Blake Hall
Growing up in America, you learn at a very early age that Abraham Lincoln was at one point in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was a while ago — before any of us were born — but while there he said a few words about the Civil War battle that would claim the lives of 46,000 to 51,000 Americans — Union and the Confederacy combined.
The words Lincoln said on November 19, 1863 have been memorized and recited by schoolchildren in the United States for decades and decades — you could even say it has been firmly emblazoned on America’s collective consciousness, with the introductory lines almost as singular as they are unconventional and antiquated.
“Four score and seven years ago …”
The battle itself had taken place from July 1 to July 3, 1863. The speech was given a few months later, at the dedication of one of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery there.
In the time period — long before instant photography, and even those clunky, yellow disposable cameras you would take on drunken escapades to the beach — there were Daguerreotype cameras which kind of did the job? but had super long exposure times, were heavy and bulky and always needed to be used on a tripod.
Hence, photographs were hard to come by.
Case in point: the day of the Gettysburg Address. As far as historians know, the following photo (taken by David Bachrach) is the only one that captures Lincoln on the day of his iconic oration. It shows him in a crowd three hours before he boomed his voice, and yeah — it can certainly draw comparisons to the “Where Is Waldo?” children’s book series.
Can you spot him?
If you can’t, here’s a hint, via the United States Library of Congress:
Lincoln is slightly left of center, just behind the mass of blurry people, facing the camera, head slightly down and tilted to his right (camera left). On this web page, click on the numeral 3 for the third photo. Mouse over the people around Lincoln and it will identify several other people.
See?
Oh, and here’s the address, in its entirety:
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.
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 battlefield 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. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—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 perish from the earth.