OCR Text |
Show Five Copies of Lincoln's Speech At Gettysburg Abraham Lincoln's address at Gettysburg is unique among his speeches In many particulars, one of which is that there are In existence exist-ence at the present time no less than five copies of it in Lincoln's own handwriting. In only a few cases Is there a single copy of other speeches. The first inaugural, inaug-ural, for instance, was composed In Springfield and set up in pica type in the office of the Illinois State Journal, and, after some Interlineation Interlinea-tion and the addition of a closing paragraph suggested by Secretary Seward, was delivered from the corrected proof, and not from the original manuscript So far as I am aware the manuscript was not brought away from Springfield by Lincoln nor preserved in the printing print-ing office. The Journal for many years had been accustomed to receiving re-ceiving editorials and other matter in Ills hand writing, and neither the editor, Simeon Francis, nor any one of his compositors took thought that this was to become a document of historic interest and that the original would be valuable. valu-able. Copy Not Preserved. Most of Lincoln's speeches, If written out, met a like fate. If the copy came back from the office with the proof, Lincoln tossed it into the waste basket, and no one rescued it After he became President, of course, he knew and every one knew that his handwriting would be in demand, but no one looked for the time when his letter to General Hooker would sell at auction auc-tion for $10,000. So most of his speeches perished in the original manuscript, perished In the very process of preserving them In print; and of the few that were preserved there is usually only one copy. Of the five copies of the Gettysburg Gettys-burg address, two are in the Library of Congress. One of them Is mainly main-ly in ink, written on a sheet of paper headed with the usual "Executive "Ex-ecutive Mansion" caption. .The other sheet Is ruled letter paper of the same size, and with wide spaces between the lines. It is the paper that was commonly used In the White House for speeches or documents doc-uments likely to need interlineation, interlinea-tion, and is identical In quality with that used by the President for the second draft of the Gettysburg speech and for the second inaugural. inaug-ural. The writing on the second sheet of the first draft of the address ad-dress Is in pencil. The pencil was used also to erase a few words at the bottom of the lirst page. The second Library of Congress draft Is a fair copy of the first draft. It is written wholly in ink. ' Without stopping here and now to give my reasons, I believe that the first page of the first draft was written in ink before Lincoln left Washington. If he completed this draft at the time, and there was a second page in ink, be became j dissatisfied with it and cast it , aside. I think he wrote the second page, in pencil, in Gettysburg, probably prob-ably on the nigUt-'before the delivery de-livery of the address. The second Library of Congress draft I think was written In Gettysburg on the morning of the delivery. The place of writing was in the home of Judge Wills, facing the public square. Just to dispose of a question which is sure to rise, whether Lincoln Lin-coln did not write the address upon the back of an envelope on the train on his way from Washington Wash-ington to Gettysburg, let me answer an-swer that he may have made a few penciled notes, and for this purpose may have used the back of an envelope, but he did not write the address as a whole in any such fashion. In my judgment the two Library of Congress drafts were both written before the delivery of the address. Of the other three we Lincoln delivering his speech nt the dedication of the National Cemetery Ceme-tery at Gettysburg November 19, 1SG3. know the history. They were all written after the address had been , delivered. Five Texts of Speech. The first two copies vary but little lit-tle from each other. The last three copies very but little from one another. an-other. How they vary I have set forth in interlinear versions in my "Life of Lincoln." The important fact is that we have five texts In Lincoln's handwriting, uo two of them exactly alike, and that they fall clearly into two groups, two in one and the earlier group, three in the other and the later group, and that we know in detail the history his-tory of the last three. Intermediate between these two groups in Lincoln's own hand are a number of other versions printed nt the time. First of these is the Associated As-sociated Press report prepared by Joseph L. Gilbert. He did not pretend pre-tend to have taken down Lincoln's exact words, but reported the speech partly In shorthand and checked up In a hasty comparison with Lincoln's manuscript. The second was n special report used in one Philadelphia newspaper, one Cincinnati newspaper and in the local newspaper in Gettysburg. It was a very poor report. The third 1 was, as I judge, the one report that tells us exactly what Llncodn did say. It was made by Charles Hale of the Boston Advertiser, one of the official Massachusetts commissioners. commis-sioners. His written affirmation to Gov. John A. Andrew, that Lincoln spoke very slowly, and that Hale was able to get the precise wording, word-ing, is as good as the oath of a court stenographer certifying the accuracy of his version. We know, I think, what Lincoln Intended to say,, what he did say, what he was reported to have said, and what he wished he had said. Surely Lincoln's Words. Neither of the drafts of Lincoln's manuscript made before the delivery deliv-ery of the address contains the two words, "under God." Both say, "that we here highly resolve . . . that the nation shall have a new birth of freedom." But every stenographic report, good, bad and indifferent, says "that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom." There was no com mon source from which all the reporters re-porters could have obtained those words but from Lincoln's own lips at the time of delivery. It will not do to say that Stanton suggested those words after Lincoln's return to Washington, for the words were telegraphed by at least three reporters re-porters on the afternoon of delivery deliv-ery and published all over the country. Nor will it answer to say that Seward suggested them the night before as words that would convey to the people assembled a suggestion of piety, for John G. Nicolay gives a clear history of the writing of the second draft on the morning of delivery, and the second sec-ond draft does not Include those words. But all three of Lincoln's copies that were made after the address had been delivered do contain the words of the three or more reports made while he was speaking, "under "un-der God." Lincoln said those words ; the several independent reports re-ports that went to the wires at once agree that he said them ; and Lincoln certainly wished to be remembered re-membered as having said them, for he wrote them, into every one of the three copies which -lie made for permanent record. Where, then, did Lincoln get those words? He got them, I think, out of his own stock of phraseology. phraseol-ogy. He was not given to the careless care-less use of religious phrases, but this one he used at other times. It came to him as he sat on the platform plat-form at Gettysburg, inspired by the sense of solemnity that the occasion occa-sion brought upon him. The journey, jour-ney, the reception of the night before, be-fore, the parade, the sight of the battlefield, the long and eloquent oration of Edward Everett and the growing depth of feeling as his own time came to speak, roused in him a deeper sense of the nation's need of reliance in God than had been in his mind when he was engaged in the work of writing. Wlllfam E. Barton, In the New Vork Times Magazine. |