The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1st through 3rd, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war's turning point. Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's attempt to invade the northern United States. Many books and works of literature cover the narratives of the battle and discuss the tactics and reasons why the Battle of Gettysburg was such a significant turning point in the American Civil War. To begin this paper will be discussing a play by play …show more content…
Lee had to invade the North and force an end to the war failed. If Lee’s plans had succeeded, his troops might have surrounded, or even conquered, the nation’s capital. The federal government ran the risk of being completely disabled and conquered. The battle was also significant because of its enormous size. It was one of the largest battles of the civil war and had the highest death toll of any of the other battles. In addition to this, Abraham Lincoln used the battle to justify the war. His well-known speech “The Gettysburg Address” gave the nation a reasoning behind the war. Lincoln acknowledges that anything he or anyone else says at this ceremony are just words, and those words are nothing compared to what the soldiers gave during that battle. He and others came to Gettysburg to dedicate the cemetery ground, but Lincoln turns it around, stating that by struggling and spilling blood and dying on that battlefield, the soldiers themselves have already dedicated, hallowed, and consecrated the area. So instead of coming to dedicate the ground, Lincoln says that the people are there to be dedicated to "the unfinished work" of the devoted soldiers — that is, the preservation of the Union and its ideals of liberty and equality. This is both a call to action and a justification for continuing the war. With this, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address became a rallying cry that easily ushered Lincoln into his second term in office and reinforced Union resolve to win the