Rough Draft of the
Gettysburg Address
Lincoln wrote the first draft of the Address at the White House, not on the train to Gettysburg. And he did not write it on the back of an envelope. He began it on a piece of White House stationery. As originally composed, it had but eight sentences. He subsequently added a ninth in pencil which ran over on to another piece of paper.This was the version he brought with him to Gettysburg on November 18. That night, while as a guest at the home of David Wills, a local Republican Party official, Lincoln revised his speech, writing a second draft on two fresh sheets of paper, and adding the final tenth sentence.
