The Dedication Ceremony, November 19, 1863

Mathew Brady Collection
The Dedication Ceremony,
November 19, 1863
Courtesy of the Still Pictures Branch,
National Archives

These modern prints show the crowd around the platform at Gettysburg and a detail from that picture of President Lincoln on the platform. The original glass plate from the Mathew Brady Collection lay unidentified in the National Archives until 1952, when Josephine Cobb, chief of the Still Pictures Branch, recognized Lincoln in the center of the detail, hatless and probably seated; his bodyguard, Ward Lamon; and Governor Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania. Cobb estimated that the photograph was taken about noon, three hours before Lincoln gave his now famous address. Scholars have disagreed on the identification of the figures in the photograph, but the best consensus is as follows: Lincoln's private secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay, orator Edward Everett, and Gettysburg attorney and organizer David Wills .

Additional Views:
Detail