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Gettysburg Address Thesis

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The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War. It claimed heroes from both sides, and all have been hallowed by the American public and the numerous accounts of the battle itself. The Civil War, or perhaps the Second War for American Independence, took an undeniable toll on the country, and the Battle of Gettysburg was no exception. The public, as noted by the sixteenth president of the United States during the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg, “will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here” (“The Gettysburg Address”). President Lincoln continues to describe these “honored dead” in a heroic light, and begs society that, “these dead shall not …show more content…
He was raised in Virginia, as the second of nine children to General Walker Keith Armistead and Elizabeth Stanley (“Lewis Armistead”). The Armisteads were a military oriented family, and he was destined to be a military man himself. He enrolled in West Point in 1834, though he had a rather unfulfilling career, as he was dismissed two years later for breaking a plate over the head of Jubal A. Early, a fellow Cadet and future Confederate general (Jones). Three years later, Armistead was appointed lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He served valiantly in the Seminole Wars, was brevetted twice for gallantry during the Mexican War, and was wounded at Chapultepec. Despite his immense success, he resigned from the captain’s commission in May of 1861 to join the Confederacy, not daring to fight against his beloved home of Virginia. In the Civil War, Armistead fought at Seven Pines, Malvern Hill, and Antietam. At Seven Pines, he fought bravely, despite having his horse killed beneath him. Armistead led the attack on the Union at Malvern Hill (Dozier). He most notably served under George Pickett on the third of July, the third and final day of Gettysburg, during the historical Pickett’s Charge

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