The dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863, is mostly remembered for the short speech that President Abraham Lincoln delivered there that day. At the time, however, most of the public attention went to a much longer, formal oration by Edward Everett, former Massachusetts governor, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State.
But there were other speakers at Gettysburg as well, including two New Yorkers, Secretary of State (and former U.S. Senator and governor) William H. Seward, and Governor Horatio Seymour.
At the time, Seward and Seymour were nationally recognized and influential leaders and their short speeches were widely noted and reprinted in the press. [Read more…] about William Seward’s and Horatio Seymour’s Gettysburg Addresses