Talk:Gettysburg Campaign

Puzzled as to why this is being renamed a campaign

While I disagreed with the convention of "Foo, Battle of", I fail to see how the Gettysburg Whatever can be considered a campaign rather than a battle. Neither side planned a major engagement at Gettysburg, which would take it into the level of operational art at which campaigns are fought.

The article speaks of a battle, lasting three days, but does not describe a specific operational-level objective that would make it a campaign, as were Vicksburg and Sherman's operations in Georgia. Technically, the Battle was a meeting engagement, with much tactical improvisation.

I believe this article would be more properly entitled "Battle of Gettysburg". Howard C. Berkowitz 11:09, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

Well, the battle did result from Lee's invasion of the North, which did have a grand strategic goal - to show that the North could not protect its citizens, and to help with international recognition (IIRC). So I think the whole thing (the march North, the consolidation of the Confederate army units at Gettysburg, etc) could be termed a 'campaign', but you're right, I wouldn't use that term for the three days of fighting there alone. (Although perhaps it's intended to eventually have I see the article does already cover the manoeuvering beforehand, too.) J. Noel Chiappa 11:14, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

The article is about a month-long campaign. I agree with Noel that the three days of July 1-3 are incomprehensible except in the context of a campaign, including Lee's strategy ahead of time and, especially, the failed followup on the part of Meade. Apart from Luvas, all the chief historians (Coddington, Brown, Nofi, Woodworth, McPherson, Wertz, ) avoid "battle" in their titles and prefer instead the Gettysburg Campaign and we are following their lead. See especially James M. McPherson, "To Conquer a Peace? Lee's Goals in the Gettysburg Campaign." Civil War Times 2007 46(2): 26-33.Richard Jensen 12:05, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

Aren't there two distinct issues here? And subjects? One is what the general layperson calls "The Battle of Gettysburg", by which he/she means the three-day battle. The other is the month-long "Gettysburg Campaign" to which Prof. Jensen refers. Why not do each?

• And, by the way, here is what Larry has to say over the Forums about a pretty closely related subject:

  Even historians refer to battles as "Battle of X." There is no excuse to title our articles "X, Battle of." Ostensibly, the reason for titling any article in Richard's comma format is to make them easier to find in alphabetical listings. Putting aside the fact that we have finessed that problem with the 'abc' field in our metadata, there is no reason to think people will be more likely to look for an article about the Battle of X under X than under Battle. This is, of course, because the proper names of those battles whose names are in the form "Battle of X" are, in fact, in that form, of course. If anyone refers to them, as it were, on a "first name basis" as "Shiloh" or "Gettysburg" or "Waterloo," it is because it is obvious that they're talking about the battle. This does not entail (of course!!!) that, in titling an encyclopedia article, one can do without the words "battle of." So let's use "Battle of X," please. I also think it is implausible that people are not interested battles per se but only in the places where the battles occur. With a few exceptions, most places where famous battles have taken place are famous only because they are the sites of famous battles. Would nearly as many of us have heard of Pearl Harbor, Hastings, or Waterloo without battles being fought there? In short, there is absolutely no good reason, Richard notwithstanding, not to follow our standard CZ naming conventions in this case. Therefore, let's do so. Please do rename the relevant "battle" articles as appropriate; if anyone gives you grief about it, let me know, and please, don't expect me to do this because you're intimidated by Richard. I have too much to do myself. Just be bold!  :-) I'm giving you the right!

As an aside, it seems to me that this discussion has dragged out because Richard has taken a counterintuitive stance and then proceeded to defend it--and, in my humble opinion, weakly. I see that so far, he has persuaded no one (and several have made extremely strong points in reply). So, in this case, since the person taking the stand is one of our few active History Editors, and he seems to have made up his mind and wishes to establish his opinion as our policy, I guess it is incumbent upon me to declare that I am overruling him, as Editor-in-Chief. (Sorry, Richard.) Generally, I try to give editors the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes I do have to overrule them, which I assure you I never like to do. (End of Larry's quote -- It's hard to format this correctly.)

