Source Analysis Gettysburg

The Gettysburg Address, one of the most famous documents in United States history, was written in 1863. At that time, Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States, and the Union and Confederate armies were fighting each other during the American Civil War.

Read the following facts about the Gettysburg Address. Then complete the sentence below.

• • Gettysburg is a town in Pennsylvania where an important Civil War battle was fought.

  • One of the meanings of the word address is a public speech.

Why was the Battle of Gettysburg so important?

In 1863, the Confederate Army invaded the North, and Gettysburg was the farthest point they reached. If they had won the battle, the Southerners could have captured or destroyed Philadelphia, a major Northern city. They might even have won the war! For that reason, the battle is considered a turning point, or key moment, of the war.

Gettysburg was the deadliest battle of the war. More than 3,000 Union soldiers died, and more than 20,000 were left wounded or missing. The numbers for the Confederate Army were probably about the same.

What is a national cemetery?

A national cemetery is a burial place for people who have served their country, often in the military. Before the Civil War, it was usual for soldiers who died in wars to be buried in their hometowns. But the Civil War killed vastly more Americans than any previous war. Not all of the troops could be brought back to their homes or even given proper funerals.

So, in 1862, the government created the first national cemeteries for soldiers from all over the United States. The next year, the government created a new national cemetery on the site of the Battle of Gettysburg.

The audience for a speech includes the people who would hear or read the speech. Historians try to understand the Gettysburg Address by thinking about what kinds of people Lincoln was trying to speak to. The passage below describes the crowd at the ceremony.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 people were in the crowd when Lincoln spoke. In the days before the dedication ceremony, trainloads of people had come to Gettysburg. Many had family members who had died in the battle. These people came to say goodbye to the dead and to honor the soldiers' service to the country.

Lincoln's main purpose, or goal, when speaking at Gettysburg was to honor soldiers who had died in the Civil War. But Lincoln also wanted to persuade Americans to continue fighting the war and to try as hard as they could to make sure the Union won.

How did Americans feel about continuing the fight?

Many Americans didn't want to continue fighting. Some people had opposed the war from the start. For example, many Democrats supported slavery, and they were afraid that Lincoln was trying to free the enslaved people in the South. Other people began to oppose the war over time. By 1863 the war had been going on for years, and thousands of Americans had been killed. Some people just wanted the fighting to stop.

Lincoln believed it was essential to keep fighting until the Union won the war. He wanted to use the Gettysburg speech to remind the country what the Union was fighting for.

President Lincoln believed that he had to do everything he could to try to help the Union win the war.

How did Union soldiers feel about ending slavery?

Many Union soldiers were fighting to protect U.S. territory and to uphold the idea of democracy, not to end slavery. But as the war went on, more people began to believe that slavery must end.

One turning point came in 1863 when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, allowing the Union Army to free enslaved people in the South. Read the adapted quotes from Union soldiers, showing how their attitudes changed throughout the war:

• • • When I came into the service, I and many others did not believe in interfering with slavery, but we have changed our opinions.

    • I came in to the army opposed to having anything to do with enslaved people, and thought I was one of the last men to meddle with them. What a change . . . we must carry the Emancipation Proclamation into effect.

    • You know, father, that I started in this war with no real desire to end slavery. But I have seen more of the curse of the thing since that, and when President Lincoln came out with his Emancipation Proclamation I was fully prepared to support it.

The most famous part of the Gettysburg Address is its opening sentence. Read the first sentence of the address. Then follow the instructions below.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

score: 20 of something

brought forth: created

dedicated to the proposition: based on the idea

Remember that in the first sentence of his speech, Lincoln says that the United States is a country based on freedom and equality. In the next sentence, Lincoln tells his audience what the Civil War is about.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

engaged: fighting

so conceived: created for the reason just mentioned (to gain freedom)

so dedicated: based on the idea just mentioned (equality)

endure: survive

Lincoln and many other Americans thought that the United States was an example to the world because its citizens were free and equal. So, they saw the Civil War as a test of whether a country like that could survive.

Was the U.S. really an example to the world?

For many people, yes! Many people around the world saw the Civil War as a test of whether or not democratic governments could work. People who supported democracy hoped the Union would win the war. On the other hand, people who opposed democracy hoped the Union would lose!

Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian supporter of democracy. He hoped the Union would win the war. Lincoln wanted him to serve as a general in the Union Army, but he was busy fighting for independence in Italy!

John Bright was a British member of Parliament who strongly supported the Union. He wanted British working people to get the right to vote, and he even wanted Britain to change its government to be more like the U.S.!

King Leopold I of Belgium was an opponent of democracy. He hoped the Union would lose the war. With the U.S. weakened, he hoped kings would not need to listen to their people's demands for democracy.

In the next section of the speech, Lincoln mentions the reason for the ceremony. The passage below contains a modified version of that section of the speech.

We have come here to create a cemetery for the soldiers who died at the battle of Gettysburg. It is right for us to do that. But it is not my speech that makes this a holy, sacred place. The soldiers have already made it holy, because this is where they gave their lives so that the United States would continue to live. Our job, as living people, is to finish their work and do all we can to save the country.

According to Lincoln, the Gettysburg battlefield is holy ground because of the actions of soldiers, not because of a speech by the president. Lincoln says that to honor the dead, Americans must try even harder to win the war.

The best part of the speech?

Today, the middle section of the Gettysburg Address is not as famous as the beginning and the end. But at the time, this sentence from the middle section might have been the part that people liked the most:

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

Harper's Weekly, a national magazine, called that sentence "as simple and [perfect] as was ever spoken."

Some reports of the ceremony say that Lincoln choked up a bit on that line and that soldiers in the audience became emotional. Why do you think people in 1863 reacted so strongly to that line?

Although the Gettysburg Address is famous today, many Americans at the time didn't even notice it! And those who did notice it disagreed about it. Most Republicans supported Lincoln and liked the speech. But many Democrats disagreed with Lincoln about the purpose of the war, and they didn't approve of the way Lincoln described it in his speech. To them, the war was only about keeping the country together, not about ending slavery.

Why didn't Democrats like the Gettysburg Address?

Democrats had always opposed President Lincoln. They criticized him even more strongly after the Emancipation Proclamation, in which he ordered the Union Army to free enslaved people in the South. Many Democrats did not want to end slavery.

In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln repeated his goal of ending slavery. Many Democratic newspapers would not even publish the speech. Those that did either criticized it or made fun of it. The day after the speech, one Democratic paper wrote that what the country needed was not "a new birth of freedom, but a new president!"

How did Americans react to Lincoln's death?

They were shocked and saddened. Lincoln's body was taken by train to be buried in Illinois, stopping in many cities across the country so funeral services could be held. Huge crowds came out to show their sorrow.

The most famous tribute to Lincoln was the poem "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman. It compares the Civil War to the voyage of a ship. The poem notes that the war is over, saying, "our fearful trip is done" and "the prize we sought is won." But it concludes with a reference to Lincoln's assassination: " . . . on the deck my captain lies, fallen cold and dead."