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Battle of Gettysburg

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found
Result: I think this is now definitely GA standard, as all issues have been fixed, and the criteria have been met. Massive plaudits go to Donner60, Hog Farm and TwoScars for their work on the article, for which they have received barnstars. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:07, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

information Work is ongoing, and might take some time.

First stage

Article requires a bit of work to retain GA status:

I will see what I can do and will bump working on this to the top of my pile of wiki-work. This won't be a quick fix, though, so I request that I allowed a few weeks on this. Hog Farm Talk 19:12, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, no problem. Thanks for your willingness to tackle an important topic :). Femke (alt) (talk) 21:37, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Hog Farm: @TwoScars: Pinging those already commenting. I have 50 books on Gettysburg and the Gettysburg campaign as well as overviews of the war such as Eicher and McPherson. I have bought these books mostly used over a considerable period of time. I was actually surprised at the number when I counted them - although I knew I had way more than I have on any other Civil War topic. So with these sources I should be able to help. I was pleased that an effort on another article could be done without much rewriting and in small chunks. My immediate limitations are mostly due to health and physical condition, which are improving but still need work. I have a second eye surgery on Monday, shoulder rehab, etc. (And real life!) As a result, I am embarrassingly behind on work on a few other articles that I promised to improve. I hope my pace will pick up after another month or two. Hog Farm is right about the size and scope of the article affecting how fast this can be done. He and Two Scars note the possible need to review numerous sources. I intend to make at least some progress, hopefully, without too much delay. I think many readers may rely on this article without necessarily reading other Gettysburg articles so I think it is important to have a good one. Donner60 (talk) 23:40, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
More specific list of problems

Mainly for the benefit of me and anyone who wants to help me out

  • Need to check for dubious text like "Most were loaded, some had more than one bullet in them. It is not known why." - From what I've read, this is generally attributed to misfires or people forgetting that they'd already loaded their guns in the heat of battle. I don't remember where I've seen this, and will need to hunt for a source on that
  • There's currently 7 CN tags, and a few bits of other text that should be sourced as well
  • Cleanup of pop culture/coinage & postage stuff (IMO should largely be nuked)
  • Unreliable sources:
    • brotherswar.com
    • hmdb
    • americaslegacylink
    • Could probably do better than Camp Chase Gazette
    • HistoryNet is mixed - the article by Petruzzi is reliable via its author, but some of the others probably ought to be replaced
    • thoughtco.com
    • history.com
    • civilwarmed blogspot

If we start running into source-text integrity issues, then I'll have to bow out of this. Of the sources listed in the 'references' section, I only have Bearss, Busey & Martin, Catton, Eicher, Foote, Glatthaar, McPherson, all three by Pfanz, Sears, Tagg, and Wert. I also lack the energy to do a top-to-bottom rewrite here. Hog Farm Talk 02:58, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some suggestions for the Battle of Gettysburg:
  • Intro should be only 3 paragraphs—it is too long right now.
  • Does it really need to have citations in the Intro and InfoBox?
  • Drop the three War Department maps—they do not help. Hal's maps look good. They should have a book or atlas listed in the map's Summary in Wikimedia so one can have more confidence that they are correct.
  • Background has one giant paragraph in Military situation section, and way too many paragraphs in the Initial movements to battle section. Needs less text or more section dividers.
  • Perhaps the background should have a sentence mentioning the Battle of Hanover. It delayed Stuart from linking with Lee.
  • Don't need the picture of commanders in the Opposing forces section, or have only Meade and Lee. Maybe some of them could be inserted in the narrative. Do Orders of Battle ever have images?
  • The giant quote from Longstreet is too much.
  • Maybe it is me, but I have never liked the "Commemoration in U.S. postage and coinage" and the "In popular culture" sections in any article about a battle. Maybe they could be moved to Gettysburg Battlefield, somewhere else, or dropped.
