What makes the Gettysburg Address so important that we still remember it today?
Abraham Lincoln’s carefully crafted address, secondary to other presentations that day, came to be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history. In just over two minutes, Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as “a new birth of freedom” that would bring true equality to all of its citizens, and that would also create a unified nation in which states’ rights were no longer dominant.
To explain some what of the liberty and the people fighting for our nation that died in hope that there would still be a nation in the end. It’s also a great example of Lincoln’s speech writing and it shows that he had no animosity towards the South. It was important to us because it summed up what the war was about and the principals this country was founded on. Of interest–The US lost about 60,000 men in Vietnam in ten years of war. At Gettysburg about 60,000 American died in three days.
It was basically the turning point of the Civil War. One of the memorable events from that campaign was Pickett’s Charge, it basically handicapped the south. When, or if, you visit the campaign site, the entire area, just about, is a graveyard. Lincoln gave his most quoted speech after the battle. It was entitled the Gettysburg Address and starts out “four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth onto this nation . . .
