Abraham Lincolns War Aims Compared to William Sherman and...

Within a short amount of time after the election of Abraham Lincoln to the office of presidency, the south had seceded from the Union and brought on the beginning of the American Civil War. In 1863, the third year of the war, Lincoln had given a speech of the sacred battle ground at Gettysburg, most notably called the Gettysburg Address. In it, he expressed sincerity for those who fought and died there and most of all, proclaimed his aims of war itself. Walt Whitman, a celebrated poet of the time, traveled from hospital to hospital witnessing the operations of wounded soldiers and also the horrific scenes of death and amputation. His views were very much different than those of Abraham Lincoln and though not evident, were still noticeable†¦show more content†¦He then stated that all the men who fought and died on the battle ground at Gettysburg shall not have died in vain due to the fact that they helped to fight a cause for a new nation with a new birth of freedom, most not ably meaning the existence of a government of the people, by the people, for the people that wont perish from the earth (277). William Sherman seemed kind of obsessed with the idea of defeating the Confederacy. He seemed even more focused on the removal of the inhabitants of Atlanta, but then again, it was what the correspondences between him and General Hood and James Calhoun were about. Nevertheless, he was very focused on the removal of the population and he gives very adequate reasons for doing so. As a reader, its never really certain whether Sherman had a side on the issue of slavery because as far as I could tell, you can only really tell his main concern is the preserving of the Union (much like Lincolns). This is extremely evident because his intentions for the city of Atlanta were to utilize the city for fortification and to take advantage of it to help win the war. So I guess in a way his view of the war is similar to that of Lincolns because of the fact that they both have no apparent decision on the existence of slavery. However, on the other hand, if you have to assume anything, it would be tha t Sherman was one of the people, that Lincoln referred to, who wanted to preserve the Union