In what state was the Gettysburg Address delivered?

The Gettysburg Address was delivered in Pennsylvania. Abraham Lincoln spoke on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, four and a half months after the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg.

The three-day battle, fought from July 1–3, 1863, was a Union victory and one of the Civil War’s bloodiest engagements. Lincoln’s brief remarks followed a much longer speech by Edward Everett, the ceremony’s principal orator. Lincoln reframed the battlefield’s enormous human cost as part of a larger struggle over equality, liberty, and the survival of the Union.

A common mix-up is confusing the speech’s location with the state where Lincoln was born or lived. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, raised partly in Indiana, and spent much of his political life in Illinois, but Gettysburg is in Pennsylvania. The address lasted roughly two minutes and later became one of the most influential statements of American national purpose.