Hayford Peirce 12:30, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

well you can either believe what historical experts says about history after doing lots of research or you can believe what non-historians think when they have done no research and use something they call "intuition". As for Gettysburg, no one in the last decade has put "Battle of Gettysburg" in a adult book title, and there is no reason CZ should go to some old discarded naming system in use decades ago. In this case the article is not merely about the battle of July 1-3 but about the month-long campaign. Historians, both professional and amateur, call it the Gettysburg Campaign.Richard Jensen 14:13, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

For pity's sake, Professor Jensen, you are *not* the only expert in the whole world! And your *opinion* is just that: an opinion. A Google search for "Battle of Gettysburg" returns 512,000 hits. For "Gettysburg Campaign" there are 126,000 hits. At Wikipedia, there is an article for "Gettysburg Campaign" AND there is a separate article for "Battle of Gettysburg". That's all that I'm suggesting here. Fine, you go ahead a write an article about the "Gettysburg Campaign". And then, if someone else wants to write an article about the "Battle of Gettysburg", kindly let them. Hayford Peirce 14:31, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

Agreed, Hayford. I conclude based on the discussion above that there was a campaign and a battle that was part of it. Assuming that is correct, we can have an article about each. Richard, I would be much more inclined to respect your own dogmatic proclamations if they were not accompanied by rejections of my authority as Editor-in-Chief. That said, you might notice that I didn't rule on this particular question, but on your own idiosyncratic rejection of the words "battle of" from the names of history articles about battles.

As a reasonable compromise, I would suggest that someone move the discussion of the battle to Battle of Gettysburg, leaving discussion of the larger campaign on this page; of course, there should be prominent linkage from the former to the latter. --Larry Sanger 15:18, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

As a final footnote to this discussion (maybe!), I just did an amateurish search of the Library of Congress: it turned up 201 items for "Battle of Gettysburg" and 46 for "Gettysburg Campaign". Hayford Peirce 15:34, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

Check the dates--historians do not use the title in recent years. (The LC books are children's books.) I just did an article search and was surprised to see there was indeed a hit on "Battle of Gettysburg" in the leading journal, Civil War History. SO I read it: Mark Grimsley, "The Continuing Battle of Gettysburg," Civil War History 49.2 (2003) 181-187. Grinmsley is writing about the battle among historians! Richard Jensen 15:54, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

First, I still don't grant your premise. See this search within .edu websites, then this one.

But suppose we grant your premise that the titles are as you say they are. Your argument is essentially an appeal to authority. You are attempting to argue for the conclusion that battle names are not properly in the form "Battle of X." For this conclusion, you want to say that the usage of historians establishes what the proper form of battle names is. This is not a completely unexceptionable principle, but I'll grant it for present purposes.

So, you have to argue that historians generally would not agree that "Battle of X" is the proper form of battle articles. To establish this, however, the only thing you offer us is (1) your own personal opinion about what the proper use is, and (2) the alleged fact that "Battle of Gettysburg" is not used in recent academic article and book titles. Given your own track record, forgive us if (1) is no longer so persuasive for us. As to (2), the fact that the exact phrase "Battle of Gettysburg" does not appear in the title of publications by historians obviously proves absolutely nothing. It's like arguing that Descartes should not be called "Rene Descartes" because one can find few articles or books by philosophers that use the full name "Rene Descartes." Of course you can't; you can't, not because philosophers don't think his name is Rene Descartes, but because experts don't feel a need to use "Rene." It's understood. Similarly with "Battle of." The failure to use "Battle of" in many titles obviously doesn't imply that the proper name of battles, according to historians, are generally in the form "Battle of X." It probably implies only that historians know they're talking about the battle when they say "Antietam" or whatever. I mean, of course they aren't going to use "Battle of X" in their articles--it's understood and totally unnecessary.

