The following is from The Lincoln Log website and gives you an idea of what Lincoln's day was like on November 19, 1863 prior to giving his famous speech.
If you plan to have your students recite the Gettysburg Address for class, this should help provide some background information about the event.
If the technology had been available, Lincoln probably would have used something like PowerPoint during his speech. Here is a link to what the PowerPoint presentation may have looked like for the the Gettysburg Address.
Here is a nice YouTube video of Jim Getty portraying President Lincoln 11/19/2006.
Thursday, November 19, 1863. Gettysburg, PA and Washington, DC.
According to Nicolay's account, after breakfast at Wills house, Lincoln retires to his room, where Nicolay joins him, and completes preparation of his speech. John G. Nicolay, "Lincoln's Gettysburg Address," The Century Magazine 25:598.
About 10 A.M. President, dressed in black, wearing white gauntlets and usual crepe around hat in memory of Willie, leaves Wills house to join procession. Receives round after round of "three hearty cheers," and shakes many hands as crowd gathers. Washington Chronicle, 21 November 1863.
Thousands welcome President in Gettysburg. Weather fine. Flags in Washington at half-mast in honor of dead in cemetery at Gettysburg. Washington Star, 19 November 1863.
Gov. Curtin (Pa.), who arrived last evening with numerous important people on special train from Harrisburg, Pa., remarks to Lincoln about serenade given Gov. Seymour (N.Y.), and Lincoln replies: "He deserves it. No man has shown greater interest and promptness in his cooperation with us." Rice, 514.
President mounts "a magnificent chestnut charger." Monaghan, Diplomat, 341.
Rides in procession to cemetery. Hay, Letters and Diary.
Procession delayed; starts to move about 11 A.M. LL, No. 1425.
Head of procession arrives at speaker's platform inside cemetery at 11:15 A.M. President receives military salute. President and members of cabinet,with group of military and civic dignitaries, occupy platform. "The President was received with marked respect and a perfect silence due to the solemnity of the occasion, every man among the immense gathering uncovering at his appearance." Washington Chronicle, 20 November 1863.
Lincoln shakes hands with Gov. Tod (Ohio), who introduces Gov.-elect John Brough (Ohio), and takes his place between chairs reserved for Sec. Seward and Edward Everett, orator to make principal address. At 11:40 A.M. Everett arrives, is introduced to President, and program music begins. Washington Chronicle, 21 November 1863.
Once during Everett's two-hour oration Lincoln stirs in his chair. "He took out his steel-bowed spectacles, put them on his nose, took two pages of manuscript from his pocket, looked them over and put them back." Monaghan, Diplomat, 341.
About 2 P.M. Lincoln "in a fine, free way, with more grace than is his wont" delivers Gettysburg Address. He holds manuscript but does not appear to read from it. John G. Nicolay, "Lincoln's Gettysburg Address," The Century Magazine 25:602; Dennett, Hay Diaries and Letters, 121; Address
Delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg, 19 November 1863, CW, 7:22-23.
Pronounces his "r" plainly, does not speak like Southerner. Henry B. Rankin, Intimate Character Sketches of Abraham Lincoln (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1924), 285.
On platform, after speech, President remarks to Marshal Lamon: "Lamon, that speech won't scour! It is a flat failure and the people are disappointed." Lamon, Recollections, 173.
John R. Young, recording speech in shorthand for Philadelphia "Press," leans across aisle and asks President if that is all. Lincoln replies, "Yes, for the present." John R. Young, Men and Memories: Personal Reminiscences, 2 vols., edited by May D. Russell Young (New York: F. T. Neely, 1901), 1:69.
President decides to hear address by Lt. Gov.-elect Charles Anderson (Pa.) at 4:30 P.M. in Presbyterian Church. Meets "old John Burns, the soldier of 1812, and the only man in Gettysburg who volunteered to defend it." Burns accompanies him and Sec. Seward to hear Anderson speak. President's special train leaves Gettysburg about 7 P.M. and arrives in Washington at 1:10 A.M. on Friday. Washington Chronicle, 21 November 1863.
Lincoln returns from Gettysburg with a mild form of smallpox (varioloid) and remains under half quarantine in White House for nearly three weeks. Bates, Diary, 30 November 1863; Welles, Diary, Dec.
