The Gettysburg Address

Delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863

15,000 spectators were in attendance

 Abraham Lincoln
1809-1865
• Born 1809 in Kentucky to uneducated farmers
in a one room log cabin (making him the first President born outside
of the 13 colonies)
• Mother died when he was 9 years old. Became very close to step-
mother.
• Formal education was only 18 months. Very well read and mostly self
educated.
• Skilled in wrestling and using an axe.
• Stood 6 ft. 4 in. tall.
• Married to Mary Todd, whose family owned slaves.
• Had four sons. Only one survived into adulthood, Robert Lincoln.
• Elected to Illinois General Assembly in 1834
• Elected to US House of Representatives in 1846
• Elected 16th President (first Republican) of the US in 1861
 Historical Context
Battle of Gettysburg
– Battle was July 1-July 3, 1863 in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania
– Approximately:
• 163,000 soldiers fought the battle
• over 7,500 were killed
• 27,000 were wounded
• 11,100 were captured or missing
– The southern forces were defeated
Abraham Lincoln
• Leader of the Republican
Party in 1860
• Becomes the 16th
President of the United
States receiving 40% of the
popular vote
• Southerners called him the
“Black Republican”
 Gettysburg Address
• The address was about a 2 minute speech
given by President Lincoln at the dedication of
the Soldier’s National Cemetery.

– Given 4 months after the costliest battle of the

Civil War.

• Total casualties of the War to this time 472,154

• This battle alone had 54,707 casualties
 Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address (1863)
Main Points:
• It is time we talk about the promise of equality.
– “…a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal”

• We honor the soldiers sacrifice.

– “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say
here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
– “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us”

• The Union is worth fighting for.

– “—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 parish from the earth.”