theatlantic:The Gettysburg Address at 150 — and Lincoln’s Impromptu Words the Night Befo
theatlantic:The Gettysburg Address at 150 — and Lincoln’s Impromptu Words the Night BeforeOne-hundred and fifty years ago today, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. It has been celebrated by successive generations of Americans ever since. One of my favorite retrospectives was published back in 1894 in The Century Magazine, where John G. Nicolay set the scene in Gettysburg the night before the now-famous speech.“Except during its days of battle the little town of Gettysburg had never been so full of people,” he wrote. “After the usual supper hour the streets literally swarmed with visitors, and the stirring music of regimental bands and patriotic glee-clubs sounded in many directions. With material so abundant, and enthusiasm so plentiful, a serenading party soon organized itself to call on prominent personages for impromptu speeches, and of course the President could not escape. The crowd persisted in calling him out, but Mr. Lincoln showed himself only long enough to utter the few commonplace excuses which politeness required.”Read more. [Image: Mr. T in DC/Flickr] -- source link
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