    • I've removed the postage/coinage as irrelevant with a link back to this discussion. (This section got nixed at the Featured Article Review for Sherman, I'm not sure why that information is getting added everywhere). I'd recommend rolling the popular culture section into something else - the reunions can be briefly mentioned in a sentence or two, and the film/The Killer Angels is probably worth discussing briefly, especially if we can find a source discussing the film's effect on the popular portrayal of the battle. Hog Farm Talk 02:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The whole article is too long (yes, I have the same problem when writing articles), especially since there are plenty of other articles (Battle of Gettysburg, first day etc.) that go into more detail.
This is what I see without recently having read any good books on the battle. The only books I have that cover the topic are Eicher and McPherson, and those books try to cover the entire war. Also have Shaaara's Civil War Battlefields book that has about 33 pages for Gettysburg. TwoScars (talk) 18:39, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also "tons" of duplicate Wikilinks, although it may be better to fix these last. TwoScars (talk) 21:27, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have made numerous edits to article on February 17, 18, 19. Citations have been provided at all citation needed and the templated unreferenced section. I have made some corrections, further explanation through two substantive footnotes and summarized Longstreet quote except for last key sentences. I will be delayed in helping improve the article for much or all of the next few weeks due to eye surgery and another health issue. But I will continue working on it along with TwoScars and Hog Farm and anyone else who wishes to help as time permits. Donner60 (talk) 09:31, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have deleted three unreadable old map photos and Hancock photo, and moved and reformatted a few other photos, tightens up text, full reasons and explanation in the edit summaries just now on Feb. 27. Donner60 (talk) 06:37, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am putting in here because it was a little earlier: that I made some additional edits and additions to the Pickett's Charge subsection in particular, and split the text footnote under Lee's Plan into two. I also deleted the sentence on the draft riots affecting the pursuit for the reasons I put in an earlier section on the talk page. The changes on that date are summarized in the edit summaries that I posted. Donner60 (talk) 07:06, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For what might be the first time in my editing career, I'm going to invoke WP:BLUE on something. I'm working on fixing one of the better source needed tags, and the source I'm using, Wert's "Gettysburg: Day Three" doesn't use the name "Pickett's Charge" directly at the point I'm using it for. I think " in what is known to history as "Pickett's Charge"" is something so obvious that it doesn't need to be cited, but will hunt down a ref if there's a belief that one is needed for the name Pickett's Charge. Hog Farm Talk 03:11, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Hog Farm: I think that better source needed tag was just put there by me a day or two ago. The cite for the entire paragraph, or most of it, is from HistoryNet, which has the attackers at 15,000 if not other wrong or suspect statements or omissions. I have the better sources. I even thought more than one might be needed. My eyes were starting to blur and I think it was late and I was tired so I put it off for a few days. Some modern historians, in particular, now often call it the Pickett/Pettigrew/Trimble charge. Pickett was supposed to be in charge of the whole operation once it started. Pettigrew and Trimble were also division commanders, filling in for wounded permanent ones. I wonder whether he thought he was or tried to co-ordinate the attack. I did not make a note but I think I saw one or more sources talk about it. I wonder whether it is worth a footnote to point out the naming credit now often given to Pettigrew and Trimble. Instances can be easily found. I don't disagree that "Pickett's Charge" is well referenced enough not to repeat it in another sentence. It makes me wonder whether that is the point Wert was driving at, that Pickett's charge is the usual name but it could be that a different name might also be proper. Or not. Donner60 (talk) 07:01, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Donner60 and TwoScars: My exam is this afternoon, so once I get back from the exam (with a Braum's milkshake if things go badly) I'll pull together all of my Gettysburg sources to have a better starting point (they're scattered across four bookshelves). The more I think about it, a sentence or two discussing the naming of Pickett's Charge vs Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge is warranted either as a footnote or in the main text, and I'll sort through all my books sometime this evening. Hog Farm Talk 15:01, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Remember that there is already a Wikipedia page called Pickett's Charge, and it starts with "Pickett's Charge (July 3, 1863), also known as the Pickett–Pettigrew–Trimble Charge, was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate General Robert E. Lee against...." TwoScars (talk) 17:05, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
True enough. Donner60 (talk) 03:34, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As info, I only know personally one person who passed the entire CPA exam on the first try. TwoScars (talk) 17:05, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I am too late to say good luck, which you likely don't need. So I'll say I hope it went well. I can't say much about the exam or passage rate but from what little I have heard, the exam consists of three parts, each of which has to be passed individually. And it is a rare person who can pass all three parts the first time. I think I heard that if a person passes one part, that person at least does not need to pass that part again. FWIW. Donner60 (talk) 03:33, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's four parts (AUD, BEC, REG, and FAR), and you have an 18-month window to pass them all in. Took my two tries to pass REG, but I got BEC and FAR on the first attempt. Hopefully AUD went well today. Hog Farm Talk 