Seldom have two minutes meant so much.

Nov. 19 marks the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, a two-minute oration that is considered among the greatest speeches in American history.

The address was part of ceremonies to dedicate a soldiers’ cemetery at Gettysburg, where the epic Civil War battle had been fought four months before, on July 1-3, 1863. Edward Everett, the Massachusetts politician and famous orator who had run against Lincoln in the 1860 election, was to deliver the main address.

The president’s appearance was almost an afterthought. On Nov. 2, Gettysburg lawyer David Wills, who created the cemetery and organized the ceremony, invited Lincoln to add “a few appropriate thoughts.”

Lincoln, two personal secretaries, and three Cabinet members took the train from Washington

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