President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863. 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. The Gettysburg Address was delivered by U.S. 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. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 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. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

Actor Sam Waterston reads the speech, which was written to commemorate the Union soldiers killed in the Civil War.įour 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.

Wednesday marks the 140th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Hide caption Learn More about the Photo and View an Enlargement toggle caption In this detail, Lincoln is seen in the center, head bared and probably seated, with his bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon on the left. The only known photo of President Lincoln at his Gettysburg Address on Nov.

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