prop. n. The name of a battle of the American Civil War fought in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylavania, in 1863. At this battle, the defeat of General Robert E. Lee's invading Confederate army was a major victory for the Union, and is considered by many a turning point in the war, after which victory by the Confederacy was no longer thought possible; as, many thousands died at Gettysburg. See also Gettysburg Address.
Syn. -- battle of Gettysburg. [ WordNet 1.5 +PJC ]

prop. n. The popular name of a speech given by Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863, on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA, as part of a ceremony to dedicate a portion of that battlefield as a cemetary for soldiers who died fighting there. See note below. [ PJC ]

☞ Lincoln's Gettysburg Address,

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.