Today marks the 157th anniversary of day two of the Battle of Gettysburg. This three day battle, which took place from July1st-3rd 1863, resulted in 50,000 combined casualties, the bloodiest battle on the American continent. But this battle is significant because it became the turning point of our real American Revolution.
So why do I called is our true American revolution? This is a term I started using for the Civil War about a year ago. I was working with another leader ship instructor and during our drive to the battlefield, he told me a very powerful story.
He had taken a group of European military officers to Gettysburg as part of his own leadership course and shared with me a powerful story. The first thing he pointed out is how knowledgeable Europeans, and indeed foreigners in general, were about our Civil War. But the second, and I think powerful point, is when one of them pointed out that they considered the Civil War to be our true American revolution.
When I considered this statement, I realized they were right. After all, following our independence, there was a glaring disconnect between our stated ideals and what we practiced, particularly as it related to slavery. This institution was a stain on our history and legacy continues in many ways to this day. The Civil War ended this terrible institution and brought us one giant step closer to the ideals outlined by our founding fathers. It would still take us another century before we passed the Civil Rights act, but it was an important beginning of a journey to bring us closer to the ideals outlined by our founding fathers, flawed men who provided a vision and a framework for us to grow as a country.
If you read the Gettysburg address, which Abraham Lincoln gave in November 1863, you will notice that he doesn’t reference our constitution; instead he references our Declaration of Independence. This document, signed July 4, 1776, eloquently states the ideals of our nation, including the idea that all men are created equal and that our rights are “endowed by our creator.” In other words, nobody gives us our rights; we are BORN with those rights. Yet we had a population of people without rights, who lived in bondage.
Abraham Lincoln correctly thought it was important to tie the Civil War and the sacrifice at Gettysburg to the ideals that our country was founded upon, ideals that we did not practice. Lincoln wanted to make clear that if we are to survive as a nation, it was imperative that we live up to the ideals of our founding fathers. It was essential that we ended the scar of slavery and ensured that everyone living in this country was, indeed, free.
I’ve often found the dates of the battle of Gettysburg to be ironic — a bloody civil war battle ending one day before our Independence Day. However, when you connect the dates to the fact that this battle was the turning point of our real American Revolution, it makes the timing even more powerful.
We should also see the Civil War for what it was — a war over slavery and a war to reconcile the disconnect between our ideals and our reality. I wish it did not take a civil war to end this institution. But it did, and we are better for it.
As the Fourth of July approaches, we should celebrate what this nation stands for, but also recognize that we still have further to go to fully live up to our original ideals. From my perspective, we are moving in the right direction and hope we continue to do so. After all, the most important aspect of this country is not our location, but rather our ideals and this idea that all are created equal. We must continue to grow if this nation, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “shall not perish from this earth.”
