Gettysburg Address ... easy question? maybe

[Gene C]

There were also personal issues weighing down on President Lincoln at Gettysburg.
Tad was very ill before Lincoln left on the train for Gettysburg and that was a great concern for him.
"Washington, D.C. was in the midst of a widespread smallpox outbreak at the time and no one can be sure when and where Lincoln and Johnson became exposed. In fact, in the week before Lincoln left for Gettysburg, his 10-year-old son, Tad, had been bed-ridden with an illness consisting of a fever and a “scarlet” rash"
(from Abraham Lincoln, Smallpox, and the Gettysburg address @CivilWarProfiles.com)
http://www.civilwarprofiles.com/abraham-...g-address/

It is also been commented from several other sources that Lincoln may have developed a case of small pox at Gettysburg or soon after.
" But the stress of the Presidency took its toll by 1863. President Lincoln was ill when he returned from delivering his Gettysburg Address on November 20. Aide John Hay wrote on November 26, “The President quite unwell.” 49 He was effectively confined to bed with variloid for the next three weeks and treated by Dr. Robert K. Stone, the family physician in Washington. The symptoms of the mild form of smallpox included flu-like symptoms – headache and fever. He found humor in his predicament, however. “I’ve got something now that I can give to everybody.” 50 On November 27, Mr. Lincoln wrote Secretary of State William H. Seward: “I am improving but I can not meet the Cabinet to-day.” 51

Aide William O. Stoddard recalled that “the White House has suddenly been turned into a smallpox hospital, with a certain degree of penetrable quarantine…Day follows day, and all the reports from the sick-room are favorable, but the whole country is nervous about this case, mild as it is, and so are you.” 52 By early December, Stoddard wrote: “The President is steadily recovering his health and strength, and his friends say that he will be rather improved than otherwise by his brief struggle with fever. He received his guests at the Reception the other day with a good deal of his usual hearty cheerfulness, though compelled to avail himself of occasional opportunities for a brief resting-spell.” 53

(From "Abraham Lincoln's Health @Abraham Lincolns Classroom.org) http://www.abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/...ns-health/