Rangers at the numerous Civil War battlefields are a wealth of information. Unfortunately, it is difficult (if not impossible) and expensive for classes of students to venture out to a Civil War battlefield. So, how about bringing a Park Ranger to your classroom? Well, here is one way to do just that.
Many of you know that I enjoy reading the My Year of Living Rangerously by Antietam Park Ranger Mannie. He has posted several great videos on Civil War artillery. In addition to that, you can actually listen to Ranger Mannie giving a talk on Civil War artillery for some visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park.
Finally, Ranger Mannie has also recently posted some excellent photographs of the firing of a Civil War canon entitled Muzzle Blast Revealed. In this post Ranger Mannie shows and discusses some additional aspects of artillery such as the fuse and how it fits into the projectile.
What is also interesting about this post is that it shows some photos of cannons being fired from directly in front of the cannon!
During the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate soldiers marched shoulder to shoulder across an open field toward cannons just like the ones shown on Ranger Mannie's website in what would become known as Pickett's Charge. Have your students consider that situation for a moment and perhaps have them write a letter home as a Confederate soldier having survived the charge and faced the cannon.
The next one is from Antietam and according to the title was recorded at the Pry Farm in October 2006. While not the best quality, it is an excellent rendition of Old Dan Tucker and if I'm not mistaken there are members of the 2nd S. Carolina String Band in the group. Here is a link to a video of the Excelsior Brigade Fifes & Drums playing Old Dan Tucker as well.
Finally, the following is not Civil War music but it is one of the coolest fife and drum videos I've seen. The video is the Fifes and Drums of Yorktown playing at Ft. Ticonderoga. If you look closely at about 3:30 into the video, the fifers are lined up and they are using their right hand to play the fife of the person in front of them.
While searching for some content for a project, I came across this nice video. The 2001 video features Rea Redd from Waynesburg College (where I'm an adjunct professor) and was filmed on location at the Soldiers and Sailors Hall in Pittsburgh. Corporal Redd mentions that he is a member of the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves, a Civil War Reenactment group.
4/6/07 -- Update Someone shared the following video with me about the Pennsylvania Reserves. It was produced by a member of the 9th Pa Reserves so I thought I would add it here:
I have to admit right up front that I am not a big user of YouTube. I have viewed some clips that people have sent me but I'm not a regular user. That being said, someone sent me a link the other evening to a video of a Civil War Fife & Drum group playing and I thought, "hmm, how can this be used in the classroom"?
So, I started doing some searches on YouTube for Civil War related videos and came up with some interesting results that I thought I would share. These videos are a unique way to show clips of various topics on the Civil War to your classes that may otherwise be inaccessible. The following is a list of a few videos and how you may want to integrate them into your classroom.
Fife and Drum: Here is a nice video of the Excelsior Brigade Fifes & Drums playing a medley of several tunes. This video provides a pretty good view of the corp playing. Take notice of the drummers and ask your students if any of them are drummers in a band. There are four snare drums and a bass drum. How about those fifers? Loud and clear over top of the drums and there are only two of them.
Antietam: The following videos were created by a park ranger from the Antietam National Battlefield. This ranger also has a blog entitled My Year of Living Rangerously which I really enjoy reading. The first video is from the 2006 Antitem Artillery Weekend and it shows pictures and video clips of how cannons are loaded and fired. The next video shows the 27th Virginia, a Civil War reenacting group, demonstrating how soldiers would load and fire their muskets as a unit.
Gettysburg: Simply doing a search in YouTube for the word Gettysburg yields pages and pages of videos. These videos range from school projects to vacation videos. There are several that show brief tours of the battlefield or are slide shows of the monuments. I found a few with clips from different movies including Gettysburg, ones of ghost tours and one of a GNMP tour guide.
My favorite is from the 2006 Remembrance Day ceremonies in Gettysburg. This video shows a great representation of the different types of uniforms that both Union and Confederate soldiers would have worn. There are several fife and drum groups shown (including members of Camp Chase Fifes and Drums around the 5min mark) and even a brass band. Best of all is starting at about 5:25 of the movie you can hear a great fife and drum group playing the tune Garry Owen. That group is made up of fifers and drummers from reenactors including yours truly.
As a follow up to this, there is a video of the Gettysburg Address from the ceremony as well.
So, as you can see, there are many videos out on YouTube for viewing. Try some different searches for different battlefields and see what you can come up with to share with your students.
