Posted on 11/18/2007 2:14:16 PM PST by Cagey
GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- Abraham Lincoln photos are rare -- especially those from the day of the Gettysburg Address. For years, only one such photo was thought to exist, but now that may not be the case.
"I think it's absolutely staggering to see something like this that was in a sense hidden in plain sight," said Lincoln author Harold Holzer.
Holzer thinks the image of a person in one of only two known photographs taken at Gettysburg on the day of Lincoln's address looks like Lincoln possibly arriving to the stage on horseback.
"To have the moment recorded minutes before he's about to give his greatest rhetorical triumph is very significant," said Holzer.
Last year, a Hanover man found the photo. It was on the Library of Congress' Web site all these years. The Center for Civil War Photography enhanced it.
Lincoln author Harold Holzer will show it publicly for the first time Saturday in 3-D on a big screen at the annual Lincoln Forum Conference in Gettysburg.
"When the photo is probably put on the screen, or whatever else Harold plans on doing, we're all just gonna go 'Oooooh!'" said Lincoln enthusiast Dave Walker.
For one thing it has not been confirmed that the photo actually shows Lincoln. Historians say one of Lincoln's good friends was at Gettysburg that day. He was a tall, bearded man who wore a top hat as well.
SURVEY: Are you thinkin' it's Lincoln?
The mystery has Lincoln scholars and enthusiasts buzzing.
"It's exciting my goodness. It took a long time to see that. So we're all going to decide whether that's really Lincoln or some copycat," said history buff Darla Moe, of Sacramento.
"Either they're going to stand up as one and say, 'We've found the Holy Grail.' Or they're going to throw their chairs. We'll see," Holzer said.
Ping
Enhanced section of the photo from another news site.
Here is a USA Today Piece on the new photo.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-11-15-lincoln_N.htm
I think the close-up shows a stovepipe hat salesman.
Bitchen!
They had 3-D photography during the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln was photographed in 3-D on at least three images.
Hard to say, top hat, he’s tall enough.
LOL!
Well, the guy who sold lightening rods in that part of PA was far more successful as most homes and barns of that period have at least a half dozen on each roof. Later it was discovered that the only thing lightening rods did well was attract lightening strikes.
He actually died 2 years earlier on the CSA Titania.
While widely critized at the time, Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg is probably the greatest speech ever given by a President.
Lincoln arrived at Gettysburg the same way as the Union Army: Pennsylvania Railroad.
I agree. It’s has to be right up there, that’s for certain. And, it proved that much can be said in few words.
Doesn’t look like Lincoln to me. The image indicates wide sideburns. A reporter maybe? There were a number of reporters and others present on the battlefield in various places.
Thanks, that’s an even clearer enhancement.
An amazing speech and he didn’t need a speech writer to write it, a pollster to tell him what to say or a spin-doctor to tell the public what he really meant to say.
Lincoln arrived at Gettysburg via train. Finding out if he rode a horse, carriage or walked to the speech site would help in figuring out if it was him or not.
That’s a much clearer photo. It could be Lincoln, I suppose. I only notice one other man in a stovepipe hat—but he doesn’t have a beard.
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