Read The Actual Article: Next-day Newspaper Coverage of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
Installments of my historical novel, Railcar Gold, are posted every Thursday. I usually do in-depth research on the historical aspects a few weeks in advance and occasionally post about my research.
In tomorrow’s installment, the characters in Railcar Gold return from Hanover Junction; where they witnessed President Abraham Lincoln changing trains during his journey to deliver the Gettysburg Address the following day. After reading the above National Republican article, Charles Billmeyer is so impressed; he has the boys memorize Lincoln’s speech. If the text in the illustration is not big enough for you to read, a transcript of Lincoln’s speech [including Applause interruptions] will be included in tomorrow’s Railcar Gold installment.
Related Gettysburg & Lincoln posts include:
- Witness to Gettysburg Address
- President Lincoln was Interrupted Five times with Applause during his Gettysburg Address
- Find Lincoln on the Gettysburg Speakers Platform
- 1925 Article sheds light on President Lincoln photograph at Hanover Junction
- Dallastown Soldier buried in Gettysburg National Cemetery
- Letters to LINCOLN during the Invasion; “Burning bridges on the Northern Central”
- Looking Back on the 100th Anniversary Commemoration of The Battle of Gettysburg; Part 1
- Subsequent to the Gettysburg Address; Civil War Election of 1864
- Locomotives that pulled Abraham Lincoln through York County; Lincoln Funeral Train
- In The Sights of Civil War Purists and Going Down
Of the reporters that covered the Dedication of the National Cemetery in Gettysburg on Thursday November 19, 1863; some liked the speech, however more were disappointed. Not every newspaper printed Lincoln’s speech, word for word.
Most of the newspapers that printed Lincoln’s speech, the next-day, utilized The Associated Press, who immediately sent out the speech from Gettysburg by telegraph. That AP version is identifiable by two wording changes made by the Associated Press reporters.
The AP version omitted the word “poor” in the line “The brave men living and dead who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our {poor} power to add or detract.” Other reporters recorded “poor” in the sentence and it was later discovered to be present in both of Lincoln’s manuscript drafts. Secondly the AP version used the phrase “to the refinished work” instead of the phrase “to the unfinished work.” Lincoln later penned several copies of his speech; he reportedly referenced his own copy and the AP version to come up with the wording and punctuation in his penned copies; which is the reason for several, minutely different, versions of the Gettysburg Address.
The York Gazette did not print Lincoln’s speech. The only mention of Lincoln’s speech appeared in the final paragraph of the article covering the Consecration Ceremonies at Gettysburg:
At the conclusion of Mr. Everett’s address, the dedicatory ceremony was appropriately performed by President Lincoln. A dirge followed, and soon after the procession returned to Gettysburg and the assembled thousands hastened to the cars and the other conveyances in order to reach their respective homes.
The two principal Chicago newspapers had widely different views. The Chicago Times called Lincoln’s speech “silly, flat and dishwatery.” The Chicago Tribune predicted Lincoln’s remarks “will live among the annals of man.”
I choose to use the, non-AP, next-day copy in the National Republican, because it indicated where the crowd interrupted Lincoln’s words with applause. I’d never seen that before and during my research, I noted a few other newspapers that did likewise. Lincoln’s words have greater effect when read with those pauses.
Reading the Headlines: A Quick Index to All YorksPast Posts
