Name: Abraham Lincoln. Address: Gettysburg…155 years ago

Lincoln’s birthday was observed this week, but do you remember the date of his Gettysburg Address?  It was November 19, 1863, at the town in Pennsylvania where the bloody Gettysburg battle had occurred four months earlier.  While almost every dramatic reading of the address today occurs without interruption, a newspaper account in the Wisconsin State Journal indicated that Lincoln was interrupted by applause three times when he made the speech.  One instance was after President Lincoln said “all men are created equal.”  And “immense applause” was reported when Lincoln claimed the world wouldn’t remember the address, but would not forget what soldiers did at Gettysburg.

A few days before the Gettysburg Address, a draft meeting happened in La Crosse.  Mayor Albert Pettibone led the meeting at Barron’s Hall, on the north side of Main Street, where plans to draft men for the war were being discussed. 

In 1863, a map of Wisconsin counties looked much like it does today, with some exceptions.  Marathon County, where Wausau is located, stretched all the way up to Lake Superior.  And Vernon County was still known as “Bad Ax County,” yesterday in La Crosse.