On this day in 1863, the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg raged. Gettysburg is generally considered to be the beginning of the end for the Confederacy, and some even call it the "turning point" of the war. I personally think that the true turning point came when two Generals who had been successful in the West, were brought to the war in the East. Those Generals were Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. They, along with the Confederacy's Gen. Thomas Longstreet saw how modern weapons had changed war. Their methods, combined with North's advantages in industry and manpower ensured the fall of the Confederacy.
Nonetheless, for a three day period a terrible battle was waged across the hills of Pennsylvania. The outcome of the battle forever changed the course of the development for this country. I would argue for the better, but some people would seem to disargee. They must: the States' Rights battle has crept back into the courts and the Congress. Ultimately the sacrifice of those who died on the battlefield in Pennsylvania could be for nothing. Of course, it isn't likely that we'll see any slavery in the United States, other than wage slavery.
Still, if you accept the claim that States' Rights, not slavery, was the cause of the war, then a lot of Americans will have paid the ultimate price for nothing. That's a really depressing thought. Almost as depressing as the idea of 150,000 American soldiers fighting against each other on the battlefield.
Fourscore 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 cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot 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."
-- Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania