What is the purpose of Lincoln employing personification toward the end of his "Second Inaugural Address"? "With malice toward n
one, 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 and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
Many historians consider the civil war to be the first "modern" war. Modern wars may have many characteristics, but the most general is the use of weapons that kill many people where death is inflicted at a distance, and sometimes to civilians.
It was clear by Lincoln's second inaugural address that the South was in a bad way. It had no real hope of winning. He personifies the war by using an unidentified ordinary soldier by noting that if he dies, he leaves a widow and orphan. War has left America in a state of mourning and grieving, broken and needing to be healed by the soothing power of peace within and externally. It is so powerful, who could not want such an ideal?