03:39, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good. You seem to be well on your way. Donner60 (talk) 03:42, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Donner60 and Hog Farm: As info, I did some editing on the cavalry section. It appears that it may have been copied from this web site, unless the web site copied from Wikipedia after the article was written—resulting in a circular source. I ran Earwig's Copyvio Detector on the whole article, and had some hits ranging from 99.4% to 13.0%. I have not used this software much, and some web sites may simply be copying Wikipedia (so of course they will have some similarities), but I thought it would be good for everyone to be aware of this potential problem. We all know there have probably been bits and pieces added over the years since the original version.TwoScars (talk) 22:39, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've got a moderate amount of copyright experience and will take a deeper look after work to see if this is a copyvio or circular copy situation. Hog Farm Talk 23:05, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They definitely copied us - compare the older internet archive copy of that page (October 2017) to our article as of December 2016. Of the copyvio check links, the 99.4 copied us, the 42.5 appears to have copied our reference section, the 32.9% is just shared proper names and common phrases, etc. Hog Farm Talk 03:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The battlefields.org one concerned me a little more, but our content is from Hlj in 2006, while their content I can't find from before 2019, so I think that's them copying us too, which surprises me as I thought that was sometimes a decent source. Hog Farm Talk 03:44, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Before the change of name, the American Battlefield Trust was the Civil War Trust. The web site may well have had a different name. I contribute to the Trust and have been on events with them. They always have first rate historians including the Kricks, Chris Mackowski, Kristopher White, Park Rangers such as the chief ranger at Richmond and others that I can't call to mind off the top of my head. They had Ed Bearss giving tours at an earlier time. Gary Adelman is an in house historian. He was one of the commentators in the Grant miniseries recently rerun on the History Channel. I have found the Trust's on-line material to be good but I have only cited it in the preservation section of the Gettysburg article and would look for sources among historians first. If the Trust copied Wikipedia, it was probably much earlier and may actually have come from the historians or perhaps at least been vetted later by one. The Trust also could have had something similar up even before Hlj wrote his text if the Civil War Trust web site went back that far. FWIW. Donner60 (talk) 21:29, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the American Battlefield Trust is a good source now, better than the National Park Service, and have used it before. No matter what the original source for the cavalry section was (Hlj, a web site, or another party), I have altered it a little and added a little. I plan to alter the first and second (especially) paragraphs of the Confederate retreat section, to mention Fight at Monterey Pass and Battle of Williamsport (currently labeled as rear guard action at Falling Waters). TwoScars (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Hog Farm: @TwoScars: It has occurred to me that I saw on Hlj's personal web site photos of his attendance at Civil War Trust events, including one in which he had a photo of him with a small group including Ed Bearss. So Hlj, who may have already been known for his map making, was directly involved with the Trust at an earlier time. Perhaps he even contributed to the write-up that coincides with his text. Donner60 (talk) 22:44, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good work on the cavalry section and in pointing out possible copyright vios. As I have time, I plan to see if some other sections need tweaking or additional sources. I don't especially like the Culp's Hill on the second day subsection. I thought it was somewhat random and did not give a clear picture of what happened. Of course, we don't want to make it too long. I will have even less time than recently over at least the next ten days. I have been trying to spare my eyes but as I noted before, one gets bored staring into space. I have mainly been online in small spurts. My right eye seems quite good after 6 1/2 weeks but the left eye still needs some healing after 2 1/2 weeks. Donner60 (talk) 22:52, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Donner60, Hog Farm, and TwoScars:, thanks for all of your work on this very important article. Are you planning to continue, or, if not, do you think it meets the the GA criteria? This isn't an ultimatum, btw, just asking for a progress update. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:51, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AirshipJungleman29: I think it has been improved substantially (mostly by Donner60). Most of the articles I write are too long—yet it appears to me that this article is already too long, but I don't want to be the one who cuts text without the consent of others. That does not mean that it has not been restored to GA. I'll go along with whatever Hog Farm and Donner60 believe should be done or not done. We already agreed that this is a long-term project. TwoScars (talk) 20:21, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, a prose size of around 9500 words is about what I would expect from an article with this much scholarship about it. If anything, I'm most concerned about the notes, which are quite possibly too detailed (criterion 3b). That said, take as much time as you need: we won't have to start seriously thinking about closing this until late May. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:28, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AirshipJungleman29; @Hog Farm; @TwoScars I usually put only a few brief footnotes, or none at all, into articles. In this case, there is much disagreement among historians about various details of the battle. I think this needs to be noted. A potential problem in this article is that someone can grab on to a particular source and give a detail, often a number, that is inaccurate to the extent that it is not even in the range of possibilities. It has already happened a few times.
