The Gettysburg Address
11/19/2013
Hello, and welcome back to As It Is from VOA Learning English.
I’m Jerilyn Watson in Washington.
Today on our program, we note the 150th anniversary of The Gettysburg Address. It is one of the most famous and most beautiful speeches ever given in the English language. It is also one of the most important speeches in American history.
We begin in the summer of 1863 in Gettysburg -- then a small farming and market town in the eastern state of Pennsylvania.
On July 1st, 2nd and 3rd, two huge armies clashed in Gettysburg. They fought one of the most important battles of the American Civil War. Because of that battle, Gettysburg became an extremely important part of American history.
Five months earlier, General Robert E. Lee had marched the Southern army of the Confederate states from Virginia into Pennsylvania. He went into the North in hopes of winning a major victory -- a victory that might help the Confederate cause.
Southern states -- where slavery was legal -- were trying to form their own country. They wanted the right to govern themselves. Northern states did not want to let them leave the Union.
Little Round Top, Cemetery Ridge, the Devil’s Den, Pickett’s Charge… American history books are filled with the names of places in and around Gettysburg where the soldiers fought. These were the places where thousands of them died defending the idea of a United States of America.
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