For you to make a cogent appeal to authority, what you could provide us with is evidence that other historians really do think that "Battle of Gettysburg" is somehow old-fashioned as a name (or other names in the form "Battle of X"). You could have shut us up in the beginning if you provided us some such proof. How articles and books are titled doesn't make your case, and this latter fact about what can't make your case is a fact about logical cogency, not about history. --Larry Sanger 21:37, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

from Richard Jensen: My positions are as follows:

• the original question was whether this "Gettysburg Campaign" article should be renamed "Battle of Gettysburg". No, I argued. First of all the article is about a month-long campaign and its aftermath and image; second, historians in recent years write a lot about Gettysburg but always avoid the title "Battle of Gettysburg." (The one exception I found was an article about how historians battle each other over the meaning of Gettysburg.)
• As for battles generally, I think the author should name them according to the current usual practice of scholars writing about the battle. Thus "Battle of Britain" is appropriate (and I used it.) "Battle of Pearl Harbor" is not used by serious writers.
• A blanket CZ rule based on unobserved hypothetical searches by hypothetical CZ users is not as useful, in my opinion, as CZ following the standard practice used by most experts in the field.
• The standard practices can be observed by looking at recent scholarly books and articles. For example, books by university presses and articles in scholarly journals. This is easy to do thanks to books.google, Amazon.com, questia,com (all free) and ABC-CLIO (via libraries) and other online services.
• What the "general public" thinks about Gettysburg, and how they got that way, is an interesting topic and indeed is covered in the last part of this article. The general public looks to CZ for expertise and best practices.
• CZ in my opinion best serves its mission by stretching the minds of readers and exposing them to the best current thought on a topic. Catering to their ignorance is much too common on Wikipedia.
• Historians (and editors at journals and publishing houses) spend a good deal of serious thought on how to title their books and articles. Some once-common usages have been largely abandoned (for example, "History of XYZ" is now rare as a main title.) Looking at real life examples by recent writers is the best way for CZ to discover the current best practices. The "intuitive" ideas of people who have not been following recent historiography probably reflect the environment years ago and not today; their ideas are old, not intuitive. (Keynes said people who think they are free of economic theory are in reality slaves to some defunct economic nostrums.)
• If the dozens of historians who have recently written on Gettysburg have stopped using the title "Battle of Gettysburg", that should be useful information for us when we title a CZ article. Richard Jensen 22:04, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

Without replying to every detail of your arguments, the strength of your case against "Battle of Gettysburg" (as a name and even as a concept!) rests on the notion that few reputable historians now regard the name "Battle of Gettysburg" to be the proper name of the famous battle that took place near Gettysburg. You have entirely failed to prove that precise claim. For instance, you say, "The standard practices can be observed by looking at recent scholarly books and articles. For example, books by university presses and articles in scholarly journals. This is easy to do thanks to books.google, Amazon.com, questia,com (all free) and ABC-CLIO (via libraries) and other online services." But I have replied to this argument earlier, and you have, puzzlingly, simply ignored my reply. And yet my reply is absolutely solid: of course historians often do not use the full name "Battle of Gettysburg" when they are writing for other historians, who know very well that they are talking about the battle when they use phrases like "at Gettysburg," in the same way that philosophers know they're talking about Rene Descartes when they use shortenings of the philosopher's name in phrases like "for Descartes." Besides, and again, you do yourself and your case no favors when you make broad and extremely implausible generalizations like "historians in recent years write a lot about Gettysburg but always avoid the title 'Battle of Gettysburg.' (The one exception I found was an article about how historians battle each other over the meaning of Gettysburg.)" I have provided many other examples from academic websites in which the full title of the battle is used, and no doubt even the slightest bit of searching in the texts found by the search resources you list that "Battle of Gettysburg" is in fact still in common use.

