The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows

Just In Case You Think You've Read It All...

As a "Gettysburg" fanatic, I thought there could be little left for me to learn about anything connected to the battle. I had even written a book for teachers about how to use The Killer Angels in the classrom. Well, wasn't I knocked off my smug little pedestal when I read this one!? The opening chapters in particular give a fresh, and for some, I imagine, new insight into the days and weeks after the battle. Boritt draws the scenes of wreckage and slaughter so clearly one cannot help but be moved and his research into the realities of Lincoln's Address is rewarding for even the most casual reader. The prose style is never pedantic but rather almost conversational and engaging. I recommend this for anyone interested in the battle, whether new to that interest or an "old hand."

Fleshes out the 'well-known' story ...

I particularly liked this book because it fleshed out the real story of how the greatest piece of speech writing in American history actually came to be. Here, you are told not only the traditional tale of how Lincoln composed and delivered his address that day, but the background behind the decision to create the national cemetary Lincoln and thousands of others came to dedicate. You become intimately familiar with the extreme hardships endured by the local populace in the days and weeks following the battle and you gain a solid understanding what impact the address actually had on those who heard it personally and those who only read about it. The narrative puts into perspective the cultural environment of the period ... a time when a 2-hour address by a well-known orator was something to be eagerly anticipated rather than dreaded and an era when 2-3 minutes of 'appropriate remarks' by the President of the United States could be seen as anticlimactic and less than memorable ... and then be subjected to decades of obscurity before finally gaining the credit and recognition it deserved in the latter part of the 19th century.

No text was provided for this review.