Gettysburg Address Typing Test

Type the Address, starting at Four score and seven years ago.

Type each word and press space after it. The clock starts on your first key. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 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 battle-field 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 can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not 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 the earth.
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1 minute of typing. Words per minute is correct characters divided by five; accuracy is correct keystrokes out of all keystrokes.

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How it works

This Gettysburg Address typing test opens on the whole speech, in the Bliss copy's wording. Type against 1, 3 or 5 minutes, or choose No timer to reach the last line. Eleven shorter American texts of 1776 to 1865 follow.

Read the full guide

Which copy you are typing

Five copies of the Address are known in Abraham Lincoln's hand, each named for the person he gave it to: Nicolay, Hay, Everett, Bancroft and Bliss. The Bliss copy is the last and the only one he signed and dated, so it became the standard text. The two earliest lack the words under God.

Where the keys catch you

Lincoln wrote can not as two words, all three times, and battle-field with a hyphen. Each of the seven dashes is two hyphens with a space either side. Where the three earliest copies say upon this continent, this one says on.

  • The Address is 1,473 characters, or 295 standard words, so a one-minute run stops mid-speech.

Questions and answers

How many words is the Gettysburg Address?

271 in the Bliss copy, in ten sentences, with battle-field counted as one word. Count it as two and you get 272, the other figure you will see.

How long was the Gettysburg Address?

About two minutes. Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg on 19 November 1863, after the orator Edward Everett had spoken for two hours.

Where is the Bliss copy of the Gettysburg Address?

In the Lincoln Room of the White House. Lincoln wrote it out for Colonel Alexander Bliss, the stepson of the historian George Bancroft. The Library of Congress holds the Nicolay and Hay copies.

All 12 passages

Speeches, 1796 to 1863 4

  • The Gettysburg Address (Bliss copy) The whole Address in the wording of the Bliss copy. The last sentence alone is 82 words long and holds four of the seven dashes.
  • Farewell Address: the diffusion of knowledge (1796) Two sentences from George Washington's Farewell Address of 1796, on teaching and public opinion. The shortest passage on the page, with no capital letter inside either sentence.
  • First Inaugural Address of 1801: we are all Republicans From Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address, 4 March 1801. Republicans, Federalists and Union take capitals; republican form, a few words later, does not.
  • House Divided speech (1858) From Abraham Lincoln's speech at Springfield, Illinois, on 16 June 1858. The first sentence is typed inside its quotation marks. Cannot is one word here, twice, where the Gettysburg Address has can not.
Show all 12 passages (8 more)

Documents, 1776 to 1865 8

  • Declaration of Independence: the opening (1776) The first sentence of the Declaration, in the spelling and capitals of the parchment: Course, Laws of Nature and Nature's God. It is one sentence, so there is no full stop to rest on until the end.
  • Declaration of Independence: these truths (1776) The opening of the second paragraph, as far as Safety and Happiness. Unalienable is the parchment's spelling. Two dashes lead into That with a capital T: one straight after Happiness and its full stop, one after governed, a comma and a space.
  • Articles of Confederation: Article III (1777) Article III whole, the firm league of friendship, from the Articles that the Continental Congress adopted on 15 November 1777. Defence and pretence are spelt with a c, and Liberties has a capital in mid-sentence.
  • The Constitution: the Preamble (1787) The Preamble whole, a single sentence, dated in the document 17 September 1787. Capitals fall on Order, Union, Justice, Tranquility, Welfare, Blessings, Liberty and Posterity, and defence is spelt with a c.
  • The First Amendment (1791) The First Amendment whole, a single sentence, ratified with the rest of the Bill of Rights on 15 December 1791. Two semicolons split it in three, and the word is peaceably, not peacefully.
  • Declaration of Sentiments: all men and women (1848) From the Declaration of Sentiments signed at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. It follows the wording of 1776 and adds two words, and women. Semicolons stand where the older text has commas, and the spelling is inalienable.
  • Emancipation Proclamation: forever free (1863) One sentence from the Proclamation of 1 January 1863, in the part that quotes the notice of 22 September 1862. The year is written out as one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and thenceforward is one word.
  • The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) Both sections of the amendment, passed by Congress on 31 January 1865 and ratified on 6 December 1865. Two sentences; whereof is one word, and their jurisdiction speaks of the United States in the plural.

How this list was compiled: The Gettysburg Address is given whole in the wording of the Bliss copy, the last of the five known manuscript copies and the only one Abraham Lincoln signed and dated. The text was read at Abraham Lincoln Online (https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm), which also prints the Nicolay, Hay and Everett copies with upon this continent, and is word for word the same as the Bliss transcription printed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address, which is also the source for the count of 271 words in ten sentences and for the words under God, which the Nicolay and Hay copies lack. The five copies and where each is kept are from the Library of Congress exhibition page, https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/gettysburg-address/. The eleven other passages are each one unbroken run of a public document or speech: the Declaration of Independence (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript), the Articles of Confederation (https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation), the Constitution (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript), the Bill of Rights (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript), the Emancipation Proclamation (https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation/transcript.html) and the Thirteenth Amendment (https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/13th-amendment), all in the National Archives transcriptions, which keep the spelling, capitals and punctuation of the originals; George Washington's Farewell Address (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp) and Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp) from the Avalon Project at Yale Law School; the Declaration of Sentiments from the National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/declaration-of-sentiments.htm), with its date and place from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Sentiments; and the House Divided speech from Abraham Lincoln Online (https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/house.htm). Dates in the notes are the ones those pages give. Changes to the texts: lines were joined, curly quotation marks were set straight, each long dash is typed as two hyphens, the quotation mark that opens the Emancipation Proclamation's sentence and never closes inside it was left off, and the headings Section 1 and Section 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment were left off. Every text here dates from 1776 to 1865, so all are in the public domain in the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_in_the_United_States). Characters divided by five give standard words (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute). Passage names and notes are own work. All checked 2026-10-07. Licence: Public domain in the United States: public documents and speeches of 1776 to 1865, before 1931 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_in_the_United_States). Passage names and notes are own work.

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