GETTYSBURG - the terrible battle

The turning point in the American Civil War

Late June, 1863:  the fields in Pennsylvania were   bountiful with crops, the land  was untouched by conflict, and the people  prospering. Yet a few days later, into this fertile countryside, came a  huge army of Confederate soldiers, led  by the ingenious General Robert E.  Lee. The great general was leading them  to meet up with an even bigger Union  army, known as the Yankees. 
 The Rebels, proud and brave, hoped  to destroy the Yankee army on its own  soil, and thus bring an end to nearly two  years of war. On July 1st, the first shots  of the battle of  Gettysburg were fired. For  three days, the two sides smashed at each  other endlessly, often performing great  acts of heroism. Yet, as in all wars, the  end result was the same: death and destruction of the human spirit. In the  words of Sergent James Wright, fighting  for the Union, Gettysburg was a cataclysm beyond imagination: 
   Howling, shrieking, exploding, tearing, smashing and destroying...The  ground was torn up, fences and trees  knocked to splinters, rocks and small  stones were flying in the air... guns were  dismounted and the men and horses  torn to pieces.  
   In theory, they were all fighting  for ideas — the Southerners for slavery  and independence, and the Northerners  for the abolition of slavery, and the  preservation of the Union. But seen from  the perspective of Bernard Matthews,  one ordinary soldier among the 170,000  who fought at Gettysburg, ideas and  ideologies were soon forgotten. What  took over during the battle was fear: 
   The smoke lay over everything  so that you were lucky to see the man  next to you. Your ears couldn't distinguish shot from shot. It was all one  roar, so that the hillside shook...you did  just what the man ahead of you did,  or the man next to you. 
   After all, the enemy, the Confederate army, was just a few steps away,  as was perhaps death itself. As the Confederates approached, Union artillery  fired upon them, tearing bloody holes in  the straight lines. This was war on a major scale in a way that the new  nation, barely 100 years old, had never  seen. Perhaps somewhere in the back of  the mind, the issue of slavery burned dimly. But in the heat of the battle,  the men who fought had no time for thoughts... 
   The battle wore on. The broken  lines of soldiers rejuvenated themselves  only to be torn to pieces again, and the  bodies piled up higher and higher on  the green grass of summer. Losses were  frightening on both sides: after three  days of battle, 51,000 human beings lay under the  smoke either dead or maimed . Then, on the fourth day, both  armies marched on; that is, those who could still  march. The dead and the wounded had to be left behind.          
   For the small town of Gettysburg, with only 2400 inhabitants at the time,  the battle was at first an unimaginable  horror, and then a huge task. As the  armies moved quickly away after the three days of fighting, there were thousands of maimed soldiers to care for, and  thousands of bodies to bury. A new cemetery was quickly dedicated, and the  townspeople dealt as best they could  with the situation. The actual burial process took months, and it was not until November that President Lincoln came  to dedicate the cemetery, where he gave  a speech that was to become one of the  most famous in American history —  the Gettysburg Address.  


WORDS :
bountiful: rich - ingenious: very  clever - soil: ground - cataclysm: disaster -  splinters: /ittle pieces of wood - barely:  only just - dimly - not clearly - to wear  on: continue difficultly - maimed: injured  care for: help - cemetery: place where  dead people are buried - deal with the  situation: do what one can do - four score: four times twenty - hallow: sanctify - detract: reduce  resolve: determine.

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A simpler and shorter version of this text, in low B2 level English, can be found in the intermediate English reader A Background to English, published by LInguapress.

STUDENTS' WORKSHEET

Gettysburg

1. Interactive synonyms exercise

In the copy of the Gettysburg Address below, choose which of the three equivalents proposed in each case could best replace the words in blue  that were actually used by Abraham Lincoln.

 

2. Interactive Multiple choice exercise

Choose the correct word to fill in each of the blanks in the following extract from the text.  Note that some of these blanks will test your understanding of the text, some will test your vocabulary or your grammar, and a couple will test your spelling..

3. Modal verbs:

For an overview of modal verb forms and usage, see A Descriptive Grammar of English sections 1.15 and 1.16.

Which of the following can be used (grammatically and logically) to complete each of the following sentences?
    would / might have / might be / would have / could not.  

4. Parallel text with errors

Here is a parallel text, based on the article. Unfortunately, a short-sighted secretary has made 24 mistakes of fact, grammar or spelling when copying out this text. The words concerned are printed in red


Here is the text again: you can modify it as you wish in the box below.
Gettysburg was one of the most important battle in the american Civil War. If the North have not won, what whould have happen to the United States? the battle lasted while three days, and was one of the worst in American history; the war himself last for three years, from 1861 to 1865. More that a war about slavery, it was also a war about the preservation of a wholly social-economic system in the North, base on the cotton's industry. Gettysburg changed the course of the war. Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg's Address, and also the relevant of the Lincoln's ideas for todays America may be question, Americas destine was deciding by the Battle for Gettysburg.

Creative  activities.

1. Letter writing :    Imagine that you are a soldier at Gettysburg, fighting for the Union Army. The battle is one day old. Write a 300 word letter home to your parents or to your sweetheart (girlfriend) or your wife, describing your experiences and your feelings.

2. Oral pair work.
Write and then act out an interview between a newspaper man from the Pennsylvania News and a wounded soldier who has been taken away from the battle front.






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