Nov 25, 2014 - Sale 2368

Sale 2368 - Lot 151

Price Realized: $ 5,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
FIRST SEPARATE PRINTING? LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. The President's Dedication Address at Gettysburg. Printed card, 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches, in red and blue; minor offsetting on verso. [New York]: Miller & Mathews, [1864]
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Additional Details

When Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on 19 November 1863, it was not instantly recognized as an important speech. The initial reports of the event buried their transcripts of Lincoln's brief comments after a much longer speech by Edward Everett (see above). We have no firm evidence of any separate printing of the speech in the four months after it was delivered. Two early printings have been identified–a broadside titled Oration of Abraham Lincoln at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National Military Cemetery, and the small card printing offered here. The larger broadside was undated, and it is unclear whether it was issued during Lincoln's lifetime. However, this card certainly was.
On 23 March 1864, the publishers Miller & Mathews sent President Lincoln a note reading in part 'We have had printed as part of our contribution to the Metropolitan Fair, your dedicatory address at the Gettysburg Cemetery. . . . Enclosing a few specimens.' This letter, still preserved at the Library of Congress, proves that the card was printed by March 1864. Furthermore, it was produced to support one of the great charitable events of the Civil War, the Metropolitan Fair held in Manhattan on 4 April 1864. OCLC locates three copies, at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, the Boston Athenaeum, and Brown University, and we are aware of no other copies at auction. Carbonell, Gettysburg Address 8.