Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address

Background. The dedication ceremony took place on the grounds where the Battle of Gettysburg had been fought four and a half months earlier. Lincoln departed Washington, D.C., on November 18, 1863, accompanied by three cabinet members, several foreign officials, and his secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay. The address was written in Washington and revised after his arrival at Gettysburg the evening of November 18.

Ceremony and Delivery. Lincoln delivered the speech on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, during a formal dedication of Soldiers' National Cemetery, now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery. The cemetery layout, described by a correspondent, featured state grave plots arranged as radii of a common center where a flag pole was raised, with a national monument proposed.

Manuscript Versions. Several manuscript versions of the address exist. The Everett copy, also known as the "Everett-Keyes copy," was given to Edward Everett by Lincoln in early 1864. The Bancroft copy was written out by Lincoln in February 1864, following the ceremonial dedication, at the request of George Bancroft, a former Secretary of the Navy and historian.