The warm breeze stirred the pages of Edward Everett's speech as he stood atop Cemetery Hill.

He blinked, gazing out across the field in front of him, the land that had witnessed such tragedy, only eight short months ago.

The Harvard graduate coughed gently in his throat and began to speak once again to the gathered crowd.

As a former pastor, professor, congressman, governor, and member of the American Philosophical Society,

public speaking was second nature to him, And although he had requested the event be

postponed almost a month so that he could fine-tune his speech, he felt more confident than ever

that the two-hour-long address he had prepared would do the occasion justice. Shifting the pages

of his handwriting ever so slightly, Edward Everett's eyes swept across

the faces of the men assembled around him, lingering just for a moment on perhaps the only

person there more famous than himself.

A tall man who sat upright and attentive,

holding his own soon-to-be-delivered remarks,

written on a single sheet of paper.

Everett smiled to himself as he looked back out

across the newly dedicated Gettysburg Cemetery.

This would certainly be a day to remember.

The The Gettysburg Address is 271 words long.

In just 10 sentences, United States President Abraham Lincoln, who at the time considered

the speech to be an abject failure,

chose his words carefully, speaking for just under two minutes before returning to his seat.

The next morning, newspapers across the country reprinted the speech, and while some criticized

its length, at least one man, in fact, the

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