Summary
The Gettysburg Address, perhaps the best-known speech by an American, has a curious history, as scholar Gabor Boritt shows in this definitive study.
For one thing, even today we hear arguments about whether the speech fell flat for listeners on Nov. 19, 1863, or whether they erupted in applause or sat in awed silence. Contemporary accounts of newspaper reporters (and others) vary wildly.See the full content of this document
Extract
A New View of Lincoln at Gettysburg
And, of course, there are the stories about Lincoln dashing off the speech while traveling to Gettysburg by train. Mr. Boritt weighs the evidence especially the original draft and reaches no firm conclusion, but he thinks it likely that Lincoln wrote the first part of the speech at the White House and then finished it i...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
