 After delivering an address at the dedication ceremony of the cemetary at Gettysburg, on 19 November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln is disappointed in the crowd s seeming lack of enthusiasm. The following day, while taking a reflective walk around the Capital, he encounters a young boy in urgent need of an attorney. Accompanying him to a nearby hospital, the boy explains that his brother, a Southern soldier wounded in battle, is dying and wants to dictate his will. The young man, eyes bandaged and unconscious of the stranger s identity, regales him with the newspaper s accounting of the eloquent speech and recites as much of it as he is able. He reassures the address s author that the crowd s lack of ovation was because they were too much in awe to move or speak. The President is humbled.