James Baquet

Most Americans know the first line or two of Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address”: “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.”

Many can also tell you that the speech was given at the dedication of a cemetery after the Battle of Gettysburg. And that’s about where most people’s knowledge of the affair ends.

On July 1-3, 1863 — exactly “four score and seven” or 87 years after the American founding year of 1776 — armies of the North and the South clashed in the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War.

Casualties on both sides were staggering. The North lost over 23,000 to death, injury, capture, or “gone missing”; Southern estimates stand at around 23,000 to 28,000. It’s safe to say that a battle that takes around 50,000 of maybe 180,000 combatants is bloody indeed.

Because the soldiers on both sides were Americans by birth, it is considered to have caused the most American casualties of any battle in history (though not the most fatalities).

The battle is considered by many to be a turning point in the war. It was the first major defeat of the Southern army led by General Robert E. Lee, ending his Second Invasion of the North. In fact, a battle line at Gettysburg has been declared the “high-water mark” of Southern incursion, the furthest north that Southern troops ever reached. From that point on, Lee fought mainly a defensive war.

Lincoln gave his speech four and a half months later, on Nov. 19 of the same year. By that time, European investors in Confederate (Southern) war bonds had lost confidence in a Southern victory; estimates of success had fallen from 42 percent before Gettysburg to around 15 percent by year’s end.

It had become increasingly clear that the South was outmanned and outgunned by the North. This is summed up in a folksy comment by General Pickett, one of Lee’s subordinates at Gettysburg. When asked why his side had lost the battle, he replied “I always thought the Yankees [the Northerners] had something to do with it.”

Vocabulary:

Which words above mean:

1. huge; shockingly big;

2. invasion; hostile entry;

3. having inferior weapons;

4. informal; common;

5. change of direction;

6. statement to be agreed or disagreed with;

7. furthest point reached;

8. formed; imagined;

9. a means of financing the military;

10. deaths