Product Description

The words Abraham Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg comprise perhaps the most famous speech in history. Many books have been written about the Gettysburg Address and yet, as Lincoln scholar Gabor Boritt shows, there is much that we don't know about the speech. In The Gettysburg Gospel he tears away a century of myths, lies, and legends to give us a clear understanding of the greatest American's greatest speech.

In the aftermath of the bloodiest battle ever fought in North America, the little town of Gettysburg was overwhelmed. This was where Lincoln had to come to explain why the horror of war must continue. Boritt shows how Lincoln responded to the politics of the time, as well as how and when he wrote the various versions of his remarks. Few people initially recognized the importance of the speech, but over the years it would grow into American scripture, acquiring new and broader meanings.

Based on years of scholarship as well as a deep understanding of Lincoln and of Gettysburg itself, The Gettysburg Gospel is an indispensable book for anyone interested in the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, or American history

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63249 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this engrossing study, Civil War scholar Boritt (editor of The Lincoln Enigma) offers a revealing history of that most famous piece of American oratory, the Gettysburg Address. Boritt opens with an evocative description of a stench-filled, corpse-strewn Gettysburg on July 4, 1863, after the battle. When Lincoln arrived a few months later to dedicate the national cemetery, he had an important task: "to explain to the people," writes Borritt, in plain, powerful prose, "why the bloodletting must go on." After vividly recreating the delivery of the address, Boritt discusses the speech's mixed reception. Republican newspapers praised it; Democrats, viewing it as the beginning of Lincoln's re-election campaign, belittled or tried to ignore it; one Democratic newspaper called the speech a "mawkish harangue." Just as bad, Lincoln's graceful oratory was garbled in transmission to newspapers. Most interesting is Boritt's recounting of how, after Lincoln's assassination, the speech was mostly forgotten until the 1880s, when Gettysburg increasingly became a symbol of a reunion between North and South, and the Gettysburg Address took on the sheen of America's "sacred scriptures." Lincoln's poetic language, says Boritt, helps the speech live on, and the message of "sacrificial redemption" still speaks to Americans today. This elegant account will delight readers who enjoyed Garry Wills's Lincoln at Gettysburg. (Lengthy appendixes parsing drafts of the speech, however, will interest mainly aficionados.) 16 pages of b&w illus., and b&w illus. throughout. (Nov. 19)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Like Garry Wills in Lincoln at Gettysburg (1992), Boritt explores the circumstances of the Gettysburg Address. Setting the stage for his rhetorical analysis, Boritt describes the Gettysburg area in the months following the July 1863 battle. Corpses, burial workers, and field hospitals reminded visitors of the battle's scale of devastation and, so it appeared, the incompleteness of the Union victory. To comfort and encourage, then, was the agenda of the cemetery ceremony at which Lincoln spoke the following November. Famously preceded by a conventionally orotund funeral oration, Lincoln's remarks possessed such austerity and aspiration that they became a consecrated credo of American democracy. Existing in several variants in Lincoln's hand and in contemporaneous news accounts, the remarks prompt questions about which text contains the authentic Gettysburg Address, an intriguing but ultimately inconclusive endeavor that Boritt works over in appendixes. With his narrative focus on the dedication of November 19, 1863, Boritt's account has a freshness appealing in such an exhaustively examined subject. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Elegant and absorbing...a definitive book." -- David Herbert Donald, author of Lincoln

"Revelatory...After Boritt, the Gettysburg Address can never be read, heard, or interpreted the same way again." -- Harold Holzer, author of Lincoln at Cooper Union

"A magisterial work, a brilliant and moving story...an instant classic."-- Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Customer Reviews

The Greatest Speech by America's Greatest President
I remember having to memorize The Gettysburg Address in elementary school as part of my history class. This books contains a lot of documents from eye witnesses who were present several days before the dedication through several days after Lincoln's famous speech.

This book is very educational and a few parts gets a little boring, but overall it is worth the read. I believe all school children should be required to memorize and give the speech in class like I had too. Properly educating children on historical American facts are so important today. We have too many liberals trying to re-write our history.

Interesting, But It Felt Slanted
I found this an interesting, but possibly flawed book.

The history and detail was fascinating, as was the examination (and inclusion!) of Everett's speech, of which I'd heard, but had never read. The description of Gettysburg immediately after the battle, and in the days surrounding the dedication ceremony was truly a window into another era.

However, as the book continued, and the instances of "Good, God fearing Republicans, struggling to save the country" and "Bad, pro-slavery/appeasement-minded Democrats not caring about the Union" mounted, I felt I was reading a political text that was slanted to support the current national situation, and not a dispassionate historical examination of the events of a century and a half gone. Other reviewers have mentioned this occurance as an interetsing coincidence. Even though I'm a Republican, I was jarred by the tone.

As a result, my enjoyment of the book was lessened, as was my trust of the text and the author's use selected references.

An interesting book, but too interpretive for my tastes. Read it, but have a pinch of salt ready.

Strange title for a good read
It truly is amazing that so many words and books can be written about a speech that is but 272 words long. Gabor Boritt's book is an enjoyable and easy read on Lincoln's most famous speech.
Much of the book deals with the immediate aftermath of the terrible Gettysburg battle with the author painting a vivid picture of the terrible scene which must have greeted the eye on July 4th.
It is interesting that the famous address did not get immediate general approval. Boritt shows that the speech was almost forgotten until the 1880's.
As with most Lincoln supporters, the author attempts to show that the speech was not written on the train to Gettysburg and that Lincoln gave the speech considerable thought. The truth is no one knows, but a good argument can be made for the proposition that Lincoln must have given it little thought prior to the event. Who in their right mind is going to travel from Washington to Gettysburg and DECIDE to present an address of only 272 words. The words came from the heart and from years of experience and empathy. Just as Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech was somewhat spontaneous (although a very similar speech was presented at Cobo Hall, Detroit some weeks previously), there is strong circumstantial evidence that Lincoln put this speech together at short notice.
I have no idea why the book is sub-titled "The Lincoln Speech that Nobody Knows," but Boritt does provide a number of slightly different versions of the speech in the appendix. Most of the differences are minor to put it mildly. The author's description of how the speech initially got little response but grew to be appreciated over time to be a work of genius is well developed.
Paradoxically, the most enjoyable section of the book is the full text of Edward Everett's speech which I read fully for the first time. You can appreciate why Everett was seen as a great orator because of his ability to paint pictures with words although his two hour address can hardly be described as uplifting. Almost all of the speech was taken up with a chronological history of the events at Gettysburg (spoken from memory) and the aging orator failed to properly commend and eulogize the thousands who had given their life on the adjacent battlefield.
The book has copious appendices, bibliography, notes which provide a rich resource for serious students of Lincoln and Gettysburg. Overall, an enjoyable not too studious read on the topic.