address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at gettysburg

When he received the invitation to make the remarks at Gettysburg, Lincoln saw an opportunity to make a broad statement to the American people on the enormous significance of the war, and he prepared carefully. Grant, had both occurred on the same day: July 4, the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He also considered it significant that the Union victories at Gettysburg and at Vicksburg, under General Ulysses S. Though Lincoln was extremely frustrated with Meade and the Army of the Potomac for failing to pursue Lee’s forces in their retreat, he was cautiously optimistic as the year 1863 drew to a close. On November 2, just weeks before the event, Wills extended an invitation to President Lincoln, asking him “formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks.” Gettysburg Address: Lincoln’s Preparation senator and former secretary of state, was at the time one of the country’s leading orators. Everett, the former president of Harvard College, former U.S. Wills and the Gettysburg Cemetery Commission originally set October 23 as the date for the cemetery’s dedication, but delayed it to mid-November after their choice for speaker, Edward Everett, said he needed more time to prepare. In the months that followed, however, local attorney David Wills spearheaded efforts to create a national cemetery at Gettysburg. It was a crushing defeat for the Confederacy, and a month later the great general would offer Confederate President Jefferson Davis his resignation Davis refused to accept it.ĭid you know? Edward Everett, the featured speaker at the dedication ceremony of the National Cemetery of Gettysburg, later wrote to Lincoln, 'I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.'Īs after previous battles, thousands of Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg were quickly buried, many in poorly marked graves. After three days of battle, Lee retreated towards Virginia on the night of July 4. Casualties were high on both sides: Out of roughly 170,000 Union and Confederate soldiers, there were 23,000 Union casualties (more than one-quarter of the army’s effective forces) and 28,000 Confederates killed, wounded or missing (more than a third of Lee’s army) in the Battle of Gettysburg. Meade) in Gettysburg, some 35 miles southwest of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Lee’s Confederate Army clashed with the Army of the Potomac (under its newly appointed leader, General George G. From July 1 to July 3, 1863, the invading forces of General Robert E.

Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at gettysburg