"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle." — Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 1865
When Lincoln delivered this speech, the military situation included:
- A
McClellan's Peninsula Campaign stalled outside Richmond
- Bcheck_circle
Grant's siege of Petersburg with Confederate collapse imminent
- C
Sherman beginning his march from Tennessee toward Atlanta
- D
Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania approaching Gettysburg
Explanation
By March 1865, Grant had Lee pinned at Petersburg, Sherman had completed his March to the Sea, and Confederate defeat was weeks away—context that shaped Lincoln's reconciliatory tone.