PRAISE FOR LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG: “With 272 words, Lincoln changed the effective meaning of the Constitution, introduced a new style of public rhetoric, and inspired Garry Wills to a uniquely thorough and fascinating analysis of the text and context. Seldom have so few words excited such scholarship, penetrating analysis, and brilliant explication.” —Governor Mario Cuomo “Another tour de force that will cause much discussion and argument.” —Library Journal “[Wills’] prose has muscle and voice, and his thinking often takes him, and us, to unexpected and delightful places. The brilliance of his argument in Lincoln at Gettysburg comes in his exploration of the historical background to Lincoln’s vision and his literary analysis of Lincoln’s style. . . . Contrary to Lincoln’s fears, the world has noted, and long remembered, what he said there.” —New York Newsday “Mr. Wills’ thesis [is] bold and exalted. . . . Impressive.” —Washington Sunday Times “Wills’ recondite and rewarding argument does demonstrate that Lincoln used words to make that most material of things—a battle: flesh and bone and steel and shot—into an intellectual event, ‘testing’ the durability of a nation ‘dedicated’ to a proposition. The deservedly large audience that Wills has found for his book is heartening evidence that the nation’s ability to appreciate the elevating rhetoric of the politics of ideas has not atrophied in the recent absence of such politics.” —New York Daily News “In Lincoln at Gettysburg [Garry Wills] has produced an extraordinary work that changes the way we see the world. . . . An intensely moral book with a powerful promise.” —The Miami Herald “Brilliant: Unwritten law requires reviewers use this word at least once about every Garry Wills book. How much truer this is of Lincoln at Gettysburg. Only real inspiration could turn a book with so much flapdoodle into an indispensable introduction to what the Gettysburg Address was all about. Whether he ties the address to the culture of death or transcendentalism in Lincoln’s day, Wills throws forth his learning like a spectacular fireworks display. His prose captivates, his erudition daunts.” —Lexington Herald-Leader “A brilliant book that surpasses anything written before about the Gettysburg Address . . . offers stunning new ideas about the structure of the speech, its subliminal message in Lincoln’s time and its historical meaning for America today. . . . Full of riches.” —Tampa Tribune “A celebration of political genius.” —Detroit News “Lincoln’s eloquence and passion continue to speak to us today and serve as an inspiration.” —The San Diego Union-Tribune “In precision and economy of language it emulates Lincoln’s masterpiece.” —The New York Review of Books “It is refreshing to see Garry Wills sally forth boldly in Lincoln at Gettysburg to give readers a ‘great man, great moment’ view of history, with a vengeance. He is true to Lincoln and his age. . . . When independent duplication occurs in historical studies, celebration is in order— especially when a brilliant man of letters reaches a large literate public with an important book.” —Christian Science Monitor Thank you for purchasing this Simon & Schuster eBook. Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Simon & Schuster. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP or visit us online to sign up at eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com Contents Key to Brief Citations Prologue 1. Oratory of the Greek Revival 2. Gettysburg and the Culture of Death 3. The Transcendental Declaration 4. Revolution in Thought 5. Revolution in Style Epilogue Appendices I. What Lincoln Said: The Text II. Where He Said It: The Site III. Four Funeral Orations A. By Everett B. By Pericles C. By Gorgias D. The Gettysburg Address 1. Spoken Text (?) 2. Final Text Acknowledgments Photographs About the Author Notes Index to the Gettysburg Address Index to Other Major Lincoln Texts Name Index Photo Credits TO GREAT EXPECTATIONS BOOKSTORE SECOND HOME Key to Brief Citations SW Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher (Library of America, 1989), 2 volumes. CW The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler (Rutgers, 1955), 9 volumes. Hay Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, edited by Tyler Bennett (Dodd, Mead, 1939). Herndon- Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, by William Weik H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik (1889), in the Paul M. Angle edition for Da Capo (1942). Hertz Emanuel Hertz, The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon (Viking, 1938). Parker Centenary Works of Theodore Parker (American Association, 1907), 15 edition volumes. Cobbe The Collected Works of Theodore Parker, edited by Frances edition Power Cobbe (Tübner, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1867, 1871, 1875, 1876), 14 volumes. TEXTS USED SW is preferred to CW where the same text is in both, for Fehrenbacher’s more up-to-date editing. I occasionally (lightly) modernize punctuation, for two reasons: (1) Many Lincoln texts—e.g., those of the Douglas debates—come only from newspapers, whose punctuation has no authority. (2) Even in Lincoln holographs, punctuation is for speaking purposes and/or nineteenth-century convention (e.g., commas before and after clauses), which is sometimes more confusing than clarifying. No other changes are made in the texts—which, however, are sometimes printed colometrically to bring out Lincoln’s effort to balance rhetorical members (cola). The text of the Gettysburg Address used here is Lincoln’s final one, called the Bliss Text, printed as Appendix III D 2. For other versions, see Appendix I and the Little, Brown text at Appendix III D 1. Prologue B G USINESS IN ETTYSBURG N ot all the gallantry of General Lee can redeem, quite, his foolhardiness at Gettysburg. When in doubt, he charged into the cannon’s mouth —by proxy. Ordered afterward to assemble the remains of that doomed assault, George Pickett told Lee that he had no force to reassemble. Lee offered Jefferson Davis his resignation.1 Nor did General Meade, Lee’s opposite number, leave Gettysburg in glory. Though he lost as many troops as Lee, he still had men and ammunition to pursue a foe who was running, at the moment, out of both. For a week, while Lincoln urged him on in an agony of obliterative hope, Meade let the desperate Lee lie trapped by a flooded Potomac. When, at last, Lee ghosted himself over the river, Lincoln feared the North would not persevere with the war through the next year’s election. Meade, too, offered his resignation. Neither general’s commander-in-chief could afford to accept these offers. Jefferson Davis had little but Lee’s magic to rely on for repairing the effects of Lee’s folly. (Romantic Southern fools cheered Lee wherever he rode on the day after his human sacrifice at Gettysburg.)2 Lincoln, on the other side, could not even vent his feelings by sending Meade the anguished letter he wrote him (SW 2.478–79). A reprimand would ravel out the North’s morale in long trains of recrimination. Both sides, leaving fifty thousand dead or wounded or missing behind them, had reason to maintain a large pattern of pretense about this battle —Lee pretending that he was not taking back to the South a broken cause, Meade that he not let the broken pieces fall through his fingers. It would have been hard to predict that Gettysburg, out of all this muddle, these missed chances, all the senseless deaths, would become a symbol of national purpose, pride, and ideals. Abraham Lincoln transformed the ugly reality into something rich and strange—and he did it with 272 words. The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling demonstration. The residents of Gettysburg had little reason to feel satisfaction with the war machine that had churned up their lives. General Meade may have pursued Lee