Pickett's charge is an example. Leaving out relatively contemporary estimates that are even higher: 15,000 men in the charge according to a comment by Lee and those that cite this? No, as explained. 13,000 according to Longstreet. (His response to Lee is sometimes cited to support 15,000; it doesn't.) Closer but he was just estimating the number of men he had left. And others in a lower range. As Carol Reardon wrote: nobody really knows the number.
I can look at what I can do to cut them down. But I see errors creeping in (good faith, but still errors) if there is not some explanation about differences among even reliable historians. I noted above that I think the Culp's Hill second day subsection could be clearer. Also, I think some of the later sections on the effects and contemporary and historical assessments might be trimmed.
This was a huge and complex battle. I agree that articles can get too long. I think this is one that may need to be on the long side to give a fair summary of who and what were involved, what happened and its importance. But that does not mean some thoughtful changes can reduce the size and keep most of the substance. I know I sometimes can go on at length, e.g. this note. Consensus, of course, should be the bottom line.
A quick addition since I didn't exactly answer the question. I think that it might well be GA already, but I would like to make some more edits along the line I mentioned. I also think a few references can still be replaced with better ones. With tax returns coming due and some other time constraints over the next few weeks, I am not sure whether I can finish what I have in mind until later next month. Donner60 (talk) 22:00, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Donner60: Is there anywhere that it would be helpful for me to look over and compare all of the Gettysburg sources I have to see if there's consensus on a point? I passed all my CPA exams and have already paper filed my own taxes, so I've got some extra time for now. Hog Farm Talk 23:03, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Great news on the exam. Congratulations! Are you are asking about any fact or statement about which historians actually disagree but the text is definite and does not suggest that there is disagreement? Or perhaps put a little differently, that a statement is not as definite as the text appears and needs further research? Or are you thinking about trying to get a consensus on a point where some similarity is found in most sources, perhaps disregarding outliers? Or am I missing the point altogether? Donner60 (talk) 01:10, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I misread your previous comment (not enough sugar in the sweet tea, I guess). Is there anything I can work on or review with the article to make myself useful? Hog Farm Talk 03:48, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I'll start with a few of the points that I have thought could be improved. I haven't made a comprehensive list. Also, I have looked at the items that have caught my attention rather generally, not in enough detail to see whether my initial thoughts should lead to much change. Maybe give them a look to see what you think or to improve them if you think along the same lines. The second day at Culp's Hill might be made clearer and more complete even if it takes a few extra sentences. I think the sections on the effect on the Union and Confederacy come completely from McPherson and may need a better and more complete focus, not necessarily expansion. I also think the sections on historical assessment and Lee v. Meade could be better and perhaps shorter. As an aside, I think Lee v. Meade isn't a very good subsection title because other top commanders are also considered. I have been approaching this piecemeal as I consider whether references should be changed or otherwise appear not to support a point and haven't quite finished that review. I mentioned above why I have added long text footnotes. You might want to look at them to see whether you think any could be pared down because they may not be viewed favorably by all, or I might have just been too verbose with some of them. Donner60 (talk) 05:05, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The footnotes are long, but I agree that it is necessary to list additional sources—including those that disagree with the narrative. This should prevent people from making changes to the article because they found a source that differs—or at least one could be justified in reverting those types of edits because the change was already covered in the footnotes. (A few years back, we had problems with West Virginia-related Civil War articles that were getting numbers changed here and there by someone who