50 Fun Facts About Gettysburg Address

On what date did Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address?

The ceremony dedicated the Soldiers' National Cemetery four and a half months after the battle.

Approximately how many words long is the Gettysburg Address?

It was read in under two minutes.

Roughly how many people gathered to hear the dedication ceremony?

More than 3,000 Union soldiers had been killed in the three-day battle they were commemorating.

The opening 'Four score and seven years ago' refers back to which year?

Lincoln was pointing to the Declaration of Independence and its claim that all men are created equal.

How many sentences make up the Gettysburg Address?

Modern scholars still disagree on the exact wording Lincoln spoke.

Who was the featured orator whose two-hour speech preceded Lincoln's remarks?

His now seldom-read oration lasted two hours.

How many words long was Everett's main oration?

Lengthy cemetery dedications were the fashion, a tradition begun by Justice Joseph Story at Mount Auburn in 1831.

Which offices had Everett held before Gettysburg?

He was also a Harvard president, minister to Great Britain and Unitarian pastor.

Who invited Lincoln to Gettysburg, asking him to set apart the grounds 'by a few appropriate remarks'?

Lincoln stayed at his house the night before and finished the speech in an upstairs bedroom there.

Under which famous Pennsylvania politician had Lincoln's Gettysburg host studied law?

His host was the principal figure behind creating the national cemetery.

What illness was Lincoln probably coming down with when he gave the speech?

He felt dizzy that morning and was feverish with a headache on the train home.

Which three cabinet members travelled with Lincoln to Gettysburg?

His secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay came too, and Hay noted the president's ghastly colour.

How many known manuscript copies of the Gettysburg Address exist in Lincoln's hand?

Each is named for the person who received it from Lincoln.

Which copy is regarded as the standard text because Lincoln titled, signed and dated it?

It is the last version he is known to have written and the one carved into the Lincoln Memorial.

Where did Oscar Cintas's will require the signed, standard-text copy be kept?

The Cuban ambassador bought it at auction in 1949 and willed it to the American people on condition it stayed there.

How much did Oscar Cintas pay for the signed copy at auction in 1949, then a record for a document?

His property in Cuba was later seized by the Castro government.

What gas fills the sealed cases protecting the two earliest copies at the Library of Congress?

They were the two written around the time of the speech, for Lincoln's private secretaries.

Which two-word phrase is missing from the Nicolay and Hay drafts but present in the later copies?

At least three reporters telegraphed the phrase on the day, suggesting Lincoln added it as he spoke.

Which university holds the Bancroft copy, the only one privately owned?

Lincoln wrote it on both sides of the paper, which made it unusable for the charity book it was meant for.

Which state library holds the Everett copy?

Everett bound the day's speeches into a volume sold for the Sanitary Commission Fair.

The Bancroft copy was requested by George Bancroft, known as the father of what?

His ten-volume History of the United States earned him the title; he was also a former Navy Secretary.

The fifth and final copy is named after a colonel who was what to George Bancroft?

He published Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors, for which the copy was made.

Who found the Hay copy among John Hay's bound papers in 1908?

Lincoln's son had been searching for the original copy of the speech.

What stationery was the first page of the Nicolay copy written on?

The second page was written in pencil on lined paper, and matching folds suggest it was the reading copy.

Which 1906 book helped spread the myth that Lincoln wrote the speech on an envelope on the train?

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews's story sold 600,000 copies and was filmed twice.

Garry Wills compared the Address to a speech by which ancient Athenian statesman?

It too honoured ancestors, praised democracy and urged the living to continue the struggle.

Historians link 'four score and seven' to which Bible passage on the span of a human life?

Adam Gopnik argued Lincoln's rhetoric was deliberately Biblical rather than classical.

Which abolitionist minister's line on democracy 'by all the people' did Lincoln mark in pencil?

Lincoln's law partner William Herndon had brought him the sermon.

Which senator's 1830 'Second Reply to Hayne' described government 'made for the people, made by the people'?

Webster in turn may have borrowed from an 1819 speech by John Hobhouse.

What did Everett write to Lincoln the day after the speech?

Lincoln replied that he was glad to know it was not a total failure.

Which newspaper called the speech 'silly, flat and dishwatery utterances'?

Reactions split along party lines; the Republican New York Times printed the full text approvingly.

Which newspaper formally retracted its 1863 dismissal of the speech on the 150th anniversary in 2013?

The retraction began 'Seven score and ten years ago' and ended 'The Patriot-News regrets the error.'

Which Massachusetts newspaper called the speech 'a perfect gem'?

It predicted the remarks would repay further study as the model speech.

By legend, Lincoln said his speech, like a bad plow, would not do what?

Garry Wills regards Ward Hill Lamon's recollection as unreliable.

Who took the only confirmed photograph of Lincoln at Gettysburg?

Lincoln was only spotted in the plate decades later when archivist Josephine Cobb enlarged it.

In what year was Lincoln first identified in the Gettysburg photograph?

The mislabeled glass negative was in Mathew Brady's collection at the National Archives.

Which news agency's reporter, Joseph Gilbert, transcribed the speech in shorthand?

His dispatch differs from Lincoln's drafts in minor ways.

William Rathvon, the only Gettysburg eyewitness with an audio recording, recalled Lincoln arriving at the cemetery how?

Rathvon recorded his reminiscences at a Boston radio station in 1938, a year before he died.

On which side of the Lincoln Memorial is the Gettysburg Address carved?

The Second Inaugural Address is inscribed on the opposite side.

Which president had Ted Sorensen study the Gettysburg Address before drafting his inaugural?

Sorensen drew lessons on alliteration, repetition, contrast and balance.

Speaking at Gettysburg in July 1963, Kennedy opened with which twist on Lincoln's phrase?

He said Lincoln had explained the sacrifice in words too eloquent for paraphrase.

Photo analysis places the 1863 speakers' platform in which private Gettysburg cemetery?

Photographic analysis put the platform on the other side of the iron fence from the traditional site at the Soldiers' National Monument in the adjoining national cemetery.

Which state's 1975 memorial insists Lincoln spoke at the Soldiers' National Monument site?

It honours 'her son', since Lincoln was born there.

Who designed the radial layout of the Soldiers' National Cemetery?

He was chosen by a committee of Union governors in 1863.

How many Civil War interments does Gettysburg National Cemetery contain?

Of those, 979 are unknown soldiers.

The Bliss copy was given to the White House by Oscar Cintas, who had been what?

The wealthy collector bought it at auction in 1949; it is the version carved on the Lincoln Memorial's south wall.

In which year did John Hay's descendants give the Nicolay and Hay copies to the Library of Congress?

Robert Todd Lincoln had appointed Nicolay and Hay custodians of his father's papers.

Edward Everett's bound volume of the dedication speeches was sold to benefit soldiers at which event?

Lincoln sent Everett a copy of the address for it in early 1864; that draft is now in the Illinois State Library.

Besides being a historian, George Bancroft, who requested the fourth copy, had held which cabinet post?

He wanted the copy for Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors, to be sold at a Baltimore Sanitary Fair.

To whom did Lincoln supposedly say his speech, 'like a bad plow', would not scour?

Garry Wills argues the anecdote rests largely on Lamon's unreliable recollections.