Every schoolchild learns how John Quincy Adams used to deliver
the State of Union address wearing only an oversized diaper and
a velvet sash reading “BABY NEW YEAR 1823.” My fellow Americans,
that’s just not true! And neither are the other four
presidential misconceptions author and Jeopardy! champ Ken
Jennings will impeach this month. Presidential Myth #2: Abraham
Lincoln Wrote the Gettysburg Address on the Back of an Envelope.
Seven score and nine years ago, at the dedication of a military
cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Abraham Lincoln gave a
two-minute speech that schoolchildren still memorize today. The
so-called “Gettysburg Address” is one of the most famous
orations in history, but the one thing people most often
remember about its story—that it was hastily written on the back
of an envelope while Lincoln was traveling by train to
Gettysburg—couldn’t be further from the truth. The myth dates
back at least to 1866, when Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote that she
had seen the president jot down the speec