Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

Arnold, in his “History of Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery,” asserts that the President while on his way from the White House to the battlefield was notified that he would be expected to make some remarks, and that asking for some paper a rough sheet of foolscap was handed to him. Retiring to a seat by himself, with a pencil be wrote the address.

Mrs. Andrews in her beautiful story entitled “The Perfect Tribute” says, “The President appealed to Secretary Seward for the brown paper he had just removed from a package of books: ‘May I have this to do a little writing?’ and then with a stump of a pencil labored for hours over his speech.”

Contrary to those statements, General James B. Fry, who was present in the car as one of the escort, says:

“I have no recollection of seeing him writing or even reading his speech during the journey; in fact, there was hardly any opportunity for him to read or write.”

That opinion is shared by no less an authority than Nicolay, the senior of the President’s private secretaries, who in an interesting and highly valuable paper on the Gettysburg address, says:

“There is neither record, evidence, nor well-founded tradition that Mr. Lincoln did any writing or made any notes on the journey between Washington and Gettysburg. The many interruptions incident to the journey, together with the rocking and jolting of the train, made writing virtually impossible.”

Morory in his “History of the United States for Schools,” says: “There is conclusive evidence that the words of the address were not written out until after the presidential party had arrived on the ground”; and in an appendix it is stated:

“The following account of how the address was written was received directly from the lips of ex-Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, who was present on the occasion and knew whereof he affirmed. Governor Curtin said that after the arrival of the party from Washington, while the President and his Cabinet, Edward Everett, the orator of the day, Governor Curtin, and others were sitting in the parlor of the hotel, the President remarked that he understood that the committee expected him to say something. He would, therefore, if they would excuse him, retire to the next room and see if he could write out something.”

The Hon. Edward McPherson, of Gettysburg, for many years Clerk of the House of Representatives and father of the present Judge Hon. Donald P. McPherson, of Adams County, said in 1875, that after Lincoln had retired to his room on the night of the 18th he sent for his host and “inquired the order of exercises for the next day and begun to put in writing what he called some stray thoughts to utter on the morrow.” Mr. Wills always believed the address was written in his house and said in 1893, as he had earlier, that the President read “from the same paper on which I had seen him writing it the night before.”

Noah Brooks, a newspaper correspondent at Washington during the war, who was on terms of friendly intimacy, declared that a few days prior to November 19, 1863, Lincoln told him that Mr. Everett had kindly sent him a copy of his oration in order that the same ground might not be gone over by both. The President added, “There is no danger that I shall; my speech is all blocked out—it is very short.”