Hearing Lincoln's words

Who heard Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address?

The short answer is the 15,000 people who crammed into the small town of Gettysburg on Nov. 19, 1863, for the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery. That included three Cabinet secretaries, nine state governors, the representatives of France and Italy, the U.S. Marine Band, and "citizens from every quarter thronging into the village in every kind of vehicle. ..."

Of course, if Thomas Alva Edison had been able to move up his invention of the phonograph by just 14 years, the whole country might have been able to listen to Lincoln deliver his Gettysburg Address. (Edison made his first recording of a human voice on a tinfoil cylinder in 1877.) Still, we have a rich collection of descriptions of Abraham Lincoln as a speaker to fill that gap - although none of them, surprisingly, describe an operatic baritone or a political crowd-pleaser.

"Lincoln's voice was, when he first began speaking, shrill, squeaking, piping, unpleasant," remembered his longtime law partner, William Henry Herndon. A Cincinnati reporter at Gettysburg described Lincoln's voice as "a sharp, unmusical, and treble voice." Only as he "gradually warmed up" did "his shrill, squeaking, piping voice became harmonious, melodious, musical."

But even if Lincoln's voice had the tonal quality of a steam pipe, it was also penetrating and could be heard at unusual distances without any extra effort on his part. This proved a distinct advantage, speaking out of doors that November afternoon in 1863. Pennsylvania Gov. Andrew Curtin recalled how easily Lincoln "pronounced that speech in a voice that all the multitude heard." Newspaper reporters thought his voice was "somewhat raspy," but was still "penetrating," so that it reached the "farthest ear" of the crowd.

Henry Eyster Jacobs, whose father taught mathematics at nearby Pennsylvania College, observed Lincoln "closely" from a perch "directly in front of the speakers' platform." Lincoln did not look much like the model Jacobs had been taught to expect "by professors of elocution."

But once Lincoln began speaking, Jacobs saw that "the audience was greatly impressed by the solemnity of the occasion and the deep feeling of the speaker." The address was interrupted five times by "roars of applause," and at the end, there were "three cheers for Lincoln." Even one hostile Philadelphia paper agreed that "the speech the President made is the best he has ever made." All around him, Curtin heard "the common remark of everybody" - "My God! It was so impressive!"

One of the prevailing myths is that few of the people who attended the ceremonies that day heard anything at all "impressive" in the Gettysburg Address. But in fact, it was being hailed as "admirable" in Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia within 24 hours of its delivery. Within a year, elocution textbooks would begin including the address as one of the standard examples of great American oratory.

Even if we lack any direct way to know how Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, it was what he said that made a far greater impact. By appealing from the sacrifices of the dead at Gettysburg to our own responsibility to "be here dedicated to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion," Lincoln turned the dedication of a cemetery in 1863 into an ongoing challenge to each new American generation.

A Gettysburg farmer named Josiah Benner, whose property had been viciously fought over during the battle, turned to his children that November afternoon and warned them, "That speech which the president made today will go down in history - it will be well for all of you to remember what he said." In doing so, all of us may yet hear the Gettysburg Address.