The "Historical Remembrances" Story

This is a Daguerreotype that was taken around 1846.
Probably the earliest photo taken of Lincoln.  He was
37 years old and had just started campaigning for
national office.  He later won a seat in the House of
Representatives as a member of the Whig Party.

It was an ordinary day.  Just read that November 19 marks the 150th anniversary of one of history's most famous speeches.  Any idea what that speech might be?  If you guessed the "Gettysburg Address" you guessed correctly.  It was on November 19, 1863 during the afternoon of that Thursday that President Abraham Lincoln, one of my favorite Presidents, delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania which is about a 45 minute  drive from my home in Lancaster, PA.  I have visited the area and also wrote about his taking a train to the new Oxford Train Station and traveling in a coach from New Oxford to Gettysburg to give the speech.  He gave the speech four and a half months after the Union armies defeated the Confederate armies at the Battle of Gettysburg.  Lincoln had been invited by David Wills, the developer of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, to be a participant in the dedication of the cemetery.  Little did anyone know at the time that his two minute speech would be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American History.  The exact wording of the speech differs depending upon which of five known manuscripts you may read.  But, no matter what you may read, I will still remember the speech to go as:

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 battle-field 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 that 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.

So, on this historical day, I'm hoping we can remember the impact that Abraham Lincoln had on our country when he gave his "Gettysburg Address."  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.   PS - check out the video of the Gettysburg Address…. 

http://www.youtube.com/v/BvA0J_2ZpIQ?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=yXrW2A0ciISJVd3u7uHo8w&feature=share&autoplay=1&autohide=1&showinfo=1