Obviously, it proves absolutely nothing whatsoever to imply that views contrary to yours are held by only the "general public," i.e., ignorant people; that's question-begging. It also proves nothing to repeat platitudes about the importance of expert views: even granted your claims, you still have to prove that the expert views are as you say they are. The positive, non-question-begging arguments you have given have been very thin.

Again, it would be more interesting if you could find another historian actually saying things like this: "Well, historians have rejected the idea of battles as an ontological category; they now talk about campaigns (or whatever)." Or this: "As a class, we historians have struggled mightily with benighted encyclopedia editors and textbook writers who insist, against our now well-established practice, on using the word and concept "Battle of Gettysburg," and so forth." Or even this: "Talk like 'Battle of Gettysburg' or 'Battle of Waterloo' is now outdated." Here's another way you could prove it. This, surely, would not be very hard. Pick up five books about the Civil War with adequate coverage of Gettysburg, written by any professional historians of your choice, within the last five years (or however long). Tell us that in none of those books does the phrase "Battle of Gettysburg" appear. By your own account (that historians "always avoid the title") you ought to be able to satisfy us. That would be very impressive, but I think it's absolutely obvious that you will not be able to do it.

You can't do those things, I maintain, Richard, or anything else that would prove your general claims that "Battle of Gettysburg" is no longer the name of the Battle of Gettysburg, and that historians never write about the Battle of Gettysburg, per se, at all, but only about a Gettysburg Campaign. --Larry Sanger 10:14, 16 June 2008 (CDT)

It might be useful to consider a primary source on the terms that a participating commander used (my emphasis) http://www.civilwarhome.com/hethgettysburgor.htm is Confederate MG Henry Heth's report, titled "JUNE 3-AUGUST 1, 1863.--The Gettysburg Campaign". His first line, however, is " I have the honor to report the operations of my division from June 29 until July 1, including the part it took in the battle of Gettysburg (first day)"

Heth presumably reflected Confederate command usage when he referred both to a "campaign" and a "battle". In Longstreet's report at http://www.generallongstreet.com/records/gettysburg.html, he never uses the term "campaign", only "in obedience to orders from the commanding general," and then discusses not explicitly a "Battle of Gettysburg", but does use the word "battle" several times.

Not wanting to cite Confederate usage alone, I cite the report of the Union commander, George Meade, I have the honor to submit herewith a report of the operations of this army during the month of July last, including the details of the battle of Gettysburg... (http://www.civilwarhome.com/meade.htm)

Regardless, therefore, of any current convention by the Unified Historians Of the World, if the term "battle" is no longer used, I might suggest that some revisionism might be at work here. I suppose there is a question here of whether history or historiography is definitive here. Personally, I prefer, without a compelling argument against doing so, to focus on the history, as reflected by primary sources, than the stylistic convention of historians over a century later. Howard C. Berkowitz 10:36, 16 June 2008 (CDT)

(Edit conflict with Howard! It's the Battle of Berkowitz!)

One other thing. I detect an implicit argument that you have not quite made explicit. Your evidence mainly points to the following precise claim: "Historians now prefer to speak of the Gettysburg Campaign where, before, they spoke of the Battle of Gettysburg." Now this is interesting, but it needs interpretation. Without knowing much about the subject (sure, I admit that), I would guess it means something like this. To discuss the battle separately from the campaign is to remove absolutely crucial historical context. The battle, taken separately from the campaign, is of relatively little interest, because the battle simply cannot be properly understood except as part of the larger campaign, any more than you could understand why Lee's troops made a certain movement except as part of the larger battle.

That would be the beginning of an interesting discussion here for us. I'm not sure how it would go, and it is a discussion that I can see historians having. But I would like to point something out: none of the above interesting position requires that we deny either that there was such a thing as a Battle of Gettysburg, or that the battle is properly called "the Battle of Gettysburg." Indeed, you can't make sense of the position unless you are willing to speak of the battle which is known as the Battle of Gettysburg, because the point is precisely that the battle can't be understood except as part of the campaign.

