Charlie Welch

Suggested additions/revisions to Battle of Nashville article

Thank you for your comments, they are thought-provoking. Because of some time scheduling limitations on my part, I have not been planning on doing any upgrades to this article in the near future--probably not until the fall, at the earliest. You are certainly welcome to make improvements to the article yourself. Although the article currently has very few in-line citations/footnotes, that is an acknowledged limitation that I hope to correct over time. If you make any additions, footnotes would be welcome. By the way, I often have discussions with people regarding the ineffectual pursuits during the Civil War and Thomas after Nashville is the only counter example anyone can come up with. Hal Jespersen (talk) 14:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: G.H. Thomas @ Nashville, reply to yours of 4/17

Charlie, lengthy conversations of this type are probably better done in e-mail. If you go to the "my preferences" link at the top of the page, you can register an e-mail address and set the text box to allow people to send you e-mail. Or you can go to my own talk page and select the link inside the yellow box to send me e-mail. In the style of e-mail, I have embedded some comments below. Hal Jespersen (talk) 17:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Hal- You're far from the first to call me provocative, but it's usually not in a good way!

I actually meant it in a positive sense.

One provocative statement I like to make is that the best general in the ACW was a Virginian. The obvious comeback is 'Lee or Jackson?' When I answer no, the gears start to grind. I makes people stop and think, it usually opens their minds to rationally consider a different point of view.

Okay, here is another provocative statement: the Army of the Potomac had one commander whose record was 1-0 (one win, one loss). Who was he?

I have no clue about how to do anything on this site; I've answered some questions on wikianswers because I feel like I can. I'm not big on citations and footnotes because, while I can remember that I saw something on a given subject, where I saw it can be elusive. Also, some people expect equal respect to be given to sources regardless of its' respectability; just because something appears in print somewhere doesn't necessarily make it true, just ask the publishers of supermarket tabloids. Maybe a question to ask here is what sources are considered reputable, which are thought less so, and how might the casual observer tell the difference? And where could a discussion on this as it relates to the ACW be found?

I don't think I have run across a general discussion about ACW sources on Wikipedia. Distilling the many dozens of pages of information about citations, it boils down to this: select secondary sources -- works by professional historians who evaluate and make judgments about primary sources -- and try to pick the most well-respected, prominent ones. An informal hierarchy would be books published by academic presses, books from commercial presses, magazine articles from those magazines that provides citations (such as North and South), other magazines and newspapers, and with websites bringing up the rear (unless they are from official sites such as the National Park Service).

I read most of B&L about 20 years ago before it occurred to me that it was merely a forum for some to defend/justify/whitewash their actions. I feel confident in asserting that more ink has been spilled on this subject than blood in the ACW.

Battles and Leaders is an example of a primary source (as are most of the documents in the Official Records). Although it is acceptable to use such sources for undisputed data, they should not be used in evaluating, analyzing, or passing judgment.

My knowledge of history in general, and the ACW in particular, is at least above average, but a lot of it I remember from decades ago. My first interest in the ACW coincided with the Centennial, and the last time I did much reading on the subject was about the time of Ken Burns opus on PBS...

The last book I read on the ACW was written by a retired navy captain named Buell, who compared the leadership of three pairs of generals who opposed one another. Thomas ended up looking very good; I think Buell (no relation to the general) may have said that Thomas was one of the progenitors of what has come to be called 'The American Way of War.'

I actually am a big fan of Thomas's, but he has been hurt in history by two factors: Grant's lack of enthusiasm for him and his decision not to publish memoirs or papers. So he is somewhat of an enigma.

Opportunities for pursuit were usually passed up in the ACW, especially early on. This may be because both sides had about the same level of mobility, or maybe it just wasn't covered at West Point. I think Clausewitz said pursuit is the most difficult operation and the one that yielded the greatest rewards, but I don't know if there was even an English translation in the 1860's...

I would define pursuit as chasing a routed enemy, as opposed to just continuing an advance to the next position, such as the AoP or Shermans' army in their 1864 campaigns.

Rear guard actions are required to slow/prevent pursuit. There are a lot more instances of successful rear guard action than successful pursuit. Forrest after Shiloh and Cleburne after Chattanooga come to mind. Does Thomas' defense of Snodgrass Hill at Chickamauga qualify as a rear guard action?

BTW, I think Appomattox would be another instance of a successful pursuit followed to it's conclusion.

Yes, you are right. Oddly enough, Appomattox is the first pursuit I think about, but I have been worn down by many discussions with people who always think of Nashville first, so I overlooked it.

Another odd coincidence, by the way. After I told you I would not have time to work on the battle of Nashville article, I signed up for a tour in November at Spring Hill, Tennessee, offered by the Blue and Gray Educational Society, the first of three "staff rides" concerning Hood's Tennessee campaign. I typically do a lot of research before one of these tours and use the Wikipedia article as my sounding board, so I will be updating this series of articles over the next few months. If you would like to participate in the editing, or just send me text that I can use (with appropriate citations), feel free to do so.

Charlie Welch (talk) 08:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)