OT: The Gettysburg Address
- Thread starter MadRU
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Martin Sheen has supported recent independent endeavors to further civics education in America. Greg Palast is one such journalist/truth teller.
"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
Lincoln missed that call. I suspect that far more Americans know that the Gettysburg Address is a thing (although they may not know what that thing is), then that Gettysburg is a thing.
Lincoln missed that call. I suspect that far more Americans know that the Gettysburg Address is a thing (although they may not know what that thing is), then that Gettysburg is a thing.
Amazing content as always from the History Underground! His recent 4-part series on the Little Big Horn and Custer is awesome. Check it out.
The featured speaker was not Lincoln, but rather Edward Everett, who at various times was a Unitarian pastor, U.S. Representative, U. S. Senator, Governor of Massachusetts, minister to Great Britain and Secretary of State. He spoke for two hours. No one remembers a word he said.
Read "Lincoln at Gettysburg" (1992) by Garry Wills. Won the Pulitzer.
He clearly debunks the apocryphal quote from the “great” Robert E Lee to “never fight uphill, me boys.”
Regardless, still can't believe he ordered that charge, especially after Fredericksburg.
Different strokes for different folks -- I found the book unreadable and included it in a box of donations to the public library after it spent thirty years taking room in my bookcase. For my taste, Wills spends too much time showing off his classical learning about rhetorical styles. For me, the best book about Lincoln is Harry Jaffa's Crisis of the House Divided -- an oldie (1959) but a goodie.
Hubris. That’s a tough one. He rolled the dice a bunch of times in other spots doing very reckless stuff (attacking throughout the seven days campaign, dividing his force at Chancellorsville and attacking) and it kept working. Until it didn’t.
Longstreet gave the call to he artillery col if you can believe it. In their defense, union troops began pulling out but what they didn't know was they ran into reinforcements and turned around
Stopped by Gettysburg last summer while hiking the Appalachian Trail thru PA. Just a tremendously haunting and hallowed landscape. Stood up on The Angle and looked down on that sweeping battlefield below what was the scene of Pickett's Charge. Incredible that some hundred Confederate troops managed to get across that mile-plus of ascent to a clump of growth just beneath where I stood. An African-American freeman farmer owned and worked that particular plot of land at the time of the battle....
The two greatest American speeches ever are the Gettysburg Address and "A day which will live in infamy" were extremely short speeches written by both of them by themselves.
FDR's aides wrote a first draft -- but it was he who inserted the phrase "a date which will live in infamy." And it was he who decided, against the advice of some aides, to keep the speech brief. The whole thing took six and a half minutes. But that was a filibuster compared to the Gettsyburg address, which took three minutes at the most.
No FDRs aides wrote a long speech. FDR completely edit it. Added a date in infamy and more. The first draft would have taken an hour.
You are a 1000% right about how short the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln wrote it on the train to Gettysburg
Stonewall Jackson died a few weeks before Gettysburg and some say Lee was never quite the same in battle.
When Jackson was fatally injured Lee said of Jackson " he has lost his left arm but I my right". Lee wrote to Jackson in his last days and said "Could I have directed events, I would have chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your stead."
When Jackson was fatally injured Lee said of Jackson " he has lost his left arm but I my right". Lee wrote to Jackson in his last days and said "Could I have directed events, I would have chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your stead."
Haha your head is just full of manure in your tin foil, fantasy world. You've never had an original thought. Your mind is under control of Internet crap!
On Friday, brought my 3 kids - 16, 13, and 10 - to Gettysburg.
Super museum and easy to navigate battlefield. All free.
Poster #15, in the 1980s, an 1863 photo of the farmer's home was discovered. A replica home, built based on that photo, now stands on the site.
Got photo of kids on cannon next to New York regiment monument (we live in NY) in front of cemetery where Lincoln gave Gettysburg Address.
Gettysburg is close to DC so we went there on Saturday. Checked out Capitol and Supreme Court, then Natural History and American History museums and the National Archives. Saturday night, attended DC United soccer game. Belgium international Benteke scored twice for a home team win.
Nice weekend trip for families.
Still trying to get my kids interested in Rutgers sports. Probably a lost cause.
Super museum and easy to navigate battlefield. All free.
Poster #15, in the 1980s, an 1863 photo of the farmer's home was discovered. A replica home, built based on that photo, now stands on the site.
Got photo of kids on cannon next to New York regiment monument (we live in NY) in front of cemetery where Lincoln gave Gettysburg Address.
Gettysburg is close to DC so we went there on Saturday. Checked out Capitol and Supreme Court, then Natural History and American History museums and the National Archives. Saturday night, attended DC United soccer game. Belgium international Benteke scored twice for a home team win.
Nice weekend trip for families.
Still trying to get my kids interested in Rutgers sports. Probably a lost cause.