If the position I've described above is in fact the common historians' view, you have taken the wrong approach altogether, Richard. You shouldn't be arguing that we shouldn't use the name "Battle of Gettysburg," but that discussion of the battle should, for reasons perhaps only historians can explain fully, occur in the context of the Gettysburg Campaign. So, when I recently created a page (using text from you) titled Battle of Gettysburg, I removed some context that is absolutely required to understand the battle. This is an interesting point, and it is neither necessary nor sufficient to argue, as you have heroically done, that historians don't use the term "Battle of Gettysburg" in order to establish it.

Richard, I would appreciate it if you could elaborate this position, if you actually hold it. I would appreciate it even more if you did so without casting aspersions on the abilities or knowledge of non-historians; indeed, if you are confident of your position, you ought to be able to establish it without referring either to your expertise or your opponents' lack thereof. --Larry Sanger 10:52, 16 June 2008 (CDT)

P.S. If you can enlist the support of another actual historian to shed light on our dispute, I'm sure that would help a great deal. --Larry Sanger 10:55, 16 June 2008 (CDT)

Richard has alluded to Lee's muddled strategic and operational thinking, which would make a superb contribution, even as a signed article. While there is little argument that Lee was an exemplary human being, I've frankly never understood the reverence paid to him as a military thinker.

Strategic and operational thought was lacking on both sides early in the war, save Scott's Anaconda Campaign. There are a number of historical works that address both levels of thinking once the team of Grant and Sherman formed, including a not necessarily pleasant, but focused, concept of grand strategic thinking; of truly fighting another nation rather than its troops in the field. For example, Sherman's campaign in Georgia was not a sequence of major battles, but, instead, distributed attacks on what he saw as the Confederate logistical thinking (Richard, is there any material indicating what Grant or Sherman thought of Clausewitz's concept of a center of gravity?). Howard C. Berkowitz 11:04, 16 June 2008 (CDT)

There are numerous studies that show Jomini was highly influential on all West Pointers (except maybe Grant, who claimed he skipped over that stuff lightly.) Jomini was classical, map-oriented, geometrical, with forces and arrows. Clasewitz I believe was wholly unknown to Americans in 1860s -- and little known at all until maybe 1920s. As for Meade and "battle of G" -- that indeed was standard usage 100 years ago. The reason was that the generals and their biographers wanted to defend their actions and allegations of failures (Meade was in real trouble in this regard, as were Longstreet, Stuart and Lee). So we had many many biographies of which Freeman's Lee remains terrific. Later there was a stress on individual-soldier-heroism in combat, which continues with a steady flow of scholarly editions of diaries and personal accounts by privates and lieutenants. An encyclopedia can't do much with all those personal stories of small-unit action. The reenactors focus enormous attention on small unit action, and probably are responsible for most of the websites. Recent historians (last 40 years or so--since Coddington 1968) have shifted heavily toward study of the entire campaign, of which the battles on July 1-3 are the dramatic centerpiece but in themselves do not explain the great issues. Focus on July 1-2-3 means that larger issues get slighted, like strategy, the strengths and weaknesses of the two nations, the morale and support networks of the soldiers, and the much-debated issue of whether this was a "turning point." So the modern approach is to study the campaign as a whole, though there are some scholars hard at work on minute-by-minute details of each day's actions.Richard Jensen 14:00, 16 June 2008 (CDT)

Not daring to follow that number of colons without a colonoscope...

It would be perfectly appropriate to discuss, as a campaign, Lee's 1863 plans for the Army of Northern Virginia, but neither the lead nor the first section frames the activities in terms of a campaign. Clearly, Stuart failed if his mission were purely screening, which is a common perception. Lee and Stuart may have had an operational level plan for an independent cavalry operation, but these are not brought out. Presumably there would be other forces in a campaign, and, at a strategic level, perhaps pressure in other Confederate departments/theaters.

