The Battle of Gettysburg was more than a military engagement that gave the Union Army an advantage in the Civil War. It was an encounter that placed Americans against each other and forced individuals to go against themselves in order to live up to the senseless expectations given to them about loyalty to country. I hope to shed light on the idea that the Battle of Gettysburg was an American encounter that tore our nation further apart in a desperate attempt to bring it back together.

 

Primary Sources:

     

 

Artifact:

 

Main Ideas:

 

1. The Battle of Gettysburg was more than just a turning point in the war. It was brutal. Both sides knew what the eminent outcome would be. However, soldiers for both armies fought valiantly in hopes of ending the Civil War.
2. The Battle of Gettysburg was believed by Robert E. Lee to be the battle in which he would achieve a unopposed path to Washington D.C. where he would win the war for the Confederacy with little opposition. This boastful idea led to his immense failure on July 3, 1863.
3. The morale of soldiers of both sides remained intact after the battle.
4. Soldiers of both sides were of the same nationality. Accounts from Whitelaw Reid and A.J.L. Fremantle emphasize the significance of an American identity built on the idea of freedom. The only difference between the North and the South was their ideas of what freedom was.  
5. Abraham Lincoln gave an address that is now revered as one of the most significant speeches given by a President in regards to freedom and American identity. However, this address was only intended to honor the fallen Union soldiers at Gettysburg which further antagonized the South and contradicted Lincoln's common idea of preservation of the Union.
6. The Battle of Gettysburg and its aftermath exemplify the desperate attempts of Abraham Lincoln to bring the nation back together. However, as it is brought out in Fremantle's account, truly loyalties were earned through valor and distinguished characteristics established on the field of battle. Men of both sides desired leadership. It was within that leadership and ideology that coincides with it that they placed their loyalties.

 

 

 

“There is no one “truth” or single set of facts to be learned from history. Many

 

truths emerge from the writings of witnesses who see different aspects of the

 

same event or who perceive the same phenomenon in divergent ways. (Gallagher

 

xxiv)”

 

 

“The highest praise is due to both officers and men for their conduct during the

 

campaign. The privations and hardships of the march and camp were cheerfully

 

encountered, and borne with a fortitude unsurpassed by our ancestors in their struggle for

 

independence, while their courage in battle entitles them to rank with the soldiers of any

 

army and of any time. Their forbearance and discipline under strong provocation to

 

retaliate for the cruelty of the enemy to our own citizens, is not their last claim to the

 

respect and admiration of their countrymen and of the world (Lee, par. 10).”

 

 

“Words were weapons, for him, even though he meant them to be weapons of peace in a

 

time of war. This was the perfect medium for changing the way most Americans though

 

about the nation’s founding acts. Lincoln does not argue history, he makes history. He

 

does not come to present a theory, but to impose a symbol, one tested in experience and

 

appealing to national values, with an emotional urgency expressed in calm abstractions.”

 

(Wills, 174-175).

 

“Mr. Lincoln occupies his present position by virtue of this constitution, and is sworn to

the maintenance and enforcement of these provisions. It was to uphold this constitution,

and the Union created by it, that our officers and soldiers gave their lives at Gettysburg.

How dared he, then, standing on their graves, misstate the cause for which they died, and

libel the statesmen who founded the government? They were men possessing too much

self-respect to declare that negroes were their equals, or were entitled to equal

privileges.” (The President at Gettysburg, par. 7).

 

  “When I got close up to General Longstreet, I saw one of his regiments advancing

through the woods in good order; so, thinking that I was just in time to see the attack, I

remarked to the general that ‘I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.’ Longstreet was

seated at the top of a snake fence at the edge of the wood, and looking perfectly calm and

imperturbed. He replied laughing, ‘The devil you wouldn’t! I would like to have missed it

very much; we’ve attacked and been repulsed: look there!’” (Fremantle, Gallagher, 118).

 

 

Movie Clip - Gettysburg

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xW0s6XFJyw

This clip exemplifies the idea that Fremantle brings out in his account relating to loyalties.

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Works Cited

 

"The President at Gettysburg." Teaching American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2015.

 

"Battle Studies: Perspectives on the Battle of Gettysburg by An Observer With the Army of Northern

Virginia by Mary Roll." The Gettysburg Compiler. The Gettysburg Compiler, 07 June 2012. Web.

28 Nov. 2015.

 

Lee, Robert E. "Robert E. Lee's Account of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 31, 1863." Robert E. Lee's

Account of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 31, 1863. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2015.

 

Reid, Whitelaw, Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, and Gary W. Gallagher. Two Witnesses at Gettysburg: The

Personal Accounts of Whitelaw Reid and A.J.L. Fremantle. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Chichester, West

Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print. Ser. 1.

 

Carhart, Tom. Lost Triumph: Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg-and Why It Failed. New York City: G.P.

Putnam's Sons, 2005. Print.

 

Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. New York: Simon & Schuster,

1992. Print.

 

Lincoln, Abraham. "Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863."

The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine. 8th ed. Vol.

1. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013. 747-48. Print.