You couldn't say it Thomas A. Desjardin...

[whitworth]

but General Governeur K. Warren did not discover the Confederates moving towards Little Round Top and thereby save the Union. Some soldier with a telescope with the U.S. Signal Corps already on Little Round Top did that.

[Miss Markie]

At least the two fellows I have had the pleasure of touring with. Warren 'rushed to the hill' in response to a soldier with a telescope, as you say. But it was certainly Warren who had the rank to get troops to position there... is that what you all are saying?

[samgrant]

Whit, could you some how consolidate your threads, it's getting too confusing for me.

[nbforrest]

Neither of Desjardin's books really impressed me. They didn't shed any new light on anything, although they were billed as destroying myths. I suppose they did prove myths wrong...but myths that have been recognized as incorrect for decades. If Desjardin demolished these myths for people who hadn't heard them before, then he did a good thing. But I think for the more hardcore buff, there wasn't much there. There were plenty of other controversies he could have examined but neglected to. I don't think he raked up the muck enough about Little Round Top. Again, he stripped away some of the hyperbole, but only the hyperbole and myths that have already been recognized as such. Although a reevaluation of Little Round Top is probably best done in its own book.

Respectfully

[whitworth]

But all the historians I've read, failed to some degree on Gettysburg.

My problem with Desjardins is he worked for the National Park Service at Gettysburg and he's from Maine. I expected more!

The problem is Gettysburg is a tourist attraction! The fact it was a battlefield is only incidental, now. Gettyburg was a great battle. Even if the battle is different than the one that the historians paint.

Since, Robert E. Lee could never make an error in the mind of historians, the history of the battle was always going to come out differently, than what really happened. That's a shame. It really was a great battle, affected by errors and a lack of information.

[nbforrest]

I'm not sure that I agree with the Lee comment. It is very true that to many people (some historians included) Lee can do no wrong. But there is an equally vocal group of people (some historians included) that are very critical of Lee, some to the point of questioning his competency. I think that at the current time most historians are fairly even handed when it comes to Lee and if anything, probably are more apt to point out his errors since they never were pointed out in the past.

Respectfully

[ole]

Lee's feet, like everyone else's, were of clay. He made mistakes. But he remains one of the world's great generals, all of whom also made mistakes. His accomplishments will ever be idolized and villified. Such is the lot of the truly great.
Ole

[matthew mckeon]

I liked "Honored Dead" although losing the Joshua Chamberlain, 20th Maine myth was a wrench.

This is from Ole, forrest and others comments about Lee.

Lee's greatest asset wasn't his military skill, but his ability to get his officers to work as a team and inspire his men. He had a real group of touchy, sensitive prima donnas, with a keen sense of their own worth, and he got the best out of them with a minimum of infighting. Davis couldn't do that, Johnson couldn't, Beauregard couldn't, Bragg certainly couldn't.

They felt their honor was safe with Lee. How did he do that? The recent book about Lincoln's cabinet "A Team of Rivals" addresses how Lincoln made his group of prima donnas work. Lee's manners and methods were very different from Lincoln, but he welded a group of individuals who were sometimes on the point of killing each other, and made them work!

[whitworth]

For those unfamilar with Gettysburg, there is a statue of General Governour Warren, a staff officer of General Meade, who "discovered" that the Confederates were attacking Little Round Top. The inference is that the Army of the Potomac had its incompetency and that Warren saved the day.

Warren did move troops to defend Little Round Top. But he didn't discover the movement of Confederate forces. The U.S. Signal Corps was on Little Round Top since dawn on July 2, signalled that information by flag to Meade's headquarters. Warren was sent to make an assessment and did his job. He moved troops in to defend it.

The idea for the statue, came to defenders of Warren, who felt that Warren was unjustly relieved of duty as a corps commander by General Sheridan, just before the surrender of Lee. They picked Gettysburg for the statue and the rest is history.

One sometimes needs a good story, with enough malarkey, to put a lone statue on Little Round Top. General Warren did not discover Confederate movement on July 2 and save the Army of the Potomac and the country.

[nbforrest]

The Little Round Top affair in general is still exaggerated and overplayed. Desjardin does strip away some of the myths, but I don't think he delves into it enough. Someone really needs to rake up the much about Little Round Top. In Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine, it just seemed to me that Desjardin wasn't willing to fully explore the controversies of the hill. He seemed to rest generally on the side of Chamberlain's version of events without totally backing it up (maybe a Maine connection being the cause?) More work to be done on that little hill, to be sure.

Respectfully