Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg Address

When you look back on the history of the United States of America, you can find all kinds of speeches from all of the different states and from a President’s mouth. In addition, you can also find it simply the mouths of people who have been very influential. The Gettysburg address was a speech that came from the mouth of a president named Abraham Lincoln and took residence in the hearts of many. This speech is not only well known, but is also one of the more quoted speeches in American history.
This speech was given on November 19th of 1863 and took place due to the American civil war. One of the better known lines “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” is quoted often and remembered with pride. One fact that not many know is that there were five different written versions of the speech that Abraham Lincoln gave. Each of the five was for the most part the same with some minor differences.

The five different copies are the John Nicolay copy, John Hay copy, Edward Everett copy, Bancroft copy and the Bliss copy. The Bliss copy was by Alexander Bliss and the Bancroft copy was by George Bancroft. This speech was given in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during a dedication to the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. This Cemetery contains over seven thousand and five hundred bodies of men and many bodies of horses from soldiers who took part in the battle of Gettysburg.  Abraham Lincoln spoke of how no one would forget the actions of these men even if what was said that day was forgotten, but no one will forget what was said either.