According to the standard text, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address contains 271 words.
Lincoln delivered the speech on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The ceremony followed the Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1 to July 3 of that year.
The address took about two minutes to deliver and consists of ten sentences in the commonly used Bliss version. Edward Everett, a prominent speaker, delivered a much longer oration before Lincoln’s brief remarks.
The exact word count can vary slightly because several manuscript and contemporary newspaper versions differ in punctuation and wording. The 271-word figure normally refers to the Bliss version, which Lincoln wrote later and signed. It became the standard text of the famous speech.