Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address"

Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, presided over the most divisive event in American history, the Civil War. The details of Lincoln's life in general terms are well known--how he was born in a log cabin on the frontier, how he walked five miles to school every day, how he dedicated himself to learning, how he became an attorney, how he entered politics and eventually became president of the United States (David D. Anderson 21-30). When Lincoln came to office, it was at a time of tension in the body politic as conflict between the North and the South was increasing to such a degree that a split seemed to be in the offing. Lincoln began his presidency by defining himself as god's instrument for saving the Union:

In this role he interpreted the meaning of the war as divine punishment for collective sins, which offered the nation a means of atonement. By 1865, with the cost of saving the Union to be measured in terms of 600,000 Civil War dead, Lincoln had removed all evidence of his own in

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ver and over in the speech--"dedicate," "conceive," "consecrate," "nation," "lives," and "living" (Kunhardt 209). The speech delivered that day was very short, but brief as it was, it would have an effect far beyond the hills of Gettysburg. In the century that followed, no other piece of brief prose received a fraction of the attention accorded to this: The praise, examination, analysis, and comment recognize it as one of the great American utterances; Carl Sandburg has called it "The Great American Poem." Its origins have been traced, its words counted and classified etymologically, its rhythm scanned, its form belatedly identified as classic, and its importance noted annually on May 30 (David D. Anderson 178-179). There has been considerable argument and speculation about when Lincoln wrote the address and precisely what its antecedents may have been. Some historians thought Lincoln wrote out a portion of the address in Washington and finished it at Gettysburg, while others thought the text was composed at this residence in Gettysburg the night before the ceremonies. A witness said he saw Lincoln writing something in the coach on the way to Gettysburg, though what this may have been is not certain. Lincoln's method of co
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Approximate Word count = 1580
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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