Antietam |
September 1862 |
Maryland |
Heavily outnumbered, Lee's troops face McClellan in bloody fighting. Over 23,000 casualties (more than all previous American wars combined). Lee retreats to Virginia |
To what degree and in what ways did photography and the addition of
visual coverage affect people's understanding of the war?
Mathew Brady | Post Cards | Alexander Gardner |
Bloody Lane, Antietam 1862 | Miller Farm, Antietam 1862 | A Lonley Grave, Antietam 1862 |
Dead Rebels, Antiem 1862 | Slaves Burrying Soilders, Antietam 1862 | The Dunker Church, Antietam 1862 |
September 23, 1862 |
Washington, D.C. |
With victory at Antietam, Lincoln announces that on 1/1/63, all slaves in the rebelling states would be free. Does not affect border states. Forces European nations to recognize that choosing sides in the Civil War is to take a stand on slavery |
Vicksburg |
July 1863 |
Mississippi |
After a long siege, Vicksburg surrenders to Grant. All of Mississippi River is now in Union control |
Gettysburg |
July 1863 |
Pennsylvania |
Over 165,000 soldiers participate in the largest battle in the Western Hemisphere. After three days of fighting, Lee retreats, leaving 4,000 dead Confederates. Total casualties: 23,000 Union, 28,000 Confederates |
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.