Sometimes it takes a while

From The Other Gettysburg Address by Ted Widmer. It is known historically but not especially parochially. The main event was the speech before Lincoln's. Widmer gives a good brief account.

Even before the address was given, Americans knew that a great speech was coming, and that it would come at Gettysburg. The battle had been so comprehensive, and its result so profound, that a lasting statement was needed to mark the burial of the dead. That the final resting place of the soldiers was in the North, conveniently close to media outlets, only added to the logic of a solemn utterance for the ages. Accordingly, an invitation went out to the person most likely to give it.

Edward Everett had spent his life preparing for this moment. If anyone could put the battle into a broad historical context, it was he. His immense erudition and his reputation as a speaker set expectations very high for the address to come. As it turned out, Americans were correct to assume that history would forever remember the words spoken on that day. But they were not to be his. As we all know, another speaker stole the limelight, and what we now call the Gettysburg Address was close to the opposite of what Everett prepared. It was barely an Address at all; simply the musings of a speaker with no command of Greek history, no polish on the stage, and barely a speech at all – a mere exhalation of around 270 words. Everett’s first sentence, just clearing his throat, was 19 percent of that – 52 words. By the time he was finished, about 2 hours later, he had spoken more than 13,000.

[snip]

When it came time to deliver the Gettysburg Address, Everett gave a brilliant performance, as all knew he would. That he was able to speak for two hours, without notes, was all the more impressive for a kidney ailment that often required him to urinate (a small tent had been placed discreetly nearby, and what he called a “pot-de-chambre” placed inside).

A diarist, Benjamin French, wrote, “Mr. Everett was listened to with breathless silence by all that immense crowd, and he had his audience in tears many times during his masterly effort.” He described the battle in detail, leaving listeners rapt, and in effect telling its history for the first time. Near the end of his remarks, he spoke movingly of reconciliation between North and South, a thought that the victory at Gettysburg made more palatable.

Greece was in the air from the moment he started, and his opening paragraphs went into numbing detail of funerary rites in Athens. A reporter, John Russell Young, wrote, of his “antique courtly ways, fine keen eyes, the voice of singular charm.” But he added, ominously, “I felt as I looked at the orator, as if he was some antique Greek statue, so … beautiful … but so cold!”

Still, Everett’s triumph seemed complete. In his diary, Everett recorded, “After I had done the President pressed my hand with great fervor, and said “I am more than gratified. I am grateful to you.”

Then Lincoln stood up, spoke his 272 words, and sat down.

The rest, as they say, is history. Some prescient observers sensed the power of Lincoln’s achievement immediately. Everett was among them. The next day, he wrote to Lincoln: “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 gracefully.

With time, and frequent reprintings, it became obvious that Lincoln had created a lapidary masterpiece, whose brevity was not the least of its merits. He had succeeded in giving meaning to the terrible sacrifice, and repurposing the United States. He had elevated democracy, and equality, as fundamental aims of the government. And he had changed the way we talk. His 272 words were short – mostly one and two-syllables, derived from Anglo-Saxon and Norman roots, the way that Americans actually spoke. Not a lot of Greek and Latin in there.

I have read in some accounts that the press did indeed focus most their discussion on Everett's delivery and Lincoln's comments were treated as a mere addendum. That it was some few years before the attention shifted to what we now know and revere as the Gettysburg Address.

It is much like that with books as well. Few bestsellers remain in the public memory after a decade. Most of what we now acknowledge as classics attracted little attention at the time of their publication. Iconically, only 3,200 copies of Mob Dick were sold in the 40 years between its publication and Melville's death in 1891.