was using really bad sources.) For the article, I think the First day of battle is a lot of paragraphs under a single subsection. Maybe the eleven paragraphs could be divided into a few more subsections. I also think the lead could be made a little more compact. TwoScars (talk) 15:42, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@AirshipJungleman29; @Hog Farm; @TwoScars Although I should be working on real life things, I began to think that there was something not quite right about the explanations of the historians' inconsistencies in numbers of units and men included in Pickett's Charge and the casualty counts. I I am going to review the references again because those units took many casualties despite the fact that the main charge was over before they started and Wilcox, in particular, pulled back promptly. I'll try to get the revisions done quickly, maybe even tonight if I can get through a review the sources on these points. Donner60 (talk) 02:51, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@AirshipJungleman29; @Hog Farm; @Donner60 - Anything for me to do? I just finished Battle of Charleston (1862) and Novelty Glass Company. TwoScars (talk) 15:57, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to give this a re-review either this afternoon or more likely tomorrow afternoon. Hog Farm Talk 15:59, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There appears to be two unreliable sources remaining-a blog and a YouTube link. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:26, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AirshipJungleman29; @Hog Farm; @TwoScars I replaced footnote 151 with a citation to an article by doctors in the HHS National Library of Medicine (actually cited by the blog) and added a citation to Murray. I rearranged and slightly added to the text about the reunions. I added Reardon and another citation. I kept the You Tube link only as a citation to the rare film clip of the 1913 reunion which is what is shown in the You Tube presentation. Both of the film clip links could simply go to external links as well. In fact, the 1938 reunion clip was already in the article, cited from an NPS link, and is already in the external links referenced directly. Donner60 (talk) 07:08, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some thoughts of mine:

  • We include Imboden, Robertson, and Grumble Jones in the Confederate cavalry orbat. Is it worthwhile to footnote or mention that these commands were not actually present for the fighting at Gettysburg?
  • " "The Battle of Gettysburg and the American Civil War – The First Shot Marker". Archived from the original on April 16, 2005." - I don't believe this is RS, and propose deleting the sentence it supports because I don't think we need to mention Jones's 1886 marker in an article covering the entire battle
  • "Two of Longstreet's divisions were on the road: Brigadier General George Pickett, had begun the 22-mile (35 km) march from Chambersburg, while Brigadier General Evander M. Law " - I don't like the phrasing on this. Law was just a brigade commander, and if my memory of reading Pfanz's Day Two work a few months back is holding up correctly, was a trailing brigade, but the current phrasing implies Law and commanding an entire trailing division
  • "Lee did not issue orders for the attack until 11:00 a.m." - I don't think we should be citing the timing here to Longstreet's memoirs. I believe Pfanz among others discusses the timing of this in detail, although I don't think I'll have time to really dig into sourcing on this for a couple days
  • "Colonel Andrew L. Harris of the Union 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, came under a withering attack, " - I think maybe we ought to also include what corps this was (XI)
  • "Much has been made over the years of General Longstreet's objections to General Lee's plan" - again, I would personally rather see us cite the consensus of modern historians than just Longstreet's memoirs, which at least in places were not all that objective, here
  • "The Union Fishhook Historical Marker". www.hmdb.org. Retrieved December 17, 2022." - this is not a reliable source

@Donner60 and TwoScars: - I think that's my primary concerns. Would personally trim the Grant vs. Lee section, but I think we're fairly close to GA status at this time. Hog Farm Talk 01:31, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think it would be useful to mention the Confederate cavalry units that were with Lee's invading force but not present for the fighting if including them in the overall force. A sentence or phrase about why they were absent e.g. screening Lee's force or protecting the route back and/or foraging or whatever would be useful as explanation.
