"We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of."
With those few belittling and dismissive words, Harrisburg's Patriot & Union newspaper - the Patriot-News's Civil War ancestor - earned itself an enduring place in history for having got Lincoln's Gettysburg Address utterly, jaw-droppingly wrong.
- (2013) A Patriot-News editorial retraction: The Gettysburg Address
- Full text of the Gettysburg Address
- Nationwide reaction to the retraction
Just as the Gettysburg Address has become one of the most-read and most-quoted American political documents, the Patriot & Union "review" of it has become one of the most-quoted commentaries.
The quote lives on - as counterpoint to Lincoln's masterful rhetoric - not only in scholarly literature, but in popular histories, Internet discussions and even the resource materials for school teachers distributed by the Gettysburg National Military Park.
It also has lived on, of course, as fodder for generations of readers who disagree with Patriot-News editorials, who opine that the mental capacity and judgement of the newspaper's aspiring opinion makers has not improved considerably since the early days.
This infamous "review," which seems to imply the newspaper ignored the Gettysburg Address altogether, is also trotted out on occasion as evidence of how newspaper people sometimes miss history being made right in front of their notebooks.
But like Lincoln's speech itself, the Patriot & Union "review" has acquired accretions of myth and misunderstanding that obscure actual history.
The words about Lincoln's "silly remarks" have been divorced from their context and given more weight than they arguably deserve.
A thorough review of the Patriot & Union coverage of the Gettysburg ceremonies 150 years ago paints a different picture.
First, the famous quote is taken from an editorial that did not appear in the newspaper until Nov. 24, five days after the event. Prior to that, there was considerable news coverage of Lincoln's visit and speech in Gettysburg - and that news coverage would surprise many who have judged the newspaper solely on the editorial quote.
This 1905 artist's rendering from the Sherwood Lithograph Co. via the Library of Congress depicts President Abraham Lincoln speaking at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery on Nov. 19, 1863. The Gettysburg Address is unusual among great American speeches, in part because the occasion did not call for a great American speech. Lincoln was not giving an inaugural address, a commencement speech or remarks in the immediate aftermath of a shocking national tragedy. "No one was looking for him to make history," says the Pulitzer Prize winning Civil War historian James McPherson.
The first news coverage of Gettysburg appeared in the Nov. 21 edition, the delay being caused by the difficulty getting home from Gettysburg on the trains, more of which in a moment.
The Patriot & Union was a four-page broadsheet with six columns of news on each page. The front page was usually devoted to business advertisements and the full text of a major political speech, results of a congressional investigation or a piece of syndicated fiction. This front page material often continued onto the second page, which also always contained an editorial statement on some issue of the day and at least half a page of national news - often news of the war - taken from the telegraph or other major newspapers. Page Three was devoted to purely local news and more advertisements, and Page Four was entirely advertisements.
On Nov. 21, 1863, the Patriot & Union devoted more than half its national telegraph section to news of Lincoln's visit to Gettysburg.
It printed the full Associated Press text of Lincoln's dedication address in Gettysburg - without editorial comment.
There were errors in the printed text, which as Lincoln scholar Martin P. Johnson notes was common. In fact, the Patriot & Union text of the speech is less riddled with error than many other newspaper accounts - in part because of Harrisburg's proximity to Gettysburg on the telegraph lines.
As Johnson explains, "Not only did the telegraph wire require transcription into Morse code and back to words, introducing potential human error, but weather, insulation, distance, the adjustments of the sending and receiving apparatus, and many other elements affected the accuracy of transmission.
"Newspaper readers of the mid-nineteenth century accepted some variations in wording as unavoidable," writes Johnson, "the inaccuracies of telegraphic communication being one of the running jokes of the time."
In addition to the text of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the Patriot & Union on Nov. 21 printed the text of speeches delivered not at the ceremony, but elsewhere in town the night before and the afternoon following. Specifically, the newspaper printed the text of Lincoln's and Secretary of State William Seward's impromptu speeches to the crowd in town the night before as well as New York Governor Horatio Seymour's speech after reviewing New York troops following the dedication ceremony on the 19th.
