The Gettysburg Address was delivered on November 19, 1863: history, photos, videos and more

Today is the anniversary of President Lincoln's delivery of his few "brief remarks" at the dedication of the new national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (wiki), only four or so months after the great Civil War battle there that emerged as "the high-water mark of the Confederacy." 

One of the only two confirmed photos of Abraham
 Lincoln (sepia highlight) at Gettysburg, taken
about noon, just after Lincoln arrived and
some three hours before the speech.
To Lincoln's right is his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon

At the time, the final issue of the war was still in some doubt, and Lincoln received second billing to a lengthy speech by Dr. Edward Everett, then president of Harvard University and reputedly America's greatest orator. 

Everyone's familiar with the Gettysburg Address - didn't we all have to memorize it in grammar school? But in these troubled times, its mere 272 words remain well worth reading again. The full text is below.

By the way, Garry Wills' brilliant study Lincoln at Gettysburg analyzes the Gettysburg Address in terms of its role in defining the ethos of the United States for subsequent generations, while also tracing the antecedents of Lincoln's argument and the structure of his peerless prose back to Thucydides' account of Pericles' 430 B.C funeral oration at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War. (Wills notes that despite the popular view that Lincoln generally preferred short, pithy utterances, the final sentence of the Gettysburg Address is 84 words long - almost a third of the whole.)

Here's Wikipedia on the similarities:

Lincoln's speech, like Pericles', begins with an acknowledgment of revered predecessors: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent..."; Lincoln, like Pericles, then praises the uniqueness of the State's commitment to democracy: "..a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...government of the people, by the people, and for the people..."; Lincoln, like Pericles, addresses the difficulties faced by a speaker on such an occasion, "...we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground"; Lincoln, like Pericles, exhorts the survivors to emulate the deeds of the dead, "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the great task remaining before us"; and finally, Lincoln, like Pericles, contrasts the efficacy of words and deeds, "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 uncertain to what degree Lincoln was directly influenced by Pericles' Funeral Oration.

Wills never claims that Lincoln drew on it as a source, though Edward Everett, who delivered a lengthy oration at the same ceremony at Gettysburg, began by describing the "Athenian example".

This 2014 article on Obama's recitation of the speech (the 150th anniversary) in which he left out the words "under God" is from WMAL. Excerpts:

WASHINGTON -- One nation under God? Under President Obama, maybe not so much.

Union soldiers dead at Gettysburg, July 1963

In advance of the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address (full text below), which President Abraham Lincoln delivered on November 19, 1863, filmmaker Ken Burns gathered every living President, along with several prominent members of Congress, celebrities and news media stars to deliver the address themselves. Burns edited the individual speeches into one final mashup that is available on the site, but he also provided the complete speech as delivered by each individual dignitary. 

Curiously enough, in his version of the speech, President Barack Obama's delivery contained an omission - in a line that every other celebrity delivered as "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom" (click here for proof of that), the President left out the words "under God." 

You can watch all of the speeches at learntheaddress.org.

Gettysburg Address full text:

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 other 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 died that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot 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. 

~ Abraham Lincoln ("The Gettysburg Address," 19 November 1863)

Here's a brief documentary which includes most of the available photographs of Lincoln, some photos of battlefields, and several (non-photographic) illustrations from contemporaneous newspaper accounts. It also describes the historical context of the speech and Lincoln's feeling that it had been a failure:

An animated version of the speech:

Gettysburg Address from Adam Gault Studio on Vimeo.

This video is a series of photos from the morning after the battle, set to music:

At the Smithsonian, a Battle of Gettysburg Interactive Map.

Related: Paper prints retraction for 1863 article calling Gettysburg address "silly remarks"; retraction written in the style of Gettysburg Address (read the whole thing!):

Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.

Mental Floss has an excellent post - Gettysburg: The Great Reunion of 1913.

Friday links

The Suez Canal opened on November 17, 1869.

These crabs can grow up to 3 feet - and hunt birds, a biologist's video proves.

Watch 245 People Jump Off A Bridge.

The Gettysburg Address was seven score and fourteen years ago tomorrow (November 18) - here's some history and an excellent brief video with contemporaneous photos and illustrations. Related: newspaper prints a retraction for 1863 article calling Gettysburg address "silly remarks"; retraction written in the style of Gettysburg Address.

The pigeon’s rump cure for childhood seizures.

My Surprising Career as an Amazon.com "Fake" Reviewer.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's birthday, are cats, technically, a liquid?, an X-ray murder trial, and how female turkeys choose their mates (and avoid the rejects).

Paper prints retraction for 1863 article calling Gettysburg address "silly remarks". Retraction written in the style of Gettysburg Address.

One of the two confirmed photos of Abraham Lincoln
(sepia highlight) at Gettysburg, taken about noon,
 just after Lincoln arrived and some three hours before the
 speech. To his right is his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon.

Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.

We write today in reconsideration of “The Gettysburg Address,” delivered by then-President Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the greatest conflict seen on American soil. Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time, called President Lincoln’s words “silly remarks,”deserving “a veil of oblivion,” apparently believing it an indifferent and altogether ordinary message, unremarkable in eloquence and uninspiring in its brevity.

In the fullness of time, we have come to a different conclusion. No mere utterance, then or now, could do justice to the soaring heights of language Mr. Lincoln reached that day. By today’s words alone, we cannot exalt, we cannot hallow, we cannot venerate this sacred text, for a grateful nation long ago came to view those words with reverence, without guidance from this chagrined member of the mainstream media.

The world will little note nor long remember our emendation of this institution’s record – but we must do as conscience demands:

In the editorial about President Abraham Lincoln’s speech delivered Nov. 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, the Patriot & Union failed to recognize its momentous importance, timeless eloquence, and lasting significance. The Patriot-News regrets the error.

The original editorial:

Patriot & Union | Tuesday, Nov. 24, 1863 | Editorial

A Voice from the Dead 

We have read the oration of Mr. Everett. We have read the little speeches of President Lincoln, as reported for and published in his party press, and we have read the remarks of the Hon. Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward,all delivered on the occasion of dedicating the National Cemetery, a plot of ground set apart for the burial of the dead who fell at Gettysburg in the memorable strife which occurred there between the forces of the Federal Government and the troops of the Confederacy of seceded States.

To say of Mr. Everett's oration that it rose to the height which the occasion demanded, or to say of the President's remarks that they fell below our expectations, would be alike false. Neither the orator nor the jester surprised or deceived us. Whatever may be Mr. Everett's failings he does not lack sense - whatever may be the President's virtues, he does not possess sense. Mr. Everett failed as an orator, because the occasion was a mockery, and he knew it, and the President succeeded, because he acted naturally, without sense and without constraint, in a panorama which was gotten up more for his benefit and the benefit of his party than for the glory of the nation and the honor of the dead. 

We can readily conceive that the thousands who went there went as mourners, to view the burial place of their dead, to consecrate, so far as human agency could, the ground in which the slain heroes of the nation,standing in relationship to them of fathers, husbands, brothers, or connected by even remoter ties of marriage or consanguinity, were to be interred. To them the occasion was solemn; with them the motive was honest, earnest and honorable. But how was it with the chief actors in the pageant, who had no dead buried, or to be buried there; from none of whose loins had sprung a solitary hero, living or dead, of this war which was begotten of their fanaticism and has been ruled by their whims?

They stood there, upon that ground, not with hearts stricken with grief or elated by ideas of true glory, but coldly calculating the political advantages which might be derived from the solemn ceremonies of the dedication. 

We will not include in this category of heartless men the orator of the day; but evidently he was paralyzed by the knowledge that he was surrounded by unfeeling, mercenary men, ready to sacrifice their country and the liberties of their countrymen for the base purpose of retaining power and accumulating wealth. Hi oration was therefore cold, insipid, unworthy the occasion and the man. 

We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of.

But the Secretary of State is a man of note. He it was who first fulminated the doctrine of the irrepressible conflict; and on the battle field and burial ground of Gettysburg he did not hesitate to re-open the bleeding wound,and proclaim anew the fearful doctrine that we are fighting all these bloody battles, which have drenched our land in gore, to upset the Constitution,emancipate the negro and bind the white man in the chains of despotism.

On that ground which should have been sacred from the pollution of politics, even the highest magnate in the land, next to the President himself, did not hesitate to proclaim the political policy and fixed purpose of the administration; a policy which if adhered to will require more ground than Gettysburg to hold our dead, and which must end in the ruin of the nation. The dead of Gettysburg will speak from their tombs; they will raise their voices against this great wickedness and implore our rulers to discard from their councils the folly which is destroying us, and return to the wise doctrines of the Fathers, to the pleadings of Christianity, to the compromises of the Constitution, which can alone save us. Let our rulers hearken to the dead, if they will not to the living - for from every tomb which covers a dead soldier, if they listen attentively they will hear a solemn sound invoking them to renounce partisanship for patriotism, and to save the country from the misery and desolation which, under their present policy, is inevitable.

Related: Obama Recites Gettysburg Address, Removes "Under God". Plus Thucydides!

From PennLive.

Friday links

The Gettysburg Address was seven score and thirteen years ago. Related: President James Garfield's birthday - when he was shot, Alexander Graham Bell showed up with a metal detector to try to locate the bullet. 

The Japanese Museum of Rocks That Look Like Faces.

The Rise and Fall of the 1-900 Number.

Advice on hair washing from the 12th and 17th centuries.

28 Delicious Ways To Use Leftover Bacon Fat.

Protect Your Library the Medieval Way, With Horrifying Book Curses.

ICYMI, last Friday's links are here, and include why we have animals living in our houses, Heineken's campaign to convince consumers that Corona was actually urine, early- to mid-20th century visions of sex in the future, and ranking the most popular canceled TV shows (Firefly, of course, is number 1).

Thursday links

Today is President James Garfield's birthday. When he was shot, Alexander Graham Bell showed up with a metal detector to try to locate the bullet. Related, The Gettysburg Address was seven score and twelve years ago, and Pennsylvania newspaper prints retraction (written in the style of the Gettysburg Address) for 1863 article calling Gettysburg address "silly remarks".

Why Reese’s Are Usually Taxed But Kit Kats Aren’t.

Father borrows Go-Pro, holds it backwards and Accidentally Records Entire Vacation the Wrong Way as One Long Selfie.

Defenestration supercut: movie characters driving, falling, jumping and being thrown through glass windows.

The Strangely Successful History of People Mailing Themselves in Boxes.

Woman wins fight to wear spaghetti strainer on her head for driving licence photo.

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include a 1968 memo to Gene Roddenberry about William Shatner's disappearing wigs from the Star Trek set (plus a Monty Python/Star Trek mashup), photos of the Rolling Stones as kids, and a boat trip through the Paris Sewer.

Wednesday links

The Gettysburg Address was seven score and eleven years ago: history, photos, video and more.

The origin of Humpty Dumpty.

Photoessay: Co-Worker Asked Me to Watch Her Plant While She Was Out for the Week…

Basic Fainting Technique: how to faint in a manner that attracts the attention of a specific gentleman.

30 Hilariously Terrifying Animal Hybrids That You Can Be Glad Don’t Exist.

Take this Map Your Mind quiz and find out which famous brains are most similar to yours.

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include Pliny the Elder's advice for avoiding mushroom poisoning, film from a 1937 Nazi boys summer camp in upstate NY, the history of prosthetic limbs, and the top 50 all-time video games, ranked.

Video: Remembering Gettysburg 150 Years Ago Today, from Sen Ted Cruz

Obama Recites Gettysburg Address, Removes "Under God". Plus Thucydides!

Today is the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln's delivery of his few "brief remarks" at the dedication of the new national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, only four or so months after the great Civil War battle there that emerged as "the high-water mark of the Confederacy." At the time, the final issue of the war was still in some doubt, and Lincoln received second billing to a lengthy speech by Dr. Edward Everett, then president of Harvard University and reputedly America's greatest orator. 

Everyone's familiar with the Gettysburg Address - didn't we all have to memorize it in grammar school? But in these troubled times, its mere 272 words remain well worth reading again. 

By the way, Garry Wills' brilliant study Lincoln at Gettysburg analyzes the Gettysburg Address in terms of its role in defining the ethos of our great nation for following generations, while also tracing the antecedents of Lincoln's argument and the structure of his peerless prose back to Thucydides' account of Pericles' 430 B.C funeral oration at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War. (Wills notes that despite the popular view that Lincoln generally preferred short, pithy utterances, the final sentence of the Gettysburg Address is 84 words long - almost a third of the whole.)

So, at WMAL:

WASHINGTON -- One nation under God? Under President Obama, maybe not so much.

In advance of the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address (full text below), which President Abraham Lincoln delivered on November 19, 1863, filmmaker Ken Burns gathered every living President, along with several prominent members of Congress, celebrities and news media stars to deliver the address themselves. Burns edited the individual speeches into one final mashup that is available on the site, but he also provided the complete speech as delivered by each individual dignitary. 

Curiously enough, in his version of the speech, President Barack Obama's delivery contained an omission - in a line that every other celebrity delivered as "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom" (click here for proof of that), the President left out the words "under God."  

You can watch all of the speeches at learntheaddress.org.

You can see the President's reading of the Gettysburg speech here - his omission is at the 1:35 mark:

Gettysburg Address full text:

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 other 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 died that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this.  But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot 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. 

- Abraham Lincoln ("The Gettysburg Address," 19 November 1863)

(Remarks at the top of this post taken from Ed's Quotation of the Day, only available via email.  Leave your email address in the comments if you'd like to be added to his distribution list.)

Friday links

Horrible dating advice from 19th century novels.

Video: Katniss kills everything.

Excellent gallery: Photographs of Isolated Tribes Facing Extinction.

That time Harvard and Yale took Naked Photos of all their Freshmen Students.

Paper prints retraction for 1863 article calling Gettysburg address "silly remarks". Retraction written in the style of Gettysburg Address.

25 Of The Worst Food Name Fails Ever.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here.

Links for Friday

Mess with a crow, and it will remember your face for over five years.

25 Cartoon Characters Whose Real Names You Never Knew.

Gettysburg: The Great Reunion of 1913.

Cemetery of giant aliens found in Central Africa.

Ants that raise other insects for meat.