ON THIS DAY ·
Gettysburg Address
19 Nov 1863 — At the dedication of the soldiers’ cemetery, Lincoln uses 272 words to give the war a new meaning. The nation, “conceived in liberty,” is being tested and owes its dead “a new birth of freedom.” His address takes two minutes.
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Free printable American Civil War study guide, sent by email ↓
The moment in context
An account of what the Civil War achieved has to begin with what it cost. Military records supplied the long-accepted estimate of about 620,000 deaths. A study of survival rates in the censuses suggests a figure closer to 750,000, though neither method can give us an exact count. More soldiers died from disease, helped along by crowded camps and poor sanitation, than from weapons. Civilian deaths are still less completely recorded, especially among displaced and formerly enslaved people.
From Legacy of the Civil War, chapter 13 of The American Civil War, 1840–1877 (DEC 1865).
The place: Gettysburg Address — map and full story →
Teach this in 5 minutes
- Why it happened — How the Lost Cause gained authority. A shared account of courage helped white Northerners and Southerners come together after the war. Reunion literature, joint veterans’ encampments…
- The turn — Gettysburg, 19 November 1863. At Gettysburg on 19 November 1863, Lincoln asked his listeners to see the war as a test of a nation founded on the Declaration’s proposition of…
- What it changed — The Union and abolition endure. Secession had been argued as a constitutional possibility. The war settled that struggle by force, and no state has seceded since. The Thirteenth…
Then ask the room: Was the Civil War “irrepressible” — or could different political choices have averted it? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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