973.7L63 N1863gYa:L. Allison, Guy Man's Most Valuable Words — The Gettysburg Address ■pi LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY presented by Ha rry E. and Marion D. Pratt Collection LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG Man's Most Valuable Words . . . The Gettysburg Address By GUY ALLISON Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/mansmostvaluableOOalli Man's Most Valuable Words- The Gettysburg Address By GUY ALLISON Copyright 1956 L. E. Smith Wholesale Distributors, Gettysburg, Pa. About the Author Mr. Guy Allison was born near Hannibal, Mo., educated in Kirks- ville, Mo., Normal, Western Washington College of Education, Bell- ingham, Wash., and University of California. Taught schools several years, as principal of small high school, and McKinley School of Tacoma. Entered wholesale fruit and vegetable business as Cali- fornia buyer for large wholesale house in Northwest, later branch manager of houses at South Bend, Wash., and Portland, Oregon. In 1918 established G. S. Allison, carload packers and distributors of California fruits and vegetables with branches at San Francisco, Los Angeles, Imperial Valley and Turlock, Calif. Retired 1936. Since re- tirement has traveled extensively through all the states, and visited more historical spots than any living American. Has authored syndi- cated column, Bypaths of History, since 1938, has published over 5,600 stories in past 20 years. Interest in Lincoln began many years ago. Has visited every spot connected with the principal events of his life. Married, wife and son and two married daughters. 1950 awarded citation by Glendale Historical Society for historical writ- ings; 1951 biography in Who's Who on the Pacific Coast; 1953 Who's Who in the West; 1953 awarded citation for historical contributions by Washington State Centennial Commission; 1954 awarded Life Membership in Washington State Capitol Historical Society; 1955, one of 19 individuals in U. S., Canada, and Alaska nominated for awards at the National Convention for State and Local History at Williamsburg, Virginia. To LeRoy E. Smith friend and owner of the Wills House "May this booklet and the plaque of The Gettysburg Address which I have presented to the City of Gettysburg, with you as its guardian, ever be a reminder to you, and to the untold thousands of my fellow Americans, who may visit your room in the years which lie ahead, that your little city has a price- less heritage to pass on unsullied to generations of Americans unborn. That heritage being that Abraham Lincoln was a guest of your city, and in your very house he penned the last 9/2 lines of the first draft of his immortal speech, and also copied the second draft of it, which second draft he used in delivering his message on November 19, 1863." Guy Allison Portrait taken 1863 in Wash- ington, D. C, about the time of the Gettysburg visit. Man's Most Valuable Words— $2,225 Each Little did David Wills, chairman of the Gettysburg Na- tional Cemetery celebration, dream that the letter he wrote to Abraham Lincoln, on November 2, 1863, would result in one of the immortal documents in the English language be- ing written. Nor did he ever dream that three copies of those "few appropriate remarks" would be involved in commercial transactions amounting to $605,000, or at the rate of $2,225 per word for each of the 272 words which comprised the Gettysburg Address— the highest price ever paid for written words. The story behind the writing of this ageless address is an intriguing one. The preparation for the Gettysburg celebra- tion, and the dedication of a national cemetery for the Union soldiers who lost their lives on that famous battlefield began early in August, just a month after the battle had been fought. A committee, appointed by Governor Curtin, of Pennsyl- vania, of which Mr. David Wills, a prominent lawyer and citizen of Gettysburg, was chairman, extended an invitation to the noted Edward Everett, America's foremost orator at that time, to give the principal address. The invitation was tendered two months in advance of the event. The idea of having President Lincoln participate in the exercises did not occur to the members of the committee until within less than three weeks of the event. This invitation was forwarded by Mr. Wills, the chairman in charge of arrange- merits, in a letter dated November 2, 1863, which letter read as follows: "To His Excellency, A. Lincoln, President of the United States: "Sir:— The several states having soldiers in the Army of the Potomac, who were killed at the Battle of Gettysburg, or have The Gettysburg National Cemetery Scene of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address since died at the various hospitals which were established in the vicinity, have procured grounds on a prominent part of the battlefield, for a cemetery, and are having the dead re- moved to them and properly buried. "These grounds will be consecrated and set apart to this sacred purpose, by appropriate ceremonies on Thursday, No- vember 