Some of Lee's thinking does come out in the "Operations" section, although "fantasy" does seem an apt description of Lee's ideas, which sound like a WWII Imperial Japanese Navy plan for a "decisive battle", at which all the barbarians' ships would conveniently sink. I had had the impression that Marse Robert was, if not a teetotaler, abstemious; those fantasies seem more appropriate for one indulging in psychoactive substances not readily available for a century. Given the Confederacy changed its cryptographic key only four times during the Late Unpleasantness Between the States (the term used by the docent at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond), the South did not seem overly obsessed with security. Was there no one in the CSA to observe that if that reflected Lee's thinking, a switch to Grant's brand of booze might be appropriate? I confess here that I have long thought of Lee as a good tactician, an inspirational leader, and a fine human being, but have never been impressed with his operational or strategic brilliance.

Again, using simplistic names, Vicksburg and the March to the Sea had operational thinking behind them; Sherman's operations in Georgia could well be at the strategic level. Johnston's defense of the railroad showed much more operational thinking than anything in or around Gettysburg.

The maneuvering immediately beforehand was not intended to force a decisive battle at Gettysburg, nor did "rebels, who had entered Gettysburg looking for a warehouse of shoes"--if "the Rebels" implied a major force. In reality, the only reason anything happened there was that a Confederate division commander, Henry Heth, heard that Gettysburg had a storehouse of much-needed shoes, and obtained permission to raid the town in search of those critical transportation resources.

Seriously, if the article is to be about a campaign, the material in this section needs to move much nearer the beginning. I agree with Hayford that the average reader is going to be looking for the Three Days. Somewhere in a pile of books here, I have a volume entitled Why the Confederacy Lost, which contains an interview with George Pickett, a very straightforward man. The interviewer asked if Gettysburg failed due to Stuart's lack of focus, or Longstreet's lack of enthusiasm for a frontal attack. Pickett scratched his head and said "I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."

Having spent 40 or so years in the DC area, "Army of Northern Virginia" sounds like massed irritated commuters in SUVs. Meade wouldn't have had a chance. :-) Howard C. Berkowitz 12:52, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

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Map problems

Maps 3 and 4 are animated gifs (from a government agency; so not copyright) that seem to upload ok and work well on their upload pages, but don't work here???? Richard Jensen 16:26, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

This new configuration of articles needs work

I have decided to move the part of the article about the battle itself to Battle of Gettysburg, which is now a stand-alone article. Richard's claim, that battles per se are not of interest to people, is facially wrong, and I frankly don't think any reply to the claim is needed, since Richard has not seen fit to support it. If Richard disagrees, then he should recognize that he is making a very absurd-sounding claim, that carries a very strong burden of proof.

Both the text on this page at present and the text you'll now find on Battle of Gettysburg were written with the understanding that they would be part of one whole article, and that no separate Battle of Gettysburg page would be written. Since I've decided to overrule Richard on this point, and I very much doubt Richard will help fix the articles, I'm calling upon the rest of you to fix them up. Many of the bibliography items probably cover both, and the bibliography items can overlap, but the items that cover just the battle itself or parts of the battle should be moved (not copied) to Battle of Gettysburg/Bibliography.

Sorry to leave you with a mess to clean up, but I get the sense that there are several people who would be motivated to help out here if they felt they have the "right." Well, you do. This is our article, not Richard's personal property. --Larry Sanger 22:14, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

for the record, I said that people are likely to be interested in a specific battle, like Gettysburg, rather than in battles in general. If other people will put their shoulder to the wheel on history articles, I will be much relieved. So far I have written most of the text of most of the history articles on CZ by myself, and note that several of them have been voted as article of the week or draft of the week. Richard Jensen 22:40, 15 June 2008 (CDT)