“I have never seen such an effect produced by a public document….Men acted as if the millennium had come.” John Hay quoted in Varon, pp. 308-9
Discussion Question
- What profound Lincoln document from 1863 was Hay describing?
Tennessee Campaign (Fall 1863)
Union general George H. Thomas
Gettysburg Address (Nov 1863)
For more details, see Lincoln’s Gettysburg Addresses by House Divided Project (Google Arts)
Amnesty Proclamation and Ten Percent Plan (Dec 1863)
Key Terms of the Ten Percent Plan
- Presidential amnesty for future loyalty to constitution and wartime proclamations
- White southern males who received amnesty could establish new state governments after loyal participants achieved 10 percent threshold from the 1860 electorate
- Congress to judge the validity of the reconstructed claims
Confederate Reactions
“Submission has been made impossible by the conduct of our insolent foe; and the only tolerable alternative left us is resistance to the bitter end. We must fight, we can do nothing else, if necessary forever.” –Tennessee infantryman Flavel C. Barber (Dickinson College Class of 1850), quoted in Varon, p,. 321
Discussion Question
- Where were some of the key pockets of dissent within the Confederacy?