#405 Gettysburg and Sacrifice​

Preparation:

• Take about 5 minutes to view a selection of the images in the Casualties of the Civil War photo gallery. You are welcome to view these at your own pace and focus on either the images or the text as you see appropriate.
• Read and annotate Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863)
• Read Walt Whitman, “The Million Dead, Too, Summ’d Up” (Although published in 1892, most of Whitman’s Civil War writing were written between 1862-1866.
• ​Consider: What meanings do Lincoln and Whitman ascribe to the death and suffering that occurred during the Civil War?

Background:

• The battle at Gettysburg, Penn. (July 1863) is one of two battles (along with that of Vicksburg, Miss., May-June 1863), that are seen as the crucial turning points of the war.
• More soldiers died at Gettysburg than at any other battle during the Civil War (46,000-50,000 died as a result of 3 days of fighting)
• Result was a Union victory that pushed the conflict back into Southern territory in a series of drives to divide Southern forces
• Traditionally historians have focused on causes, effects, and structural patterns of war.
• More recently, they have begun to consider the role of memory:             
  • What meaning do we assign to the deaths?

    
Part 1. Wounds and death during wartime

Next read the following letter from Confederate soldier J.R. Montgomery:

Spotsylvania County, Va. May 10

Dear Father

This is my last letter to you. I went into battle this evening as courier for Genl. Heth. I have been struck by a piece of shell and my right shoulder is horribly mangled & I knowdeath is inevitable. I am very weak but I write to you because I know you would be delighted to read a word from your dying son. I know death is near, that I will die far from home and friends of my early youth but I have friends here too who are kind to me. My friend Fairfax will write you at my request and give you the particulars of my death. My grave will be marked so that you may visit it if you desire to do so, but it is optionary with you whether you let my remains rest here or in Miss. I would like to rest in the grave yard with my dear mother and brothers but it's a matter of minor importance. Let us all try to reunite in heaven. I pray my God to forgive my sins and I feel that his promises are true that he will forgive me and save me. Give my love to all my friends. My strength fails me. My horse and my equipments will be left for you. Again, a long farewell to you. May we meet in heaven.

Your dying son,

J.R. Montgomery

Montgomery died four days later on the 14 May. His friend Fairfax did indeed write to Montgomery's father and to provide the details of his death. They said his family was never able to find him and bring him back to Mississippi though they looked.

After reading the letter above, review Civil War by the Numbers and Then & Now: Caring for War's Dead and Wounded. With a partner, discuss the questions below:

1. Why was it likely that J.R. Montgomery would have died after being wounded by a single piece of shrapnel?
2. Why was it unlikely that J.R. Montgomery’s body would have been reinterred in a national cemetery closer to his home following the end of the Civil War?
3. Why were black soldiers more likely to die at war than white soldiers?
4. What changes appeared directly in response to the high volume of Civil War deaths?
5. What were some of the longer-term changes that resulted (by World War I)?

    
Part 2. Gettysburg address and Whitman's poem
    
On Nov. 19, 1863, Lincoln dedicated a national cemetery at Gettysburg. His speech lasted just two minutes but has been remembered as one of the most influential speeches in U.S. history.
    
It is a short speech, so we will read it together as a class. As we do so, try to identify:

• repeated words and concepts
• changing geographical scope and movement over time
• what others’ did vs. what we must do

    
Compare with Whitman:

• How does Whitman’s sense of the war’s meaning similar and differ from that of Lincoln?

    
Homework: #406