Today, 141 years ago, President Lincoln delivered The Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania.
This is the only known photograph taken at the historic event. And here's greater detail of this photo. That's Lincoln in the center of the photo with a receding hairline, facing the camera.
These prints were made from the original glass plate negative at the National Archives. The plate lay unidentified in the Archives for some 55 years until in 1952, Josephine Cobb, Chief of the Still Pictures Branch, recognized Lincoln in the center of the detail, head bared and probably seated. Cobb estimated that the photograph was taken about noontime, just after Lincoln arrived at the site and some three hours before he gave his now famous address.
Less than a year-and-a-half later, John Wilkes Booth fired a bullet into Lincoln's head, killing our 16th president.
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