USA HISTORY

President Lincoln was one of the speakers at the ceremony to dedicate the new cemetery at Gettysburg. The main speaker, Edward Everrett, spoke on and on, for two hours. Then Lincoln spoke for just under two minutes. But in those two minutes, Lincoln spoke more beautiful, memorable, ideas than the other guy had said in his long speech. Lincoln’s address (another word for speech) had only 270 words, but has been studied ever since as an example of one of history’s best speeches. This was the Gettysburg Address.The Gettysburg Address was

(A) a cemetery dedicated to Union soldiers who died in a battle there

(B) a two-hour speech dedicating a cemetery, given at a battle

(C) ** a two-minute speech dedicating a cemetery, given by Lincoln

(D) an envelope with the address of the Gettysburg cemetery

Concept note-1: -Almost as an afterthought, Wills also sent a letter to Lincoln-just two weeks before the ceremony-requesting “a few appropriate remarks” to consecrate the grounds. At the dedication, the crowd listened for two hours to Everett before Lincoln spoke. Lincoln’s address lasted just two or three minutes.

Concept note-2: -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.

Concept note-3: -On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a short speech at the close of ceremonies dedicating the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Concept note-4: -The main purpose of the Gettysburg Address at the time it was given was to commemorate a new National Cemetery at Gettysburg. It also gave Lincoln’s purpose for pushing on to win the Civil War-the abolition of slavery and the reunification of the Union.