  • I agree that it is enough to state that Lt. Jones probably fired the first shot but the sentence about the marker and the picture of it should be removed as superfluous.
  • Major General Lafayette McClaws's division of Longstreet's First Corps did not come up to the battlefield until the morning of July 2. Although Law's brigade of Hood's Division was on picket duty at New Guilford and also did not come up until the afternoon of July 2, the "two divisions" in the sentence almost certainly was meant to refer to "McLaw's" Division with Laws brigade of Hood's division also mentioned. Law took temporary command of Hood's division after he was wounded but that occurred on July 2 after they arrived and entered the battle in the afternoon of July 2.
  • If I recall correctly, historians don't entirely agree on the time that Lee's attack orders were issued and some may even state it was likely a time later than 11:00 a.m. Sources besides Longstreet should be available for this and could be cited.
  • The XI Corps may be implied from the previous sentence but I see no problem in adding "XI Corps" to give a clear full reference to Harris's division in particular since the attack on the XI Corps and the corps's failure to hold its position again is often made.
  • Remove "Much has been made..." sentence. The rest of the paragraph is about Longstreet's response, which is appropriate. It seems to be widely accepted and some reference to historians that accept or refer to that account could be included. What has been made about Longstreet's objection is itself perhaps more properly part of the historical assessment.
  • I removed the hmdb citation. I had added a footnote citing Sears and Eicher as more reliable sources for the shape of the Union defensive position and intended to remove the hmdb citation. I overlooked removing it so I went ahead and took it out.
  • I think revising and trimming the later sections about the assessment, especially "Lee v Meade", would be appropriate but I don't think it should be necessary to do it right away to retain GA status. It could wait for a while until one of us has a little more time to work on it. It could take a little time to write a better, and presumably shorter, version. Donner60 (talk) 05:12, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, that's pretty much my thoughts on Grant vs. Lee - we can deal with that later. I've gone ahead and removed the sentence about Jones and the 1886 marker. Hog Farm Talk 12:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've added the XI Corps attribution, removed the non-RS detail about the Jones marker and the image of the Jones marker, and have slung together a multi-source footnote to support the 11 am start time. Will try to dig up a source for Robertson, Jones, and Imboden not being involved in the battle soon. Hog Farm Talk 02:04, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Hog Farm; @TwoScars And this misleading sentence needs to be changed: "Meanwhile, the town of Gettysburg, with its population of just 2,400, found itself tasked with taking care of 14,000 wounded Union troops and an additional 8,000 Confederate prisoners." The cited essay published in the New York Times in 2013 doesn't even support this as written since it mentions the doctors that Lettermann left behind. I actually have two books that deal with the subject of the wounded after the Battle of Gettysburg and a biography of Lettermann. Letterman left 106 doctors behind to care for the wounded. This was a very inadequate number but he had to decide how many to take with him in view of the possibility of another battle down the road in Maryland. He left only 30 ambulances and the railroad had been torn up - although it was fixed within about a month by Herman Haupt's men. The lack of transportation meant that the wounded had to be left in the area for the time being and not moved to hospitals in larger cities. They were spread out for at least 8 miles in any direction so they all weren't at Gettysburg. Many relatives and volunteers soon showed up to help but unfathomably the officer left in charge sent a message to Harrisburg to be published in newspapers that even doctors ought not come to help because of overcrowding and transportation problems. Some may have come anyway but it became a scandal. The numbers of wounded are round numbers. Sources differ, of course, but the Confederate number of 8,000 appears to be more than 1,000 too many. Unfortunately, I think this lone sentence is too misleading to leave in place over the long run. Yes, the local population was greatly overburdened and perhaps the sentence gives some indication of the problem of caring for so many wounded after the battle. But no, they were not left to care for the wounded by themselves. I would prefer not to write 8 or 10 sentences and/or a lengthy footnote in the article to explain all this so I will try to find a way to cut it to 2 or 3 sentences and 1 or 2 different citations, which is the reason I haven't just changed it or deleted the phrase about the townspeople being left to care for the wounded already. I thought it best to explain this additional problem now because I might get to it even tonight but it might be several days and the revision should be shorter than this note. Donner60 (talk) 01:31, 8 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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