155 Years Ago: The Battle of Gettysburg Began (But Everyone Forgets This Fact)

By Daniel L. Davis,The National Interest

November 8 witnessed one of the most stunning upsets in U.S. political history when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. But it might not have been the most stunning upset. 150 years earlier, also on November 8, a U.S. presidential election produced a shocking winner in what may be the most consequential election ever held in America.

In the summer of 1864, the Civil War had been raging for three years. Already, well over eight hundred thousand Americans had been killed or wounded. Citizens in both the North and South were virulently sick of war and wanted the conflict ended. Events on the battlefield, just before the election that fall, would seal the South’s defeat, catapult Abraham Lincoln to victory and ultimately provide momentum for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, permanently freeing all slaves in America.

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This first appeared several years ago.

Though not recognized at that time, it was a key battle the summer before that actually dealt what would prove to be the fatal blow to the South. The fight took place in a farming village in southern Pennsylvania that few in America had ever heard of: Gettysburg.