Four Score and Seven Years... Give or Take a Month or Two
Newspaper Vendor and Cart in an Civil War Army Camp (Source: Library of Congress)
As you history buffs may already know, last week was the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War. Working in communications, it is important to credit the four year war for giving us one of the most quoted speeches of all time; Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. America’s 16th president spoke for only three minutes, and made an impact on history that would last forever.
However, as far as communication goes, that might be the only area that gets four stars.
The civil war ended with General Lee surrendering his army on April 9, 1865. However, did you know that the Battle of Columbus was a full week later on April 16, and the last shot wasn’t fired until that June? Yikes. Can you imagine what it would be like to be General James H. Wilson leading the Union troupes into battle only to find out that you’ve already won the war? I guess he didn’t have blackberry so he must not have received an email that morning from Ulysses22@hotmail.com telling him not to bother. General Wilson hadn’t even heard that President Abraham Lincoln had been shot on April 14th. I guess he didn’t have Google alerts either.
Did you know that there wasn’t even a common name for the war communicated between the North and the South? What we now generally accept as “The Civil War” was more commonly known as “The War Between the States” in the south. But, was also known by a multitude of other names such as War of the Rebellion, War of Secession, War for Southern Independence, Third War for Independence, Second American Revolution, War of Northern Aggression, War of Southern Aggression, War in Defense of Virginia, Mr. Lincoln's War, Slaveholders' War, War to Save the Union... The list goes on. Depending what you thought about the war and where you lived during the war determined what you called it. I guess there was no nightly news with Brian Williams to brand “The American Civil War.”
Did you also know… I didn’t know any of this until I wrote this post? My brother shared this link on twitter. Approximately 2 seconds later I started reading the article. Pretty impressive considering my brother lives in Milwaukee and I’m in New York City! I clicked through and learned Abraham Lincoln was actually a secondary speaker at Gettysburg. Curious about his address, I spent about 15 seconds doing a Google search to find out more information. That article led me to a ton of other articles sitting right here at my desk; which is good, because it was raining and I didn’t really feel like walking to the New York Public Library to find an encyclopedia. I wonder what it would be like to deliver a hand-written thank you letter to my brother and how long it would take. But horses don’t have GPS, so I think I’ll just send him a text message. 