Abraham Lincoln: Martyr (Part Three)

01VOA Learning English presents America's Presidents.

02Today we will finish our story about Abraham Lincoln.

03He led the United States during the Civil War.

04That conflict lasted from 1861 to 1865.

05In it, the southern states of the Confederacy battled the northern states of the Union.

06As a wartime president, Lincoln was known for several things.

07He was actively involved in plotting the military campaign.

08When Lincoln was unhappy with the performance of his top generals, he dismissed them.

09He also greatly increased the power of the presidency, even beyond what the U.S.

10Constitution permitted.

11And Lincoln struck at the issue at the heart of the Civil War—slavery.

12He ordered that enslaved people in the Confederate states be forever free.

13His order is called the Emancipation Proclamation.

14Music Seven months after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, The Confederacy and the Union clashed in the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

15The Army of Confederate General Robert E.

16Lee was on the offensive.

17Lee planned to move the fighting out of the South and invade the North.

18He won a major victory against Union forces at Chancellorsville, Virginia.

19Then he pushed across Maryland and into Pennsylvania.

20A Union army, led by General George Meade, met Lee's troops near a small, crossroads town called Gettysburg.

21In the first days of July 1863, a little more than two years after the start of the Civil War, Confederate and Union troops each struggled to claim the territory.

22Both sides suffered massive casualties.

23But Lee believed Confederate troops were close to winning and that Meade had spread his soldiers thin.

24So, on the third day of fighting, he ordered a direct attack on Union forces.

25Lee's soldiers aimed at the center of the Union line, positioned behind stone walls at the top of a ridge, or raised area.

26Confederates first used cannons to fire artillery at the ridge.

27Then, about 15,000 Confederate soldiers began marching across more than a kilometer of an open field.

28The Union soldiers behind the walls fired on them.

29More Union forces attacked the Confederate soldiers on the left and right.

30In half an hour, three-quarters of the soldiers in the open field had been killed or wounded.

31Thousands more on each side also died.

32The surviving Confederate forces quickly withdrew and waited for Meade to attack again.

33But, much to Lincoln's dissatisfaction, he did not.

34The following morning, Lee led the survivors back to Virginia.

35He left behind 28,000 soldiers dead, wounded, or missing.

36More than one-third of his total army.

37The Union had suffered 23,000 casualties, almost as many.

38The Battle of Gettysburg is important in American history for several reasons.

39One is the large number of killed and wounded soldiers, the largest until World War II in the 20th century.

40Another reason is because it was a turning point in the war.

41It ended Lee's invasion of the North and weakened his army permanently.

42Over the same days, Union troops won another major victory under General Ulysses S.

43Grant in the southern city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

44The battles at Vicksburg and Gettysburg began to turn the conflict to the Union's favor.

45Finally, the Battle of Gettysburg is almost always linked to a speech Lincoln gave there, known as the Gettysburg Address.

46It is only about 270 words long, but it is one of the most famous speeches in American history.

47Lincoln spoke at the opening of a cemetery for all the soldiers who had died at Gettysburg.

48But he also used the event to speak to the entire country about the war.

49He said, the conflict was a test of whether the American form of government could survive.

50That is, a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

51He also pointed to the Declaration of Independence as the country's founding document.

52He said, the nation had been conceived in liberty, and, he said, it was dedicated to the idea that all men are created equal.

53Historians have noted that, in the speech, Lincoln changed the reasoning behind the war effort.

54It continued to be a struggle to reunite the country.

55But after the Gettysburg Address, it was also more clearly a struggle to free enslaved people.

56In 1864, Lincoln won re-election to a second term as president.

57His new vice president was Senator Andrew Johnson from the southern state of Tennessee.

58At the swearing-in ceremony, the president spoke about the need for the North and South to come together again peacefully.

59In that speech, his famous second inaugural, Lincoln called on all Americans to finish the war.

60He urged them to care for the wounded, the wives and children of soldiers killed in battle, and to seek a just and lasting peace.

61Most importantly, Lincoln asked Americans to reunite with malice toward none, with charity for all.

62In other words, with respect and kindness.

63A few weeks later, the war effectively ended.

64Lincoln's military plan had worked.

65He had finally found two generals whom he trusted, Ulysses S.

66Grant, and William T.

67Sherman.

68Sherman led a campaign across the southern states.

69His path through Georgia, from the city of Atlanta to the city of Savannah, was known as Sherman's March to the Sea.

70The march destroyed farms and houses along the way.

71The destruction was terrible.

72It was also effective.

73The Confederate army was left with little food or communication.

74At the same time, Grant surrounded Lee's army in Virginia.

75Grant cut these southern troops off from supplies, too.

76Lee realized he must surrender to Grant, although, he said, he would rather die a thousand deaths.

77The two men met on April 9, 1865, at a farmhouse in the town of Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.

78Lee famously wore his finest military uniform and sword.

79Grant famously wore his fighting clothes, still marked with mud.

80Lee and Grant spoke briefly.

81Then Grant wrote the terms of surrender.

82As Lincoln had asked, the terms were respectful and generous.

83Lee's officers were free to keep their horses and their weapons, and the Union army would give the Confederate soldiers food.

84When some Union troops began to play a victory song, Grant told them to stop.

85The war is over, he said.

86The rebels are our countrymen again.

87The war is over, Lincoln and his wife, Mary, went to a theater in Washington, D.C.

88To put it mildly, the last years had been very difficult for them.

89While Lincoln was supervising the war effort, both his third and fourth son became sick with typhoid.

90The younger boy recovered.

91The older did not.

92Willie Lincoln died in the White House at age 11.

93Mary and Abraham Lincoln were crushed.

94Mary Lincoln blamed herself.

95She believed God was punishing her.

96In their own ways, the Lincolns continued to mourn in the years after Willie's death.

97At one point, Lincoln said he hoped he and Mary could feel happier.

98He urged them to have some pleasant times together.

99So, with the war coming to an end, they went to a lighthearted play at Ford's Theater.

100It was the night of Friday, April 14, 1865, a day that Christians were marking that year as Good Friday, the anniversary of Jesus' death.

101The theater was not far from the White House.

102The Lincolns had seats in a box high above the stage.

103Toward the end of the performance, a man entered their box and shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head.

104Then the gunman jumped to the stage, breaking his leg as he landed.

105He called out a Latin expression, Sic Semper Tyrannis.

106It means, Thus always to tyrants.

107Some observers say, the man added, The South is avenged.

108The gunman was a Southerner named John Wilkes Booth.

109He had plotted to kill the president after hearing Lincoln support voting rights for African Americans.

110Booth briefly escaped, but was later captured and hanged.

111Lincoln was taken to a nearby boarding house.

112He seemed lifeless and could hardly breathe.

113Doctors examined him, but found they could not save him.

114Lincoln died the following morning.

115He was 56 years old.

116The emotions of many Americans changed from joy at the coming end of the Civil War to shock and mourning.

117Thousands lined up along railroad tracks as Lincoln's body made its way from Washington, D.C.

118to his home in Illinois.

119Even many Southerners mourned Lincoln's death.

120They understood that he would treat them kindly.

121A little more than six weeks after Lincoln's assassination, the last Confederate army surrendered and the war was considered officially over.

122The country was reunited and the process of legally freeing enslaved people had begun.

123Although these acts are tremendous parts of Lincoln's legacy, in time, his public image would grow only larger and more celebrated.

124As one witness to Lincoln's death reportedly said, now he belongs to the ages.

125I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.

126I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.

127I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.

128I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.

129I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.

130I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.