Gettysburg Address – Abraham Lincoln

Music, by Birgfeld’s Band (“Homage d’uns Heros” by Adolph Birgfeld)
Prayer, by Reverend T. H. Stockton, D.D.
Music, by the Marine Band (“Old Hundred”), directed by Francis Scala
Oration, by Hon. Edward Everett (“The Battles of Gettysburg”)
Music, Hymn (“Consecration Chant”) by B. B. French, Esq., music by Wilson G Horner, sung by Baltimore Glee Club
Dedicatory Remarks, by the President of the United States
Dirge (“Oh! It is Great for Our Country to Die”, words by James G. Percival, music by Alfred Delaney), sung by Choir selected for the occasion
Benediction, by Reverend H. L. Baugher, D.D.

Four 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.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. 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. 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.

note: Scholars differ which is considered the authoritative version, but the one above is often the one referred to in pop culture. Per Wikipedia: The Bliss copy, once owned by the family of Colonel Alexander Bliss, Bancroft’s stepson and publisher of “Autograph Leaves”, is the only manuscript to which Lincoln affixed his signature.

photo: public domain