On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Lincoln had been invited to give a "few appropriate remarks" during a ceremony to dedicate a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. Despite its brevity and the fact that it earned little attention at the time, the Gettysburg Address is considered one of Lincoln's greatest speeches. Of the five known manuscript copies of the Gettysburg Address, the Library of Congress has two. President Lincoln gave one of these to each of his two private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay.

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