hymn were to precede the few ceremonious words to be made by Lincoln.

Everett’s speech

Everett, a scholar of classics, peppered his speech with multiple allusions to fallen Greek heroes. He opened by referring to a funeral at which the Greek general Pericles had spoken some twenty-four hundred years earlier. Using a different Greek example, he drew parallels between the dead at Gettysburg and those who had fallen at the Battle of Marathon in 490 b.c. Within this academic rhetoric, Everett more or less gave a retelling of the Battle of Gettysburg’s events. In a grand manner he related the battle to the larger war. Ultimately, he condemned the Confederates for their rebellion from the Union and relieved Meade of the blame for letting Lee escape. Everett concluded his speech after almost two hours. Voices then broke out in the consecration hymn.

Delivery of Lincoln’s speech

While Everett recited his two-hour speech from memory, Lincoln recited most but not all of his three-minute address from memory. The president delivered his speech in his usual high tenor voice, marked by Lincoln’s native Kentucky accent. Although actors impersonating the sixteenth president often lend him a deep baritone, Lincoln’s voice was in fact quite shrill. Because Lincoln spent hours poring over Shakespearean speeches, however, he knew how to manipulate the rhythms and inflections of dramatic delivery. Interrupted for applause some five times according to reports, the president’s speech was well received by his audience.

FROM THE CONSECRATION HYMN BY BENJAMIN B. FRENCH

‘Tis holy ground—
This spot, where, in their graves
We place our Country’s braves
Who fell in Freedom’s holy cause
Fighting for Liberties and Laws—
Let tears abound.
          (Klement, p. 207)

Only 120 known photographs of Abraham Lincoln survive today. It is difficult to piece together how the president might have appeared in a live presentation based on this skimpy evidence. Eyewitnesses usually support the notion that, as a rule, Lincoln gave a fairly negative first impression. His complexion was dark, and his height made him appear gawky. It was his speaking ability that wooed crowds. In 1887 William Herndon recalled that:

When Mr. Lincoln rose up to speak, he rose slowly, steadily, firmly; he never moved much about on the stand or platform when speaking, trusting no desk, table, railing; he ran his eyes slowly over the crowd.... In his greatest inspiration he held both of his hands out above his head at an angle of about fifty degrees, hands open or clenched, according to his feeling and his ideas.

(Braden, p. 107)

The Speech in Focus

The contents

There is contention about exactly what Lincoln said in the speech he delivered at the ceremony. His written manuscript cannot be relied upon for exact wording, since he relied more on his memory than the written document. One eyewitness, Boston Advertiser newsman Charles Hale, declared that he caught every word in the exact language uttered. Hale’s claim was confirmed by others in attendance. His version follows:

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation—or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated—can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our power to add or to detract. The world will very little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated, here, to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth

(Lincoln in Barton, pp. 81-2)

Lincoln wrote later drafts for publication in the official report of the Gettysburg ceremony, for a New York fair, for a Baltimore fair, and for a book called Autograph Leaves of Our Country’s Authors. Below is a copy of Lincoln’s sixth draft, with revised phrases in bold for purposes of comparison.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”

(Lincoln in Barton, pp. 111-12)

Gettysburg Address and Declaration of Independence

Lincoln opened his speech by evoking the words of the Declaration of Independence. Rather than echo the Declaration’s exact words, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal” (Thurow in Alvarez, p. 57), the president slightly altered this phrase. Lincoln called the equality of men a “proposition” that the nation is “dedicated” to achieving. He maintained that this achievement had not yet been realized.

The Civil War tested whether the nation could endure and fulfill the principle it set out to achieve—a principle of equality. Unfortunately, equality is not a standard that can be easily measured. During the pre-Civil War era, prejudices ran so deep that many felt blacks did not deserve the freedoms of whites because they were not equal citizens. Furthermore, not all members of society connected equality with justice. That is to say, not all felt it unjust that some members of society were not treated equally. Lincoln understood that the government could not attempt to simply erase this public opinion. As he stated, “A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded” (Lincoln in Alvarez, p. 62). His Gettysburg Address attempted to solve this problem of the principle of equality.

Rather than attempting to define the term, Lincoln asserted that the proposition had yet to be achieved. He challenged the nation to find a sense of equality, to prove the Declaration of Independence true. The nation was founded on a belief, but Lincoln asserted that it must be maintained with an acquired knowledge. He forced public opinion away from the moment, focusing it instead on the past and the future. Lincoln insisted that the soldiers’ deaths would be in vain unless his audience could renew its commitment to the soldiers’ cause.

