Auburn in Cambridge served a moral and instructive role and Gettysburg National Cemetery would fit into that continiuum.įor Lincoln, of course, that lesson is “the new birth of freedom” passed down to us from the Declaration of Indpendence. The culture of death in 19th-century American – and especially during the Civil War (see This Republic of Suffering for more detail) – also informs the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s address is compared favorably to the tradition of the ancients such as Pericles in that it contrasts things as the mortal and immortal, the exceptionalism of Americans, word and deed, and life and death. Wills sees Lincoln’s funeral oratory in the tradition of Greek Revival then in vogue. It’s what Lincoln made of those few remarks that Wills dedicates the rest of the book to explicating.

According to the programs and contemporary accounts, Everett was the primary speaker of the day with Lincoln only expected to make a few ancillary remarks to officially dedicate the cemetery. The other myth is that the crowds were shocked by the brevity of Lincoln’s remarks especially in comparison to the lengthy oration by Edward Everett. In fact, Lincoln loathed extemporaneous speech and spent much time preparing his words including this speech which he probably drafted prior to leaving Washington. Lincoln did not write his speech on the back of the envelope en route to Gettysburg. In a prologue, Wills sums up the events of Lincoln’s visit to Gettysburg. In this book Wills sets out to analize the 272 words spoken by Lincoln when he consecrated the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. My annual Lincoln Day book for 2009 is Lincoln at Gettysburg (1992) by cultural historian Garry Wills (previously, I’ve read Wills’ works on Catholicism Why I’m A Catholic and Papal Sin).

Lincoln at gettysburg by garry wills