DOUBTS FOLLOWING THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS:

LINCOLN

By David Herbert Donald

Simon & Schuster

714 pp., $35

DOUBTS FOLLOWING THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS:

A little restive after Everett's long oration, many in the crowd focused on the unsuccessful efforts of a photographer to get his equipment in place to take a picture of the President. Expecting another long speech, most thought that Lincoln was only getting under way when he pledged ''that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth'' and sat down....

Immediately afterward, Lincoln may have felt ... his Gettysburg address was not successful. ''...that speech won't scour!'' he is supposed to have said.... If he felt disappointment, it may have been because during so short an address there was not time to build up rapport that a speaker needs ... and its abrupt ending left listeners with a sense of being let down....

But responses ... quickly made it clear that, however his words affected his immediate audience, they reached the general public.