Lincoln’s reliance on the Declaration in his speech cast it in a new light. Long regarded as simply the document in which the thirteen colonies claimed their independence from the British, it was spoken of in his Gettysburg Address as the country’s founding law, and it has been regarded as such ever since.

Sources

The 1800s brought with them a revival of interest in Greek history. Archaeologists began uncovering the remains of this ancient democracy, while Romantic poets such as John Keats composed odes to Greek artwork. In his speech, the classicist Everett evoked the image of Pericles speaking over the ashes of fallen Athenians who had fought against Sparta in 431 b.c. But Abraham Lincoln’s speech relied more on a Greek format than on evoking images of men like Pericles.

The structure of Grecian funeral orations featured two parts. The “epainesis” refers to the praise of the fallen, while the “parainesis” covers advice to the living. Lincoln’s speech, when examined line by line, follows this format almost exactly. He began by referring to the founding fathers and the ideals that they held. He continued with his dedication, noting that “it is altogether fitting and proper” for the living to acknowledge the achievements of the dead. The last half of his speech called on the living to prove themselves worthy of the soldiers who had died.

In many speeches, Lincoln favored the idea of thesis and antithesis, and much of his rhetoric shows these marks of contrast. In his Gettysburg Address, the two poles are death and life. Throughout the speech, Lincoln, like Pericles, called on the living generation to surpass the standards of those who came before.

Lincoln relied not only on classical models, however, for his inspiration. Much of what Lincoln said recast the words of the Declaration of Independence, perhaps to rectify his oversight in composing the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, which freed all black slaves in rebel territory. This proclamation was a politically risky move. Lincoln took a gamble in upsetting Northern Democrats who did not support abolitionism. He knew that his Emancipation Proclamation might create turmoil in an already strained Union. In addition, it risked the reputation of the United States around the world. Given the difficulties of the war, European nations could have viewed the Emancipation Proclamation as a desperate attempt to incite a slave rebellion. It could very well have been interpreted as a sign that the Union was losing.

For these reasons, Lincoln walked a middle ground in his Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that it was a purely militaristic move. He would free the slaves using his presidential power of creating a militia troop against a rebellion. His critics noted that his Proclamation made no mention of liberty or the rights of men. Lincoln rectified this with his Gettysburg Address, delivered over ten months later.

Finally, Lincoln’s choice of words was probably influenced by other Americans of his day. The renowned congressman and orator Daniel Webster (1782-1852) had defined the American system as “The people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people,” for example (Webster in Barton, p. 132). Another American, clergyman Theodore Parker (1810-1860), wrote a sermon that Lincoln is known to have read and underlined. In his sermon, Parker said, “There is what I call the American idea … that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people” (Parker in Barton, p. 135).

Reaction to the speech

As was the custom, newspapers reprinted Lincoln’s speech the day after it was delivered. Several newspapers, however, such as Milwaukee’s Daily Wisconsin, printed an incorrect version of it. Otherwise the press mostly ignored Lincoln’s address, focusing instead on Everett’s oration.

There were a few negative comments. The Chicago Times berated Lincoln for misinterpreting the Constitution in an editorial: “How dare he, then, standing on their graves, misstate the cause for which they died, and libel the statesmen who founded the government?” (Chicago Times in Wills, p. 39). Many others accused the president of politicking—that is, grandstanding to get re-elected in 1864. The Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, newspaper (Patriot and Union) spoke of the “silly remarks” made by the president at Gettysburg, while overseas the London Times maintained that “the ceremony was rendered ludicrous by some of the sallies of that poor President Lincoln.... Anything more dull and commonplace it wouldn’t be easy to produce (Barton, p. 116).

Not all responses were so caustic, however. The Springfield Republican called the speech an absolute gem—deep in meaning, compact in expression, and tasteful in every word and comma. And in 1865 Macmillan’s Magazine praised the speech’s simple structure and rich meaning as true marks of the classical style. Perhaps the greatest compliment, though, came from the keynote speaker, Edward Everett: “I should be glad,” he told Lincoln, “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” (Everett in Barton, p. 195).

For More Information

Alvarez, Leo Paul S., ed. Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address and American Constitutionalism. Dallas: University of Dallas Press, 1976.

Barton, William E. Lincoln at Gettysburg: What He Intended to Say; What He Said; What He Was Reported to Have Said; What He Wished He Had Said. New York: Peter Smith, 1950.

Braden, Waldo. Abraham Lincoln, Public Speaker. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Gramm, Kent. Gettysburg: A Meditation on War and Values. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Klement, Frank L. The Gettysburg Soldiers’ Cemetery and Lincoln’s Address: Aspects and Angles. Ship-pensburg, Pa.: White Mane, 1993.

Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.