You're vulture vomiting again
This is why we cant have nice things
Work with the meds and count to 10..ok 30
May I add that Lincoln's Second Inaugural ("malice toward none, charity toward all") is way up there too.
Could have learned that the day before when the 12th of Maine held Little Round Top.
Yes, that was the day Joshua Chamberlain rallied his troops, who were almost out of ammunition, by having them charge downhill against the Alabamans,
And used the textbook gate maneuver of bending the left of the line so that the Alabama regiment had bullets coming at them from two directions.
Chamberlain later became governor of Maine and president of Bowdoin College.
That failed flanking maneuver by the Confederates at Little Round Top lead Lee to believe his counterpart (Meade) would reinforce both flanks on Day 3 by taking troops from the center (Cemetery Ridge) thus weakening the Union center. So Lee focused on attacking the center which was in fact the Union strong point, as well as the high ground. The horse-drawn wagon train carrying wounded Confederates away south from Gettysburg was said to have been some 17 miles long. Meade, who held his command of the army only since late June, chose not to pursue the retreating Confederates south. That same day, however, in the west, Grant also concluded a major and decisive victory at Vicksburg, marking the turning point in the war. Some eight months later, Grant would be given command of all Union forces.
Thanks! You undoubtedly recall that Lincoln, while happy about the victory at Gettysburg, expressed frustration about Meade's failure to pursue Lee's army while it was trapped against the rain-swollen Potomac. OTOH, Lee promptly built up defenses and was hoping Meade would attack. The Civil War was one of the first to illustrate that it was always an advantage to be on defense -- a key reason why the Union won Gettysburg is that the Union dug in first.
Context is the key: while victorious, the Union force was exhausted. After moving en masse so many miles into Gettysburg then fighting thru three hard days of battle, to have them immediately pursue and then engage Lee was just not possible. Would have crushed morale and challenge logistics. Meade knew there would be many hard battles of attrition ahead as the Army of the Potomac would have to take the offensive into the heart of the Confederacy.
Meade proudly notified Lincoln "We have driven the rebels from our soil." Lincoln's incredulous response, "Doesn't he know that it's ALL our soil?"
No it was Lincoln that didn't understand that aspect nor the truly regionalized view from the South. Each state was it's own enity. One of the reasons that Lincoln miscalculated the south's responses earlier pre and post start of hostilities
I'll get the name of the book but it's literally a collection of diaries and newspaper articles that highlests the start contrast between the southern and northern views.
Alexander wrote two books about his experiences:”Fighting for the Confederacy The Personal Recollectionsof General Edward Porter Alexander” and “Military Memoirs of a Confederate”.
Both are interesting reads. For example he criticizes Stonewall for failing to do what he should have done during the Seven Days.
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I'd say, on the balance, artillery was a key differentiator for the confederacy. Artillery won the rebels a couple of key battles (Chickamauga, Wilderness), saved their bacon from pure annihilation in compromising positions (Antietam), plus rained hell down on the union when they were in defensive positions at Cold Harbor and Fredericksburg.
...All that is to say -- for my money -- Alexander was the greatest artilleryman of the era.
Thanks for those recommendations...i will definitely read them. Alexander is a bright guy; clearly a great military mind, but also a very successful businessman and strategist, in general.
I'd say, on the balance, artillery was a key differentiator for the confederacy. Artillery won the rebels a couple of key battles (Chickamauga, Wilderness), saved their bacon from pure annihilation in compromising positions (Antietam), plus rained hell down on the union when they were in defensive positions at Cold Harbor and Fredericksburg.
...All that is to say -- for my money -- Alexander was the greatest artilleryman of the era.
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For that matter, the South miscalculated the North's response. While the North thought the South would not secede -- that it was all a bluff (the South had threatened secession before) -- the South thought that the North would not resist secession. There was some basis for the South's belief; President Buchanan (still in office when secession began) had said that secession was unconstitutional but that it was also unconstitutional to resist it; and Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the New York Tribune and a leading Republican, urged immediately after the election that the seceding states be allowed to depart in peace.
But Lincoln had the last laugh; he maneuvered the South into firing the first shot by attacking Fort Sumter, thereby unifying Northern opinion.
Good recap. I'm not sure if "laugh" is the operative word, but ya, certainly Lincoln maneuvered well given the impending events.
I'm sure if he could have prevented the whole thing from metastasizing into civil war, he would have. But that window of opportunity had passed by the time he was in the POTUS seat
It's a close question whether it was Lincoln or Meade who was right after Gettysburg. FWIW, while Meade continued to be a commander, Grant was made his supervisor because Meade was considered too cautious in his offenses in Virginia after Gettysburg. People forget that Grant was attacked as a butcher because he was willing to accept high Union casualties as the price for attriting Lee's forces.
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