This selection of wire news on Nov. 21 forms the basis for the editorial printed on the 24th.
But it's important to note here that the Patriot & Union also devoted more than half of its local news coverage on the 21st to the Gettysburg ceremony, with a first-person eyewitness account from one of the newspaper's own reporters - whether this account was written by editor Oramel Barrett or a subordinate is unclear because neither the news account nor the subsequent editorial are signed.
The newspaper's own news account of the proceedings focuses largely on the lousy train service to and from Gettysburg. This was not a quirk of the Patriot & Union - many newspapers focused on this because it was a major snafu that left thousands stranded in Hanover unable - after traveling hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles - to attend the event. The same occurred on the trip back out of Gettysburg.
As the Patriot & Union reporter noted, "The amount of blasphemy manufactured at that little hotel was considerable."
But to the point - the newspaper's own reporter described the President's speech in Gettysburg like this: "The President then arose and delivered the dedicatory address, which was brief and calculated to arouse deep feeling."
Given the history between the Patriot & Union and the Lincoln administration, this is no small praise.
This Nov. 19, 1863 photo made available by the Library of Congress shows President Abraham Lincoln, center with no hat, surrounded by the crowd at the dedication of a portion of the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pa. as a national cemetery. The Gettysburg Address is unusual among great American speeches, in part because the occasion did not call for a great American speech. Lincoln was not giving an inaugural address, a commencement speech or remarks in the immediate aftermath of a shocking national tragedy. "No one was looking for him to make history," says the Pulitzer Prize winning Civil War historian James McPherson.
The Patriot & Union was a democratic newspaper staunchly opposed to Lincoln. It fully embraced the term "copperhead" when it began to be used in 1863 by Republicans to besmirch Democrats' patriotism and loyalty. But for the Patriot & Union it was more than just politics - it was personal.
The year before, four of the newspaper's top management were arrested by soldiers on orders from Lincoln's General-in-Chief Henry Halleck, hauled to Washington and imprisoned without hearing for suspicion of sedition.
Owner and editor Oramel Barrett, his partner Thomas MacDowell, assistant editor Montgomery Forster and city editor Uriah Jones were taken from Harrisburg under military guard on Aug. 6, 1862, transferred to Washington and clapped in the Old Capitol Prison.
Their offense? The Patriot & Union's print shop had printed a handbill - a hoax that got posted all around Harrisburg - that announced abolitionist James Lane was in town to recruit local black men for the Union Army.
According to a recent article in America's Civil War by Barrett's great-great-grandson Doug Stewart, "If taken seriously, the handbill might have sparked a race riot."
The announcement promised “Arms, equipments, uniforms, pay, rations, and bounty the same as received by White Soldiers, and no distinction will be made.”
Black recruitment and black equality were incendiary topics in Pennsylvania - especially the midstate - in 1862.
The newspaper men claimed that the handbill was a practical joke “got up by frolicsome printer boys without knowledge of the editors or proprietors.”
As Stewart recounts in his article, "Finally given a hearing after 16 days in prison, the Harrisburg men swore before Judge- Advocate Levi C. Turner that they had nothing to do with its printing. After they pledged their loyalty to the Union, Turner let them go."
In this light, the Patriot & Union's editorial characterization of Lincoln as a tyrant willing to trample citizens' Constitutional rights takes on added savor.
But to the newspaper's credit, it generally kept such editorial criticism confined to its editorials and let its news columns stand by themselves.
Such is the case with the Patriot & Union's coverage of the Gettysburg Address.
Between the newspaper's first news coverage and its notorious editorial, it reprinted the full text of Edward Everett's Gettysburg oration on the front page. The oration was so long, it took two days.
For the record, the Patriot & Union didn't like Everett's speech either.
Print showing Edward Everett. By artist Thomas Hicks.
