Between 1861 and 1865, Americans made war on each other and killed each other in great numbers if only to become the kind of country that could no longer conceive of how that was possible. What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America.
Lincoln feels he has failed the American people, his audience at Gettysburg, and the memory of the dead with his short address, yet the eloquence and grandeur of the 269 words became enshrined as a standard against which all speeches that came thereafter were measured.
Ken Burns discusses interviewing Shelby Foote during The Civil War.
On July 3, 1863 in Gettysburg, PA the Union lured the Confederate troops out into the open field. Pickett charged and the tide of the war changed in the Union's favor.
Four million slaves were freed yet it would take another century for African Americans to win 'freedom.' History is not 'was' but 'is.' Until we treat each other as equals the Civil War will never be over.
1938 was the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The Civil War defined us as a nation. To understand the American character the Civil War must be studied.
Conditions were dire for slaves on the plantation. Slave quarters bred diseases and only 4 out of 100 lived to be 60.
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