[6] Lincoln began his 271-word address in Gettysburg with the now famed phrase, "Four score and seven years ago", a reference to the nation's founding in the American Revolution, during which the Founding Fathers ultimately concluded that they could not reconcile their differences with King George III and instead needed to enjoin and prevail in the Revolutionary War in pursuit of full independence from British colonial rule.

[7] In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln prominently referenced the nation's founding, describing it as having been "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal", a reference to a phrase incorporated into the Declaration by Thomas Jefferson.

The tradition began in 1831 when Justice Joseph Story delivered a lengthy dedication address at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[22] The Bliss version is as follows: 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.

[25] In contrast, writer Adam Gopnik, in The New Yorker, notes that Everett's Oration was explicitly neoclassical, referring directly to Marathon and Pericles.

[20] Wills also observed Lincoln's usage of the imagery of birth, life, and death in the address, during which he referenced the nation as being "brought forth", "conceived", and saying that it shall not "perish".

"[34]Craig R. Smith, in "Criticism of Political Rhetoric and Disciplinary Integrity", published in 2000, suggested that the views of government that Lincoln described in the Gettysburg Address were influenced by Daniel Webster, a U.S.

"[36] Lajos Kossuth, a theorist from Hungary, argues that a speech given earlier to the Ohio legislature on February 19, 1852. may have influenced Lincoln, which included the phrase, "The spirit of our age is Democracy.

[46][47] Others believe that the delivery text has been lost, because some of the words and phrases of the Nicolay copy do not match contemporary transcriptions of Lincoln's original speech.

It is probable, they conclude, that, as the Library of Congress includes in an explanatory note accompanying the original copies of the first and second drafts, that this was the version that Lincoln read from when he delivered the address.

[53] Everett collected the speeches at the Gettysburg dedication into a bound volume, which was soldl for the benefit of stricken soldiers at New York's Sanitary Commission Fair.

[60] Garry Wills concluded that the Bliss copy "is stylistically preferable to others in one significant way: Lincoln removed 'here' from 'that cause for which they (here) gave ...' The seventh 'here' is in all other versions of the speech."

[61] From November 21, 2008, to January 1, 2009, the Albert H. Small Documents Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History hosted a limited public viewing of the Bliss copy, with the support of then First Lady Laura Bush.

"[68] In an often repeated legend, Lincoln is said to have turned to his bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon and remarked that his speech, like a bad plow, "won't scour".

[page needed] In a letter to Lincoln written the day following his address in Gettysburg, Everett praised the President for the speech, saying, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.

[9] The Democratic-leaning Chicago Times observed, "The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.

[71] In 2013, on the sesquicentennial of the address, The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, retracted its original reporting on the address, which it described as "silly remarks" deserving "the veil of oblivion", writing further that, "Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives. ...

At the head of the procession, Lincoln rode on a gray horse preceded by a military band, which was the first the young boy in the Rathyon family had ever seen.

A popular explanation for the Bachrach photo suggests that Lincoln's brief address, which followed a lengthy two hour speech by Everett, caught photographers by surprise.

This theory, however, has been questioned, since evidence exists suggesting that the photo was possibly taken before the Gettysburg Address and without any intention of photographing Lincoln from such a lengthy distance.

It will not do to say that [Secretary of War] Stanton suggested those words after Lincoln's return to Washington, for the words were telegraphed by at least three reporters on the afternoon of the delivery.Reporters present for Lincoln's Gettysburg Address included Joseph Gilbert with the Associated Press, Charles Hale with the Boston Daily Advertiser,[86] John R. Young with the Philadelphia Press, and reporters from the Cincinnati Commercial[87] New York Tribune,[88] and The New York Times.

Lincoln, however, was not one of them, and a small metal sign near the speech memorial stirs remains somewhat controversial, reading: The Address was delivered about 300 yards from this spot along the upper Cemetery drive.

[96]Holding title as the "traditional site", the Soldiers' National Monument has been challenged by platform occupants in the distant past and by more recent photographic analyses.

Based upon a pair of photographic analyses, the Gettysburg National Military Park has placed a marker near 39°49.199′N 77°13.840′W, which states, "The location [of the platform] was never marked, but is believed to be in Evergreen Cemetery, on the other side of the iron fence.

[108] Confusing to today's tourist, the Kentucky Memorial is contradicted by a newer marker, which was erected nearby by the Gettysburg National Military Park and locates the speakers' platform inside Evergreen Cemetery.

[112][113][114] In 1982, Senior Park Historian Kathleen Georg Harrison analyzed photographs and proposed the location in Evergreen Cemetery, but she has not published her analysis.

Speaking for Harrison without revealing details, two sources characterized her proposed location as "on or near [the] Brown family vault" in Evergreen Cemetery.

[115][116] In 1995, William A. Frassanito, a former military intelligence analyst, documented a comprehensive photographic analysis, which places the location of the platform with the position of specific modern headstones in Evergreen Cemetery.

[The location of the speech] was actually on the crown of this hill, a short distance on the other side of the iron fence and inside the Evergreen Cemetery, where President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address to a crowd of some 15,000 people.

[141] This widely held misunderstanding may have originated with The Perfect Tribute, a 1906 book by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, which was assigned reading for generations of schoolchildren, sold 600,000 copies when published as a standalone volume,[142] and was twice adapted into a movie.