Significance of Gettysburg

1. End of the Confederate Offensive
   • Lee's "audacity" failed to win the war
   • "the war's most famous charge" by Pickett and 13,000 at 2:30 pm on July 3 stopped by Hancock's artillery enfilade
     
   • Meade's caution failed to win the war
   • Lincoln angry at Meade - "We had them in our grasp"
     
   • Vicksburg fell July 4
   • Jackson, MI evacuated - Joe Johnston abandoned central Miss. July 16
     
   • Port Hudson fell - Banks and Farragut closed the Miss. River July 8
     
2. Volunteers increased
   • due to threat of conscription after Enrollment Act of march 3
   • Almost 1 million enlisted in two years of the draft, only 46,000 were drafted
   • 24% were foreign-born, 9% were black, 47% were farmers, 41% were laborers
3. Blacks recruited into the military
   • Lincoln's July 30 order threatened retaliation for execution of black captives
   • CSA did not exchange black prisoners, caused overcrowding
   • 58 black regiments by Oct., but only a few commissioned officers,
   • Black soldiers fought at Port Hudson May 27, and Milliken's Bend June 9, but most black soldiers remained on garrison duty, suffered from lack of medical care, disease.
4. Emancipation confirmed
   • Republicans won state elections in OH, PA
   • 92% soliders voted for Republicans
   • growing respect for abolitionist leaders
5. Copperhead influence declined
   • Clement Valandigham arrested by Burnside May 5, banished by Lincoln
   • National Union Leagues of Republicans and Loyal Leagues of Democrats won spring elections in New England (NH, CT) helped by soldiers furloughed home
   • backlash against Peace Democrats like Gov. Horatio Seymour ("my friends") who were blamed for causing the draft riots in New York
6. Confederacy divided
   • Davis challenged by Gov. Joseph Brown, Robert Toombs, Alexander Stephens
   • Martial Law proclamation did not work, allowed to expire, courts released deserters and officials unable to enforce conscription
   • South lacked political parties, encouraged factionalism
   • William Holden of NC led growing peace movement
7. Gettysburg Address
   • delivered by Lincoln Nov. 19 to dedicate the National Soldiers Cemetery, from 2:00 to 2:03 pm, in 10 sentences, 272 words
   • two drafts written by Lincoln, not on the back of any envelope
   • crowd of 15,000 clearly heard his voice, were not bored even though Edward Everett had taken almost 2 hours to deliver his "Dedicatory Remarks"
   • Democratic press hostile, but general popular reaction was positive
   • emphasis on the word "Nation" used 4 times, not word "Union" (that had been used 20 times in Lincoln's 1861 First Inaugural Address)
   • emphasis on creation of a new nation, a "new birth of freedom"