FUN WITH MAPS – ISSUE 2025-193

By Steve Kovacs (Introduction by Chuck Gibson)

LOVELAND, OH (November 19, 2025) – Today’s edition of Fun with Maps takes us back more than four score and seven years for a brief Presidential address.

FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO

President Lincoln delivered a Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863.

Despite its fame over time, the speech itself was notable for its brevity – only two minutes long, 272 words – while the main speaker of the day took two hours at the podium.  In fact, many newspapers simply reported that the President also spoke at the event and very few had pictures since the President spoke so briefly that photographers could not set their cameras up in time and expected the opportunity to take a photo to last much longer.

There are five handwritten copies of the speech in existence, two of which are in the Library of Congress.  The Bliss version, named after Colonel Alexander Bliss, is the one engraved on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial and the only one to include Lincoln’s signature.

This view of the battlefield is by Bachelder from 1875.   

Steve Kovacs and his wife Theresa reside in Loveland, Ohio where they raised their two children. He is a passionate collector of antique maps.

Visit his antique map boutique world-on-paper online. Watch for his daily feature Steve Kovacs: Fun with Maps here on Loveland Beacon.