The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and is one of the best-known speeches in United States history.
It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the
Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy
at the decisive Battle of Gettysburg
The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars in human history. Railroads, steamships, mass-produced weapons,
and various other military devices were employed extensively. The practices of total war, developed by Sherman in Georgia, and of
trench warfare around Petersburg foreshadowed World War I in Europe. It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in
the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties. Ten percent of all Northern males 20-45 years of age
died, as did 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18-40.
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