[4] ADf, DLC. This draft is written on lined paper similar to the extant second page of the first draft. The emendations which appear in this draft and the important revisions from the first draft are indicated in succeeding notes.
The exact relationship between the first and second drafts cannot now be established beyond question, for certain emendations in the second draft restore the reading of the first draft. Some of these emendations, however, must have been made after Lincoln delivered the speech, for the newspaper versions follow in some instances the original wording of this draft rather than the emendations (notes 6, 7, 8, 12). Thus it would seem that although Lincoln spoke from the second draft as first written, and perhaps partially revised, he did not read it verbatim. He probably made further changes in this draft after the address to make it conform to what he said.
Nicolay states that Lincoln prepared ``a new autograph copy'' after he consulted newspaper reports of the address. Possibly Nicolay referred to the Everett copy (infra), which we do not know to have been prepared after rather than before receipt of Everett's letter of January 30, 1864. It has also been supposed that there was once an autograph copy prepared for Judge David Wills, at whose home Lincoln stayed on the night before the dedication ceremony, but this supposed copy has never been located. In any event Nicolay's account is incomplete and vague, and shows no acquaintance with the second draft.