For three days in July 1863, Union and Confederate forces fought fierce battles at and near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Union turned back one of the last major thrusts of the Confederate troops toward the North. Many consider it the turning point in the war; after Gettysburg, the South had to fight a defensive war that was doomed to fail.
On November 19 of that same year, a battlefield cemetery was dedicated at Gettysburg. Edward Everett, a well-regarded and prominent speaker, was the main feature of the event.
Everett spoke before President Lincoln, droning on for 2 hours comparing the Civil War soldiers to Greek gods. President Lincoln then followed Everett, speaking for only two minutes, delivering a speech that has become known as the Gettysburg Address.
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 nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not 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.
Today, Lincoln's Gettysburg Addess is universally regarded as one of the most famous speeches in American history. Indeed, Edward Everett himself recognized the genius of Lincoln’s speech in a note that he sent to the President shortly after the event:
“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.”
In a speech that was comprised of only 10 sentences and 272 words, Lincoln was able to strike a chord that would resonate not only with his audience, but one that would resonate through time.
