USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

[SOURCES]
True/False:The Civil War was over when Lincoln gave this speech.

(A) True

(B) ** False

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -Yet he also has a nearly imperceptible smile: he knows the war is nearly won, and his thoughts are turning to Reconstruction and to “bind[ing] up the nation’s wounds, ” as he would put it in the conclusion of his second inaugural address. He was also, as we know and he could not, two months from his death.

Concept note-2: -The speech reflected his redefined belief that the Civil War was not just a fight to save the Union, but a struggle for freedom and equality for all, an idea Lincoln had not championed in the years leading up to the war.

Concept note-3: -Southern leaders of the Civil War period placed the blame for the outbreak of fighting squarely on Lincoln. They accused the President of acting aggressively towards the South and of deliberately provoking war in order to overthrow the Confederacy.