The editorial accompanying the first installment said, "It is something that belongs to the history of the times, or we would not publish it."
Finally, on the 24th, the Patriot & Union let fly with its now-infamous "review" of Lincoln's address.
But it is, in fact, not a review, but rather a condemnation of what the editors viewed as the inherent political theatre of the Gettysburg event - focusing most specifically and causticly on Secretary of State Seward's remarks the night before, which were stridently pro-abolition.
As many scholars have noted, most recently Martin Johnson in his recent book "Writing the Gettysburg Address," Lincoln's trip to Gettysburg was political. Gabor Boritt, the former director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College said the Gettysburg trip essentially launched Lincoln's re-election campaign, and re-election was by no means certain, as no president in more than 30 years (since Andrew Jackson) had been elected to a second term. Lincoln wasn't even assured he would get the nomination of his own party.
The political importance of being in Gettysburg? The ability to mingle first-hand with political power brokers from multiple states.
As Boritt explains: Pennsylvania and Ohio - both crucial to the 1864 election - would have the largest delegations at the ceremony, with New York, also in the balance, close behind. "The first two states would also hold early October elections the following year, before the rest of the states voted, serving as bellwethers and providing inordinate influence over the final outcome."
As Johnson explains: "With the New York governor's mansion in the hands of Democrats, Pennsylvania was the largest Republican state and was vital to the party, to the Union cause, and to Lincoln's upcoming reelection campaign, as the state would account for nearly a quarter of the electoral college votes needed for victory."
This was the backdrop to the Patriot & Union editorial.
This undated image made available by the Library of Congress shows part of the "Nicolay Copy" version of the five known drafts of President Abraham Lincoln's Nov. 19, 1863 speech in Gettysburg, Pa. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was given at the dedication of a memorial cemetery at the battlefield site.
What's more, the selection of AP wire news the paper first ran on the 21st is the springboard the editorial: the paper ran Gov. Seymour's address because he was one of the few Democrats at the ceremony, and it printed the short evening speeches of Lincoln and Seward because they were news.
Johnson notes that the Patriot & Union's characterization of Lincoln's words as "silly remarks" was probably referring to Lincoln's playful speech in response to a serenade the night of Nov 18 outside the David Wills house in Gettysburg where Lincoln was staying.
According to the Patriot & Union news account of the 21st:
Johnson notes that "many Democratic party papers gave the impression that that speech was Lincoln's speech at the ceremony, perhaps from a legitimate mistake (though I suspect it was deliberate in some instances)."
It would be convenient from the Patriot-News perspective - and provide solace to future editorial boards - to adopt Johnson's supposition that the infamous review was referencing Lincoln's words of the night before rather than the Gettysburg Address itself.
We can't.
The key evidence comes from the opening of the editorial, which states: "We have read the oration of Mr. Everett. We have read the little speeches of President Lincoln, as reported for and published in his party press, and we have read the remarks of the Hon. Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward, all delivered on the occasion of dedicating the National Cemetery…"
The "little speeches" of President Lincoln - it's plural.
There's no question that Lincoln's speech to the "serenade" on the evening of the 18th is included in the subsequent dismissal of the President's "silly remarks," but it seems inescapable that so too are his "brief remarks" in the cemetery.
But the point of the editorial was not to "review" Lincoln's rhetocial performance of that day, but rather his political performance - specifically, from the Democratic perspective of someone who had been arrested and jailed for 16 days without proper court hearing, the prospect of Lincoln launching a campaign for re-election.
As Borritt noted in his book "The Gettysburg Gospel," the Patriot & Union was not the only newspaper to belittle Lincoln's address or go after him for politicizing Gettysburg. Borritt's opinion of the Patriot & Union editorial was that it was relatively tame.
"Considering that its editors, too, had been arrested during the previous year," Borritt said, "this was mild."
Though the editorial is often quoted, it is rarely reprinted in full.
Read it for yourself, and you decide:
NOTE: This story has been updated from the original to remove a stray apostrophe.