Winner: Lincoln Prize
Four score and seven years ago . . . .
Are any six words better known, of greater import, or from a more
crucial moment in our nation’: s history? And yet after 150 years the
dramatic and surprising story of how Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg
Address has never been fully told. Until now.
Martin Johnson's remarkable work of historical and literary detection
illuminates a speech, a man, and a moment in history that we thought we
knew. Johnson guides readers on Lincoln's emotional and intellectual
journey to the speaker's platform, revealing that Lincoln himself
experienced writing the Gettysburg Address as an eventful process that
was filled with the possibility of failure, but which he knew resulted
finally in success beyond expectation.
We listen as Lincoln talks with the cemetery designer about the ideals
and aspirations behind the unprecedented cemetery project, look over
Lincoln's shoulder as he rethinks and rewrites his speech on the very
morning of the ceremony, and share his anxiety that he might not live up
to the occasion. And then, at last, we stand with Lincoln at Gettysburg,
when he created the words and image of an enduring and authentic legend.
Writing the Gettysburg Address resolves the puzzles and problems that
have shrouded the composition of Lincoln's most admired speech in
mystery for fifteen decades. Johnson shows when Lincoln first started
his speech, reveals the state of the document Lincoln brought to
Gettysburg, traces the origin of the false story that Lincoln wrote his
speech on the train, identifies the manuscript Lincoln held while
speaking, and presents a new method for deciding what Lincoln's audience
actually heard him say.
Ultimately, Johnson shows that the Gettysburg Address was a speech that
grew and changed with each step of Lincoln's eventful journey to the
podium. His two-minute speech made the battlefield and the cemetery into
landmarks of the American imagination, but it was Lincoln's own journey
to Gettysburg that made the Gettysburg Address.
