The two minute monologue is, in my opinion, Lincoln's most famous speech and has gone down in history as one of the greatest speeches ever given. The words are immortalized on the left wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address is carved on the right.
Lincoln wrote drafts of the address in the telegraph office of the Washington DC War Department. He would often hide out there for long periods of time during the first few years of the conflict when it was unclear whether the Union could achieve victory over the Confederacy. The speech was given on November 19, 1863 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On July 1, 1863, the bloody battle of Gettysburg began. General George Meade and the Army of the Potomac defeated General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North. The fighting would last until July 3, 1865 and claim at least 46,000 lives. Deceased soldiers on both sides were buried on the battlefield and it was decided that the grounds would be consecrated into a national cemetery for those that rested below the grass. The committee for the November 19th Consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg invited President Lincoln to speak. He agreed and arrived by train three hours early. There were about 15,000 spectators, including 6 state governors and various reporters.
The program for the day was as follows:
Music by Birgfeld's Band (Homage d'uns Heros)
Prayer by Reverend TH Stockton
Music by the Marine Band (Old Hundred)
Oration by Hon. Edward Everett (The Battles of Gettysburg)
Music Hymn (Consecration Chant) sung by the Baltimore Glee Club
Dedicatory Remarks by the President of the United States
Dirge (Oh! It is Great for Our Country to Die) sung by a Choir selected for the occasion
Benediction by Reverend HL Baugher
Edward Everett spoke before Lincoln with an oration that lasted two hours. Lincoln's speech lasted two minutes and summarized the war in just ten sentences. Ironically, everyone thought that Everett's speech would become famous and historic. However, hardly anyone remembers it.
Although there was a photographer present, there are no photographs of Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address. The speech was so brief that the photographer did not have time to set up his equipment for a picture.
The Gettysburg Address is one of the few speeches Lincoln affixed his full signature to. He was known for just signing "A. Lincoln." However, he signed the Address "Abraham Lincoln."
So, without further ado, Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address:
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 battlefield 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 that 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 poor 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.
Damn that man could write :)
Leave a comment down below and join me in wishing a happy 150th birthday to the Gettysburg Address!
Until next time.
XOXO, Kate
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