© 2026 All Rights reserved WUSF
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Our daily newsletter, delivered first thing weekdays, keeps you connected to your community with news, culture, national NPR headlines, and more.

Eyewitness at Gettysburg

the voice of William V. Rathvon, who as a nine-year-old boy, watched and listened to Abraham Lincoln deliver his address at Gettysburg in November 1863. The story was told in 1938 and recorded on a 78 r.p.m. record. We will air a 5-6 minute excerpt. This item came to us as a result of our QUEST HOTLINE 202-408-0300. A family in Pallatine, Illinois had this recording to share with us. Rathvon was a distant relative. No other Gettysburg eyewitness is known to have recorded their memories on record.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Thanks to you, WUSF is here — delivering fact-based news and stories that reflect our community.⁠ Your support powers everything we do.