What war-altering order did General Lee give today?
June 29, 1863 — The Civil War heated up today (literally, as temperatures reportedly hit 87-degrees) when General Robert E. Lee ordered his forces to concentrate near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
On July 1, the Battle of Gettysburg will begin, and last until July 3. Between the two armies, approximately 51,000 soldiers will die or be injured. This is the turning point of the war — as it was one of the biggest victories for the Union.
The battle is commemorated on November 19, when President Lincoln delivers his historic 272-word Gettysburg Address.
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Words of Wisdom
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.