impressed
Lincoln wasn't even the main speaker. But in less than three minutes, Lincoln gave his memorable address which proclaimed the Civil War to be a struggle for the preservation of the Union with "a new birth of freedom" that would bring true equality for all.
He began with the memorable phrase "Four score and seven years ago," referring to the Declaration of Independence during the American Revolution in 1776. Lincoln honored the sacrifices of those who gave their lives at Gettysburg and concluded the "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Despite the speech's prominent place in the history and popular culture of the United States, the exact wording and location of the speech are disputed. The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address differ in a number of details and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech. The most quoted version of the speech goes as follows:
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.
There are a number of readings of the famous address that can be found online, but I've selected this one from Ken Burns' famous documentary on the Civil War, with the preceding portion of the documentary: