Restricted Third Gettysburg Address Found After 150 Years

LostGettysburgAddress · Nov 19, 2015

Few remember that two famous orators shared the spotlight with Lincoln at the Gettysburg dedication. The day's concluding speech remained lost until recently, when an anthropologist stumbled upon it in a cardboard box at a remote ranch in Wyoming.

Edward Everett's two hour speech was distributed to the loyal press in advance, which left little room for the third featured speech of the day, which Lincoln, Seward and most other dignitaries attended.

The speaker was Charles Anderson, brother of Robert Anderson of Ft. Sumter fame. Charles was a slaveholder at the beginning of the war and the lieutenant-governor elect of Ohio.

I argue that the Gettysburg dedication was not only a memorial ceremony but the most important political event for the Lincoln administration since his election in 1860. His remarks, framed by two political opponents, can only be fully understood in the context of all three major speeches of the day. They operated as a rhetorical ensemble to accomplish distinctly political purposes and to kick off the 1864 re-election campaign.

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John Winn · Nov 19, 2015