Abraham Lincoln - Gettysburg National Cemetery - Gettysburg, PA - Etched in Stone on Waymarking.com

This is one of the newest monuments erected at Gettysburg, only thirty-six years old. The location of the monument is ironically in the shadow of the first and oldest monument, the Soldiers National Monument which is only twenty-five feet to the northwest. This is located in the center of the cemetery. The monument reproduces the text of the Gettysburg Address and bears the Seal of the State of Kentucky. The monument also has the following inscription: Kentucky honors her son, Abraham Lincoln, who delivered his immortal address at the site now marked by the Soldiers' Monument.

The sculpture is marble with a stone base and bronze plaques. The sculpture is 3 ft. 6 in. x 55 in. x 31 in. and the base is 4 x 67 x 39 in. The marker can be described as a rectangular marble marker with sloping front bears three bronze tablets with a facsimile of the Bliss/Bancroft copy of the Gettysburg Address. A State Seal relief appears on the lower front face below the center tablet. (SIRIS site description).

I noticed that visitors placed pennies on top of the memorial as if they were visiting his burial site. I suppose this is a tribute or an act of respect. All national cemeteries have a copy of the Gettysburg Address situated somewhere on the premises. This is not the only instance of a reproduction of his speech. Due to the newness of this monument, it is one of the very few objects which does not contribute to the surrounding historic district (Gettysburg National Military Park Historic District).

Use Baltimore Pike or Taneytown Road to access the monument and the cemetery. I recommend using Baltimore Pike as there is plenty of parking on the side of the road and its free. Also, you would have an opportunity to explore East Cemetery Hill, another site worth visiting filled with monuments, markers and memorials.

The text of this version of the address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.