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American Stories



Instructions: After you finish reading the story, press to run a self-marked test of this exercise.




"Four score and seven years ago..." is how President Abraham Lincoln began his short but famous speech at the dedication of the Soldier's National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863. Lincoln delivered the speech to dedicate a part of the famous battlefield as a cemetery for those who had lost their lives in the bloody Civil War battle fought there at Gettysburg.

For three days in early July 1863, one of the most critical battles of the American Civil War was fought outside the village of Gettysburg. This was the only Civil War battle fought on Northern soil. When the shooting had stopped, more than 7,000 Northern and Southern soldiers lay dead. Most of them were buried in the field near where they fell.

At the dedication, besides President Lincoln, cabinet members, governors of Northern states, other civil and military officials, and ordinary citizens were in attendance. And even though this was where the President gave his well-known dedication speech, he was not the principle speaker at the event. That honor went to Edward Everett, a distinguished public servant, who was considered the nationšs foremost speaker at that time.

Everett lived up to his reputation, giving the crowd of about 15,000 a long and fiery speech full of classical references, historical comparisons and a strong condemnation of the division of the Union. Everett spoke for close to two hours. After Everett's speech there was a break for some singing and then President Lincoln took the stage.

The Union victory at Gettysburg had been important. President Lincoln wanted to pay a suitable tribute to the men who had given their lives to make such a victory possible. And even though he was not the main speaker and he was only to make only a brief statement, Lincoln had prepared his speech carefully, writing most of the first version in Washington before travelling to Gettysburg.

Once in Gettysburg, Lincoln probably revised the first version and made a second. He planned to read the second version, but like all great speakers he made several changes as he spoke. The most important change was to add the phrase "under God" after the word "nation" in the last sentence.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, despite some criticism from his opponents and some newspapers, was widely quoted and praised. It was quickly recognized as a literary masterpiece. Historians agree that Lincoln's simple prose-poem is so elegant and graceful that the greatness of its message is almost overlooked.

Even the famous Edward Everett was so impressed that he wrote to the President the next day saying, "I should be glad 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." The central idea of the occasion, and the whole purpose of the Civil War as Lincoln saw it, was that the people of the United States should fight on to victory, not for its own sake, not even for the sake of the black slaves, but so that, "...nations conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...shall not perish from the earth."


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