Abraham Lincoln Letter to Edward Everett
20 November 1863
Pres. Abraham Lincoln wrote this letter to renowned orator Edward Everett the day after the Gettysburg Address, which he famously delivered on 19 November 1863. Lincoln's remarks at the consecration of the Soldiers'National Cemetery in Gettysburg lasted just two minutes. Everett, by comparison, gave a two-hour oration. Everett wrote to the president praising his speech: "I should be glad, if I could flatter myself, that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes." Lincoln replied in this letter, "I am pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say was not entirely a failure." Lincoln’s address became one of the most famous speeches in American history.
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