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Gettysburg: The Presidents

© Rick Muenchow

We saw in our last venture how the little town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, has much to offer the Civil War buff. If the Civil War isn't quite your thing, however, that's no reason to stay away. Gettysburg has a number of other things to see and do, particularly if you are a Presidential buff.

The President most associated with Gettysburg, of course, is Abraham Lincoln, primarily because of his Gettysburg Address. There are a number of ironies connected with this famous speech, not the least of which is the fact that originally Lincoln wasn't even invited to the ceremony at which the address was delivered.

After the battle of July 1-3, 1863, the area around Gettysburg was littered with the remains of the men who had fallen. The question was what to do with them. The problem had originally been addressed haphazardly. Some bodies were moved into hastily-dug graves; other bodies were simply moved.

Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin wanted to give the soldiers a proper burial place and instructed local attorney David Wills to purchase a section of the battlefield for use as a cemetery. Wills did so, acquiring some seventeen acres in all. A formal dedication ceremony was scheduled for September 23, 1863, and former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Edward Everett of Massachusetts, considered one of the country's leading orators, was invited to speak. Everett felt he could not do the subject justice with such little preparation time, however, and at his request, the ceremony was rescheduled for November 19.

The idea of inviting Lincoln came only later, when Wills wrote the President asking if he too would be interested in saying a few words. Lincoln agreed and arrived by train on the evening of November 18. He ate dinner with the Willses and spent the night at their house in the center of town, where he finalized the speech he had started writing in Washington. (He didn't simply dash it off on the back of an envelope, as many have suggested. In fact, Lincoln went through some five drafts.)

The next day was beautiful, according to eyewitness accounts, and Lincoln proceeded by horseback to the cemetery. (The actual site of the speech was not in the cemetery itself, but at a spot nearby.) Senator Everett was the first to speak and went on for quite some time. Lincoln's speech, by contrast, was less than 300 words - so short, in fact, that the photographer assigned to capture the moment failed to get a picture of it.