19. Hon. Edward Everett will deliver the oration. "I am authorized by the governors of the different states to invite you to be present, and participate in these cere- monies, which will doubtless be very imposing and solemnly impressive. "It is the desire, that after the oration you, as chief execu- tive of the nation, formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks. "It will be a source of great gratification to the many widows and orphans that have been made almost friendless by the great battle here, to have you here personally, and it will kindle anew in the breasts of the comrades of these brave dead, who are now in the tented field, or nobly meeting the foe at the front, a confidence that they who sleep in death on the battlefield, are not forgotten by those highest in au- thority, and they will feel that, should their fate be the same, their remains will not be uncared for. "We hope you will be able to be present and perform this last, but solemn act to the soldier dead on this battlefield. I am, with great respect, your Excellency's obedient servant, David Wills, Agt. A. G. Curtin, Governor of Pennsylvania, and acting for all the states." The above invitation probably arrived at the Executive Mansion in Washington on November 4th— only two weeks and two days before the event was to occur. During those two weeks the President was a busy and a worried man. Con- gress was to convene early in December, and he was working on his state of the Union speech. Then, too, his little son, Tad, was desperately ill. How then, was it possible for him to concentrate upon this assignment, and to produce, in that brief time, one of the immortal documents of human history? A careful perusal of the Lincoln collection of letters in the Library of Congress, by this writer, did not disclose the exact time and place where Lincoln wrote the first draft of the Gettysburg Address. However, we have the authority of James B. Speed, Lincoln's intimate friend from Illinois, and who, at a later period, was named Attorney General, in Lincoln's cabinet, that he had spent the evening with the LL* r^i ^ »Ov*53 ^ '■Uj Af. £&, fvtef\l~. M«*t<-> /^o-CyWa. 5 President, on the day before he left for Gettysburg. During their conversation the latter told Speed that on the previous evening he had jotted down a few remarks for the ensuing dedicatory exercises. Those jottings evidently were those of the first page of the Gettysburg speech, written in pen and ink on a sheet of the Executive Mansion stationery. This sheet of paper was about eight inches wide and nine inches in length. This sheet Lincoln took with him to Gettysburg. After supper, on the evening of his arrival at his destina- tion, Mr. Lincoln retired to his bedroom, and taking a large sheet of ruled foolscap paper, he penned the concluding 9/2 lines of his "remarks," using a pencil instead of a pen. This draft contained 240 words. Thus, the first draft of the Gettysburg Address was written on two different size sheets of paper; one page of which was written with pen and ink, the other page with a pencil. On the following morning— November 19— after breakfast, Mr. Lincoln went to his bedroom, and went over his manu- script. He decided to transcribe it to two equal size sheets of paper— the large ruled foolscap— and write it with pen and ink. In transcribing his second copy he made a few changes, so that instead of 240 words, the second copy had 269 words. This was the copy the President used in delivering his speech. In this remarkable piece of perfect English diction, there are three outstanding groups of words, which have indelibly stamped themselves upon the imagination of mankind. The first group contains these words: "Four score and seven years ago"; the second group, "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom"; the third group, "that govern- ment of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The first expression, "four score and seven years ago, doubtless had its origin in the short speech President Lincoln made to a group of people who serenaded him at the White House on the evening of July 7, 1863, when definite news of the Union victory at Gettysburg was officially received in Washington. In that speech, which was wholly unpremed- itated, he mentioned "80-odd years," referring, of course to the difference in time between the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863—87 years. His opening words of the address came as a happy inspiration. The words, "under God," were not included in either the first or second drafts of the Address, as penned by Mr. Lin- coln, but they doubtless came to his mind during the solemn exercises which preceded his own 272 word dedicatory re- marks. Most students believe that Lincoln got this expression from Weems, "Life of Washington," a book with which Lin- coln early became familiar. In Parson Weems book, this expression was often used. In his chapter on the death of Washington, he said: "Sons and daughters of Columbia, gather yourselves around the bed of your expiring