Gettysburg is a small town in Pennsylvania, in the northern United States. In July 1863, during the American Civil War, a huge three-day battle was fought there. Many men were killed on both sides. The Union army — the North — held the field, and that battle is often treated as the turning point that led toward the North winning the war. A few months later President Lincoln gave a very short speech there, the Gettysburg Address, which American students still learn. In English the name is first a place, and then a shorthand for that battle and that speech.