What cemetery did Lincoln help dedicate at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863?

The cemetery Lincoln helped dedicate at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, was Gettysburg National Cemetery. It was created to bury Union soldiers who died in the battle fought there from July 1 to July 3.

The cemetery was originally known as Soldiers' National Cemetery. Its dedication ceremony took place four and a half months after the battle, as remains were being moved from temporary graves and scattered burial sites into a permanent memorial ground. The cemetery occupies part of the Gettysburg battlefield in Pennsylvania and is now administered by the National Park Service.

Lincoln was not the ceremony's main speaker. The featured orator was Edward Everett, a celebrated politician and former Harvard president. Lincoln delivered a much shorter address, now known as the Gettysburg Address, in which he connected the Union war effort to equality, self-government, and a “new birth of freedom.”

A frequent misconception is that Lincoln dedicated the entire battlefield as a cemetery. He participated in the consecration of the national cemetery, which honored Union dead; the broader Gettysburg battlefield later became a national military park preserving sites associated with the battle.