Divided loyalties to the Union and Confederacy
caused family rifts.  Mary Todd Lincoln’s brother,
George Todd, was a Confederate Surgeon.  He
once called Abraham Lincoln “one of the greatest
scoundrels unhung”.
Sons, brothers, cousins, uncles, fathers.  As a
percentage of the population, Civil War deaths
exceeded US deaths in the Revolutionary War,
WWI, WWII and Vietnam wars, combined.
Many remains were unidentified.  Before battle,
some men wrote their names and addresses on
paper and pinned it to their back in case they
needed to be identified after death.
“I respectfully inform you” – this letter arrived to
the fallen soldier’s commanding officer in March
1863, five months after his death.  Notifying the
family would take even longer.
After the battle, bodies lay scattered throughout
Gettysburg farmlands.  Burial work began
 quickly, as fear of disease rose.  Crude, shallow
graves began eroding in the rain, and the citizens
of Gettysburg called for the creation of a
 cemetery.  It took months to reinter the dead.
At the cemetery dedication, President Lincoln
was asked to say a few words that became the
Gettysburg Address.
Lincoln was assasinated in 1865, less that two
years after the Gettysburg Address.

                 

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