Author:   Abraham Lincoln Date:1863 Annotation: The Gettysburg Address was delivered on November 19, 1863, several months after the Union defeated the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln described the Civil War as a struggle for “a new birth of freedom”–his vision for a nation that provides equality for all of its citizens, creates…

Author:   James E. Yeatman Date:1863 Annotation: In a letter to President Lincoln, aid workers offer a graphic portrait of the plight of wartime refugees. Document: The undersigned, members of the Western Sanitary Commission, most respectfully represent, that the condition of the Freed Negroes in the Mississippi Valley is daily becoming worse, and [that there…

Author:   George Bonga Date:1863 Annotation: In the midst of the Civil War, a thirty-year conflict began as the federal government sought to concentrate the Plains Indians on reservations. Violence erupted first in Minnesota, where, by 1862, the Santee Sioux were confined to a territory 150 miles long and just 10 miles wide. Denied a…

Author:   Abraham Lincoln Date:1863 Annotation: President Abraham Lincoln frees slaves in areas in rebellion against the United States. The nation was embroiled in the Civil War when President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. While the Proclamation did not instantly liberate a single slave, it did allow black men to…

Author:   Abram Bogart Date:1863 Annotation: Black soldiers participated in the war at great threat to their lives. The Confederate government threatened to summarily execute or sell into slavery any captured black Union soldiers–and did sometimes carry out those threats. Lincoln responded by threatening to retaliate against Confederate prisoners whenever black soldiers were killed or…

Author:   Christian M. Epperly Date:1863 Annotation: The four days between July 1 and July 4, 1863 marked a major turning point of the Civil War. Beginning in mid-May, Ulysses S. Grant’s troops had begun a siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Located on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, Vicksburg allowed the Confederacy to control river traffic…

Author: Samuel Shenk Date: 1863 Annotation: After the Battle of Antietam, Lee’s forces retreated into Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with almost no interference. Frustrated by McClellan’s lack of aggressiveness, Lincoln replaced him with General Ambrose E. Burnside (1824-1881). In December 1862, Burnside attacked 73,000 Confederate troops at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Six times Burnside launched frontal assaults on…

Author:   Joseph M. Maitland Date:1863 Annotation: By early 1863, voluntary enlistments in the Union army had fallen so sharply that the federal government instituted an unpopular military draft and decided to enroll black, as well as white, troops. Indeed, it seems likely that it was the availability of large numbers of African American soldiers…

Author:   William Tecumseh Sherman Date:1863 Annotation: As the war dragged on, enthusiasm faded and class tensions flared. In the North, the worst mob violence in American history took place in New York City in July 1863, two weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg. About 120 people were killed, mainly by police and soldiers. Irish…