One hundred fifty-nine years have passed since President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. The previous July, a three-day battle had been fought between Union and Confederate forces near the Pennsylvania town. General Robert E. Lee was attempting to invade a northern state. Most of the battles from the beginning of the war had been fought on the territory of the southern states which had seceded from the Union.

At the beginning of July, a three-day battle had been fought in and around the Gettysburg community. Together, the armies had sustained more than fifty thousand casualties.

In The War Years, Carl Sandburg wrote: In the helpless onrush of the war, it was known too many of the fallen had lain as neglected cadavers rotting in the open fields or thrust into so shallow resting places that a common farm plow caught on their bones. Now by order of Governor (Andrew) Curtain of Pennsylvania, seventeen acres had been purchased on Cemetery Hill, where the Union center stood its colors on the second and third of July, and the plots had been allotted each state for the graves.

Eighteen states shared the cost of the burying ground. Governor Curtin also established a commission to prepare plans for the dedication. Clark E. Carr of Galesburg was a member of the commission.

Invitations were sent to members of Congress, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court and governors of the states as well as President Lincoln. Thousands of citizens gathered to hear the speakers. Without the amplification of sound public speakers have today, speaking to a large crowd was very difficult. Newspaper reporters tried to write fast enough to take down the words of the various speakers.

The major address was delivered by Edward Everett, a renowned orator of the day. He required more than two hours for his speech. He gave a thorough description of the events which had occurred during the battle of Gettyburg.

The President rose and pronounced the 271 words of his speech. The people in the crowd had barely settled down to listen by the time he finished. Lincoln chose to remind his listeners why the battle was fought. The reunification of the states and the abolition of slavery were the goals of his administration. The ideals of the original founders had been upheld with the waging of war.

There was disappointment among some observers that the President had spoken for only a few minutes. The custom of those days was to speak at length and audiences expected a good speech to last an hour or more.

Afterward, the speech was reprinted in the newspapers. As time passed, it became obvious that the speech was an elaboration of the high ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the need to establish freedom and equality among all the citizens of the country.

In the following decades, many a grade school student memorized the Gettysburg Address. They spoke it at school, in church, before family gatherings and during patriotic events.

At the time of Lincoln’s speech only half of the interments in the cemetery were completed. The work would continue and the government of the United States would develop a series of cemeteries around the world to honor the dead of other wars until the present day.

You can stop by the southeast corner of West Simmons and South Broad to read again the Gettysburg Address. Thanks to a member of the Grand Army of the Republic Post 45 in Galesburg, we have our very own copy.  R. I. Law arranged for the reproduction of the Gettysburg Address on a bronze plaque for the benefit of the citizens of Galesburg. His service in the Civil War had a great influence on the rest of his life.

If you are interested in how Lincoln wrote the speech, you can read Douglas L. Wilson’s book, Lincoln’s Sword.