The Gettysburg Address was a rhetorical masterpiece. Its phrasings, figures of speech, and metaphors have been studied extensively. A highly readable and insightful analysis of those words appeared on the website of the American Enterprise Institute on or about September 11th, 2006. The title is “Rhetoric of Remembrance: Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address” by Paul C. White.
Here’s a link

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.24894,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

Interestingly, White considers an issue that came up in the discussion here, i.e. words vs. actions. In his closing lines White weighs in on the question whether Lincoln’s words are “only words” or whether his they were so powerful as to constitute actions.

Also of particular note in the analysis is White’s quote of Everett who said to Lincoln the day after: ““I should be glad, if I could flatter myself, that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”