Donald Trump’s Rambling Rally Speech Raises Questions

Donald Trump’s mention of the “beautiful” Battle of Gettysburg during a campaign rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday got the former president some attention on social media, with users wondering what his rambling “rant” was about.

“Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was,” Trump said while addressing the crowd in the town and wearing a Make America Great Again hat. “It was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways—it represented such a big portion of the success of this country,” he continued.

“Gettysburg, wow—I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch,” he said. “And the statement of Robert E. Lee, who’s no longer in favor—did you ever notice it? He’s no longer in favor. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill, he said, ‘Wow, that was a big mistake,’ he lost his big general. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys,’ but it was too late,” Trump added.

Newsweek contacted Trump’s 2024 campaign team for comment by email on Sunday morning.

Saturday’s rally was Trump’s first major campaign event in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which President Joe Biden is expected to visit in the coming days. He will reportedly make three stops there next week, starting with his hometown of Scranton.

Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes—the most of any swing state in the country—could make a big difference for both candidates in November, as they have done before. Trump won the state in 2016 by fewer than 45,000 votes over Hillary Clinton, but lost it to Biden in 2020, who won by less than 1.5 percent, or about 80,000 votes.

Trump’s mention of the Battle of Gettysburg, which was fought between July 1 and 3, 1863, between Confederates and Federal troops, didn’t go unnoticed by social media users, journalists and strategists following the former president’s rally on Saturday.

“Donald Trump doesn’t know the first thing about The Battle of Gettysburg. He shouldn’t even try being a historian. His lack of in-depth knowledge quickly reveals itself,” wrote an X, formerly Twitter, user who describes themself as pro-Ron DeSantis.

“Trump goes on a weird rant about the battle of Gettysburg and then notes of Robert E. Lee that ‘he’s no longer in favor. Did you ever notice that?'” wrote journalist Aaron Rupar. Confederate General Lee led the slave-holding states in the South toward the end of the American Civil War.

“When there’s an essay question on the test you didn’t study for,” wrote a user on the social media platform, mocking Trump’s mention of the battle.

Many users also questioned how the deadliest battle of the Civil War, with an estimated 23,000 Federal troops and 28,000 Confederate soldiers killed, injured or captured over three days, could be considered “beautiful.” Though the Civil War officially ended almost two years after Gettysburg, the bloody battle is considered a turning point for the eventual victory of the Union in 1865.

The Battle of Gettysburg wasn’t Trump first mention of the Civil War during a 2024 campaign event this year. Talking at a rally in Iowa in January, the former president said that the war “could have been negotiated” and thus avoided. On that occasion, Trump didn’t suggest how he would have avoided the conflict, but said that he found it “so horrible, but so fascinating.”

CNN commentator Karen Finney, a distant descendant of Lee and a freed slave from Virginia, penned an opinion piece in January warning against the danger of those who want to rewrite the story of the Civil War.

“Counterfeit narratives cannot be indulged or ignored—not in our society, not in the history we teach in schools and not in a presidential campaign,” she wrote.