father— around the last bed of him to whom you and your children owe, under God, many of the best blessings of this life." Lincoln knew his Weems by heart, and there is little doubt that this expression, above quoted, had its source from that writer. The closing words of the Gettysburg Address, "govern- ment of the people, by the people, for the people," might have come from any of many sources, but the most probable origin would be Daniel Webster, or Theodore Parker. The former had defined the American government as, "the peo- ple's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people." On that fine November day in 1863, some 15,000 people thronged the streets of the little town of Gettysburg, then having a population of but 1,300. They had come to see and hear a program in which Abraham Lincoln was destined to play the most important role, although at the time, his part was but a minor one. Among those sitting on the rostrum was Colonel Clark Carr, the Illinois representative on the Gettysburg Cemetery Commission. Here is the record he left of that event as it applied to Mr. Lincoln's participation: "When President Lincoln appeared on the platform, it was the first opportunity the people really had had to see him. There was the usual craning of necks, the usual, 'Down in The Bedroom Lincoln Used While a Visitor in the Home of Judge David Wills front! calls, the swaying of the crowd to get better vantage points. During this confusion the President waited patiently for the audience to become quiet, so that when he began there was absolute silence while he spoke. "He began in those high clarion tones which the people of Illinois had so often heard, to which he held to the close. His was a voice that, when he made the effort, could be heard by a great multitude. u r? " t — *.,..,-» ,/<**»W /,,< /*>„ /H*.*. *».^ *«*,«<&** L Urn CM-M? A *./—<- ft.* **'..■• j - ■ ■■ .,,-, Second Draft "He held in his left hand two or three sheets of manuscript (two) toward which he glanced but once. He spoke with deliberation, but could not have continued more than three or four, and some said two, minutes. "So short a time was Mr. Lincoln before them that the people could scarcely believe their eyes when he disap- peared from their view. They were almost dazed. They could not possibly, in so short a time, mentally grasp the ideas that were conveyed, nor even their substance. "Time and again expressions of disappointment were made to me. Many persons said that they would have supposed that on such an occasion the President would have made a speech. Everyone thought, as expressed by Mr. Wills ( where the President had been a house guest) four days later, that instead of a speech, Mr. Lincoln made only a few dedicatory remarks. "We on the platform heard every word. And what did we hear? Only a dozen commonplace sentences, scarcely one of which contained anything new, nor anything that when stated was not self evident." At the conclusion of the exercises at the cemetery, a dinner was served at the Wills house, after which the President attended a service at the Presbyterian church. He had to leave before the services were concluded in order to catch the train for its return trip to Washington. During this trip he suffered severely from a headache. On the following day he took to his bed with a slight attack of smallpox, which confined him to his bed for two weeks. On the morning following their return from Gettysburg, Edward Everett wrote a note to the President in which he said: "Permit me to express my admiration of the thoughts ex- pressed by you with such eloquent simplicity and appro- priateness at the consecration of the cemetery. "I would be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes." To this kindly note Mr. Lincoln replied, "Your kind note of today is received. In our respective parts, you could not have been excused in making a short address, nor I a long one. I am pleased to know, that in your judgment the little I did say was not entirely a failure." Over two months passed after the dedication of the Get- tysburg Cemetery. The new congress had convened, and the President was engrossed in the various problems which pre- sented themselves. Attention was again centered on the war and its consequent sufferings. Numerous fairs were to be held to raise monev for the relief of the wounded soldiers and sailors. Among these was the fair to be held in New York City early in March, 1864. Mrs. Hamilton Fish, chairman of the Ladies' Committee, wrote to Edward Everett, asking him to donate his copy of the address which he had given at Gettysburg, to be sold at auction at the forthcoming fair. Upon receipt of this re- quest, Everett wrote to die President asking him if he would contribute his copy of the speech he had made at the same celebration. In this letter which was written on January 4, 1864, Everett said: "I have promised to give my manuscript to Mrs. Hamilton Fish, chairman of the Ladies' Committee of the Metropolitan Fail*. It would add greatly to the value of it, if I