On November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a military cemetery
at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War,
President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most
memorable speeches in American history. In fewer than 275
words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary
public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War.

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought some four months earlier,
was one of the single bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

Reception of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was initially mixed,
divided strictly along partisan lines. Nevertheless, the “little
speech,” as he later called it, is thought by many today to be
the most eloquent articulation of the democratic vision ever
written.