“Four Score and Seven Years Ago”

This installment concludes our series Battle of Gettysburg,
Today is our final installment from Edward A. Pollard and then we begin the third part of the series with Abraham Lincoln. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Battle of Gettysburg.

Time: July 1-3, 1863
Place: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Pickett’s division had been engaged in the hottest work of the day and the havoc in its ranks was appalling. Its losses on this day are famous and should be commemorated in detail. Every brigadier in the division was killed or wounded. Out of twenty-four regimental officers, only two escaped unhurt. The Ninth Virginia went in two hundred fifty strong and came out with only thirty-eight men. Conspicuous in our list of casualties was the death of Major-General Pender. He had borne a distinguished part in every engagement of this army and was wounded on several occasions while leading his command with admirable gallantry and ability. Brigadier-Generals Barksdale and Garnett were killed, and Brigadier-General Semmes mortally wounded, while leading their troops with the courage that had always distinguished them. The brave and generous spirit of Barksdale had expired, where he preferred to die, on the ensanguined field of battle.

The fearful trial of a retreat from a position far in the enemy’s country was now reserved for General Lee. Happily he had an army with zeal unabated, courage intrepid, devotion unchilled, with unbounded confidence in the wisdom of that great chieftain who had so often led them to victory. The strength of the enemy’s position, the reduction of our ammunition, the difficulty of procuring supplies —- these left no choice but retreat.

On the night of the 4th, General Lee’s army began to retire by the road to Fairfield, without any serious interruption on the part of the enemy. In passing through the mountains, in advance of the column, the great length of the trains exposed them to attack by the enemy’s cavalry, which captured a number of wagons and ambulances; but they succeeded in reaching Williamsport without serious loss.

They were attacked at that place on the 6th, by the enemy’s cavalry, which was gallantly repulsed by General Imboden. The attacking force was subsequently encountered and driven off by General Stuart, and pursued for several miles in the direction of Boonsboro. The army, after an arduous march, rendered more difficult by the rains, reached Hagerstown on the afternoon of July 6th and morning of the 7th.

Any comment on Gettysburg must necessarily be a tantalizing one for the South. The Pennsylvania campaign had been a series of mishaps. General Lee was disappointed of half of his plan, in the first instance, on account of the inability or unwillingness of the Richmond authorities to assemble an army at Culpeper Court House under General Beauregard, so as to distract the enemy and divide his force by a demonstration upon Washington. Johnston was calling for reinforcements in Mississippi; Bragg was threatened with attack; Beauregard’s whole force was reported to be necessary to cover his line on the sea coast; and the force in Richmond and in North Carolina was very small. Yet with what force Lee had, his campaign proposed great things —— the destruction of his adversary, which would have uncovered the Middle and Eastern States of the North; for, behind Meade’s array, there was nothing but militia mobs and home-guards incapable of making any resistance to an army of veterans. It was in anticipation of this great stake that Richmond was on the tiptoe of expectation. For once in the Confederate capital gold found no purchasers, prices declined, speculation was at its wits’ end, and men consulted their interests as if on the eve of peace. The recoil at Gettysburg was fatal, perhaps not necessarily, but by the course of events, to General Lee’s campaign, and the return of his army to its defensive lines in Virginia was justly regarded in the South as a reverse in the general fortunes of the contest.

But news of an overshadowing calamity, undoubtedly the greatest that had yet befallen the South, accompanied that of greatest that had yet befallen the South, accompanied that of Lee’s retreat, and dated a second period of disaster more frightful than that of Donelson and New Orleans. The same day that Lee’s repulse was known in Richmond, came the astounding intelligence of the fall of Vicksburg. In twenty-four hours two calamities changed all the aspects of the war and brought the South from an unequalled exaltation of hope to the very brink of despair.

Abraham Lincoln

Now we begin the third part of our series with the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the President of the United States during the Civil War.

[Soon after the Battle of Gettysburg a piece of ground about seventeen acres in extent, a part of the battle-field, was purchased for a national cemetery. This was dedicated on November 19th with imposing ceremonies, and President Lincoln’s brief address on the occasion has become one of the classics of our literature. —- Editor.]

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

This ends our selections on Battle of Gettysburg by three of the most important authorities of this topic:

• History of the Southern Reebellion by Orville J. Victor published in 1898.
• The Lost Cause by Edward A. Pollard published in 1866.
• Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln published in 1863

Orville J. Victor began here. Edward A. Pollard began here. Abraham Lincoln began here.

This site features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

More information here and here, and below.

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