Norwich — With the image of a thoughtful Union soldier towering over the 350 Norwich Free Academy students, staff and guests Tuesday morning on Chelsea Parade, President Abraham Lincoln — portrayed by Howard Wright — did more than read the Gettysburg Address on the 150th anniversary of the famous speech.'A great way to understand'

He deconstructed it, explaining to students and their history and social studies teachers the hows and wherefores of key words and phrases in the address that has become a required study of many high school classes.

Lincoln said he was asked by a friend in Boston in the aftermath of the critical Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 to make "some sort of speech" following the dedication of the battlefield cemetery.

He thought of the Emancipation Proclamation he had signed the previous January and of the American Revolution "four score and seven years" earlier — "I like the sound of 'four score,'" Lincoln/Wright told students — and its declaration that all men were created equal.

He never used the words "I" or "me" and used "we" 10 times and "us" three times in the two-minute speech, he said. Lincoln said he likes to use short Saxon words in his speeches for their brevity and strength, but admitted he has an affinity for "proposition," a term from Euclidean geometry that requires a proof.

"This war will be the proof," Lincoln/Wright said of the proposition that all men are created equal.

More important than the actual words, he evoked the promise that the soldiers who died in that bloody battle "shall not have died in vain" if succeeding generations lived up to the promise of America's founding.

Norwich played a major role in the Union Army, as the grand monument on the parade depicted. NFA Director of Student Affairs John Iovino — dressed as a distinguished city official of 1863, said 44 soldiers in the 14th Connecticut Regiment from Norwich fought at Gettysburg, where the regiment took 40 prisoners and five Confederate battle flags.

In total, about 1,300 Norwich men fought in the Army or Navy in the Civil War, and 162 of them "never came home," Iovino said. Nearly 600 Civil War soldiers and sailors are buried in city cemeteries.

A plaque hangs outside Iovino's office naming the 56 NFA students who enlisted in the Union Army to fight in the Civil War.

Students and teachers huddled from the cold wind and 40-degree temperature at Tuesday morning's ceremony, but the weather did not distract them from the ceremony. Afterward, several students said they learned a lot about Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address and Norwich's role in the Civil War.

Ninth-grader Luke Shea of Lisbon said he especially liked how Lincoln explained how he wrote the speech and chose the words.

"It was a great way to understand our nation's past," Shea said.

Classmate Vince Leo in the freshman World History class found the program to be "amazing." Leo, of Canterbury, liked how Lincoln's speech became the most famous of the day and was likely the shortest.

A third classmate, Brian Shaw of Lisbon, added that NFA should do more such programs.

Teacher Karen Cook, head of the history and social studies department, affirmed Shaw's wish and said she would love to arrange similar future programs. The NFA Social Studies Department teamed with the New London County Civil War Roundtable to organize the event, which also featured a musket salute by Private Peter Hershonik of the 14th Connecticut Civil War re-enactment group. NFA Marching Band members Hayden Bustamante of Norwich and Nicholas Nieta of Montville played taps to conclude the ceremony.

While Wright remained in character throughout the half-hour program, he found himself in a bit of a time conflict when NFA-TV camera operator Miranda Lauture and interviewer Leeann Black got the idea that in addition to interviewing students on their thoughts about the event, they should interview the president.

The interview will be part of the 150th Gettysburg Address anniversary package to be aired on NFA-TV, Channel 12 on Norwich Comcast cable TV, Lauture said.

c.bessette@theday.com