On Lincoln's mind

When the last gun fired at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, few understood what the battle meant to the conduct of the war or the Union cause, including Abraham Lincoln. Surely, Lincoln was elated to learn that his long-beleaguered Army of the Potomac had finally won a significant victory against Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia but it would be 139 days until the President visited the field and made his famous, cogent, and concise summation of the war's cost and promise for America. During that time span, Lincoln considered a host of issues and contended with numerous voices competing for his attention. Indeed, the hundreds of letters he received presented a perfect cacophony of requests, reports, complaints, and commendations. The pages that follow include examples of the correspondence sent to and by Lincoln between July 4 and November 19, 1863. They illustrate how the nation spoke to its leader in a time of crisis and how difficult it must have been for Lincoln to navigate such a range of issues and still complete the "unfinished work" of the men who died on that battle field -- p. 1.