Giving speeches is a common practice in today’s world and you will find inspirational speakers at a number of different events including those organised by Conference Management Companies Dublin way, who will look for great speakers for their events.
The Gettysburg Address is one such speech that has stayed in the minds of people.
The whole thing was quite common practice to do after a big battle. The idea of a funeral address hails from ancient Greece where Pericles gave a Funeral oration like Everett’s to try and rally the people of Athens into doing more to retain the city state and defend it from its enemies. Lincoln took a leaf out of Pericles book and used the Address to gee up the Union citizens and soldiers being careful not to run down the South at the same time seeing as they were all the same countrymen. This time the South were playing the part of Sparta.
Just to make the whole day zip along there was also musical interludes of “Homage d’uns Heros” and the Marine Band playing the “Old Hundred”. Before Lincoln went on, the crowd where warmed up with a rendition of the Hymn the “Consecration Chant” as sung by the Baltimore Glee Club (no really). This was a good move especially since Everett had been talking at them for the last two hours. After Lincoln a traditional dirge by James G Percival was played to bring them down nicely for the final benediction.