could bind up with it, the manuscript of your dedicatory remarks, if you happen to have preserved them." On February 4 President Lincoln answered as follows: "Yours of January 30 was received a few days ago, and since then, the address mentioned has arrived. Thank you for it. I send herewith the manuscript of my remarks at Gettysburg, which, with my note to you, of November 20, you are at liberty to use for the benefit of our soldiers, as you have requested." In sending the copy of the Address to Mr. Everett, the President had asked his secretaries to compare the copy of the address he had written with the newspaper reports of the address, as actually spoken at Gettysburg. In making the comparison, it was noted that all the newspapers had re- ported him as having added the words, "under God" to the last sentence of the speech. So, instead of sending his original copy, he wrote out a new copy on February 4, in which he included the above words, and sent that to Everett. When the Metropolitan Fair opened in New York, the address of Everett, to which was attached the revised form of Mr. Lincoln's dedicatory remarks, was put up for sale at auction, and was bought by a man by the name of Keyes, from New Hampshire, for $1,000. This third copy, containing 273 words, became known to history as the "Keyes Copy.' >vu~- jx ►7. ^^ \^ t iL-. txLxc £Jx*^+_, tx*^^, s&j**- <*wr &*„*, Keyes Copy Along in April, another fair for the relief of sailors and soldiers was planned for Baltimore. Colonel Alexander Bliss, a stepson of the noted historian, George Bancroft, then living in Baltimore, conceived the idea of printing a book composed of the autograph copies of the writings of the noted poets, 15 statesmen and writers of the country. This publication was to be captioned, "Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors." Colonel Bliss wrote to his stepfather, who lived in Wash- ington, D. C, requesting him to ask the President if he would donate his copy of the Gettysburg Address to be included in the autograph book. Mr. Bancroft went to the White House and made a personal request of Mr. Lincoln that he donate his copy of the address he had made at Gettysburg. OlfV.^U. £fiu 6,«Vt> ft*.,*, £ttv 4,*y c^-vat**** ^ &V4~f, fo-ULs, f* /**, t***i**»./r^i *€L*, /.//,. II ****>+ <^ Bancroft Copy Mr. Lincoln promptly consented and wrote out a copy just like the one he had made for Mr. Everett several weeks earlier. This copy, later known as the Bancroft copy, was sent to Colonel Bliss in Baltimore. Upon the arrival of the manuscript, it was found unsuitable to be included in the volume for the reason that it did not have the subject, nor the signature of the writer. Thereupon, Colonel Bliss again wrote to Mr. Bancroft requesting another copy, which would include the subject, as well as the signa- ture of Mr. Lincoln. When Bancroft apologetically requested the President for a new copy, he asked him if he, Bancroft, might retain the former copy which had been found un- suitable for publication. This request was granted. In preparing this last copy, which was dated March 11, 1864, Mr. Lincoln used great care in its preparation, being very careful in the use of punctuation marks. In this revised Bliss Copy copy, which contained 272 words, he omitted one of the words "here/' which had been used in the two previous copies. Realizing that it was to appear in book form, the President gave to it the final touch of authority and gram- matical construction. This final copy became known as the "Bliss Copy." For over a half century, the five copies of the Gettysburg Address, all penned by Abraham Lincoln, remained in private hands. The first two drafts were owned, or at least kept in the possession of John Hay, private secretary of President Lincoln, until, in 1916, his heirs presented the two copies 17 to the Congressional Library, without remuneration. They are now on exhibition in the Library. The third, or Keyes Copy, after its purchase by an uncle of Senator Henry Keyes, of New Hampshire, at the New York Metropolitan Fail*, for $1,000, remained in the possession of that family until 1929. At that time Senator Keves sold it to The Wills Home Thomas Madigan, a manuscript dealer of New York City, for the sum of $100,000. In turn Mr. Madigan sold it to James C. Ames, a banker of Chicago, for $150,000. Upon the death of Mr. Ames, his widow had an appraisal made, and it was sold to the State of Illinois for $60,000, the funds for which were donated by the school children of Illinois, together with a substantial gift of approximately $10,000 from the Chicago merchant, Marshall Field. This third copy of the Gettysburg Address, attached to the manuscript of Edward Everett's address, is now on exhibition at the Centennial Museum, in Springfield, Illinois. A total of $311,000 has been involved in the commercial transactions of this "Keyes Copy." In an effort to secure information concerning this third copy of the famous historical document, this writer had oc- casion to correspond with Mr. Henry W. Keyes, a prominent Authentic illustration from photo of "The lineoln Room," Willi House, a notional shrine ot Gettysburg. Here Lincoln finish- ed the "Address' which wos delivered the next dcy, November 19, 1863 attorney of Boston, whose father, Senator Henry Keyes, of New Hampshire, owned the copy for many years. In re- ferring to it, Mr. Keyes, in a letter dated January 22, 1952, said : "I am sorry I cannot tell you too much about this manu- script. I know my father had it at one time. I believe he in- herited it from someone, though I don't know whom, and 19 your suggestion that it was bought at a fair in New York City sounds correct. I don't know where my father kept it. I can tell you, however, what seems to me the most interest- ing use made of this manuscript. "It was, and still is, customary to read Lincoln's Gettys- burg Address on his birthday in the United States Senate, and my father read the address from his manuscript on one such occasion. My father was in the Senate from 1919 to 1937, but not on Lincoln's birthday in either the first or last of these years, and my recollection is that he probably read the manuscript at some time in the late '20's. "I do not know to whom my father sold the manuscript, or what he got for it, but my guess is that he got a great deal less than $150,000. He reluctantly felt obliged to sell it be- cause the financial strain of many years of public service at a salary inadequate to meet the expenses expected of him. ' (Note: This writer has read the correspondence connected with this sale. Senator Keyes received $100,000 for the manuscript. ) The fourth, or Bancroft Copy of the Gettysburg Address, has been involved in financial transactions amounting to $240,000. From the time that Mr. Lincoln presented this copy to Mr. George Bancroft, in 1864, it remained in the possession of the family until Dr. Wilder Bancroft, a professor in Cornell University, sold it to Thomas Madigan, a manu- script broker in New York, in 1929, for $100,000. After keeping it for several years without selling it, the financial depression of the 1930s necessitated Madigan's dis- posing of the manuscript at a heavy loss. A manuscript broker, by the name of Zinkin, of Indianapolis, bought it for $50,000. This broker sold it to Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas H. Noyes, the former an executive of a wholesale drug company, for a purported sum of $90,000. After keeping possession of the manuscript for several years, in 1949, while Cornell was making a drive for funds, Mr. and Mrs. Noyes presented this "Bancroft Copy" to that institution. It is now in the custody of the Cornell Library. This copy contains the text of the Address on pages 1 and 3 of a folded quarto sheet 7 3/4 inches wide, by 9 7/8 inches long. In the correspondence which this writer had concerning this fourth copy of the Gettysburg Address, a letter was written to Dr. Wilder Bancroft, then a retired octogenarian teacher in the science department of Cornell, and from whom Madigan had bought it in 1929. Judging from the letter, which was almost illegible, due to nervousness of the aged writer of it, Dr. Bancroft advised that he had forgotten how he came into possession of the document, or whether it was the only copy made by Mr. Lincoln, and that he could not recall to whom he had sold it, or what price he got for it. The final, or fifth copy of the Gettysburg Address, actually written by Mr. Lincoln, and known historically as the "Bliss Copy," remained in the family of Colonel Alexander Bliss, from 1864 to 1949, when it was sold at public auction in New York City, by the Parke-Bernet Galleries, to Senor Oscar Cintas, former Ambassador to the United States from Cuba, for the sum of $54,000. This was the only copy of the Address to be written on three pages of blue lined paper. These sheets are 8 by 10 inches. After the death of Colonel Bliss, his son, Dr. William A. Bliss, of Baltimore, acquired possession of it. When he died, his wife and daughter became the owners. About 1929, after Madigan had acquired title to the Bancroft and Keyes copies, he made a purported offer of $100,000 to Mrs. Bliss for her copy. When a favorable attitude was shown, Madigan went to Baltimore to examine minutely the copy shown to him. For this purpose he used a microscope. The owners became 21 incensed as though the prospective buyer doubted its authen- ticity, and refused to sell. Several years passed, and the owners were again ap- proached by the New York auction firm above mentioned, who, it was reported, told them that the document would doubtless bring as much as had been offered by Madigan. The auction occurred in 1949, but due to the depression, the highest bid was but $54,000, and Senor Cintas, of Havana, Cuba, acquired possession, which he still retains. Thus, the three copies of the immortal Gettysburg Ad- dress have been involved in sales totalling $605,000, or $2,225 per word— the highest price ever paid for words penned by man. President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address