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Larry Purtell
Little Meadows
PA USA
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Posts: 1739
Joined: 2004
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7-9-1863 Second installment
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Probably one of the most balanced statements concerning George Meade and his Gettysburg command performance. From the Montrose Democrat. Montrose PA. July 23, 1863
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"My goal is to live forever. So far, so good.
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Phil Andrade
London
UK
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Posts: 6380
Joined: 2004
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7-9-1863 econd installment
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That’s a really good article, Larry.
Thanks for pitching it.
As you say, remarkably balanced, with implicit emphasis on the failure to seize the chance to consummate a devastating victory, tempered by a fulsome acknowledgment of Meade’s courage and steadiness under awful pressure.
Another feature catches my eye : again, we have a Pennsylvanian newspaper in the eye of the Gettysburg storm, so to speak, that yet reminds its readers of the horrors of war in the more distant theatre of Louisiana.
Port Hudson has always been overshadowed by Vicksburg, and, of course, Gettysburg; but, in its sheer horror and gory squalor, it stands out as something specially nasty. Indeed, the account of the recovery of the decomposed dead and the three surviving wounded left me keen to find out more about the sequel, but the account was cut off before we could find out what happened.
Any chance of revealing the rest of that Port Hudson story ? Did the three wounded survive ? Hope I’m not being presumptuous in asking.
Regards, Phil
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"Egad, sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!"
"That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes
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Larry Purtell
Little Meadows
PA USA
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Posts: 1739
Joined: 2004
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7-9-1863 Second installment
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Quote: That’s a really good article, Larry.
Thanks for pitching it.
As you say, remarkably balanced, with implicit emphasis on the failure to seize the chance to consummate a devastating victory, tempered by a fulsome acknowledgment of Meade’s courage and steadiness under awful pressure.
Another feature catches my eye : again, we have a Pennsylvanian newspaper in the eye of the Gettysburg storm, so to speak, that yet reminds its readers of the horrors of war in the more distant theatre of Louisiana.
Port Hudson has always been overshadowed by Vicksburg, and, of course, Gettysburg; but, in its sheer horror and gory squalor, it stands out as something specially nasty. Indeed, the account of the recovery of the decomposed dead and the three surviving wounded left me keen to find out more about the sequel, but the account was cut off before we could find out what happened.
Any chance of revealing the rest of that Port Hudson story ? Did the three wounded survive ? Hope I’m not being presumptuous in asking.
Regards, Phil
Hi Phil. Always glad to accommodate a fellow civil war enthusiast.
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"My goal is to live forever. So far, so good.
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Phil Andrade
London
UK
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Posts: 6380
Joined: 2004
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7-9-1863 Second installment
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Larry,
Profound thanks to you.
I was diffident about asking for that elaboration, but you gave full indulgence to my request.
What more could one ask from such a forum ?
Apart from my macabre fascination with that really nasty affair at Port Hudson, I’m minded to cite another severe repulse just one month before at Vicksburg, where huge bloodshed was accompanied by foul conditions in stultifying heat, with all the attendant horrors of static warfare and death by inches between the lines. The triumphant narrative of Union arms in that theatre must not obscure the ordeal of the boys in blue who paid the price. The fact that I mention this on the Gettysburg sector of the forum is of significance : there is a temptation to allow the drama of the war’s most famous battle to overshadow what was going on elsewhere, and in that horrible vignette of what transpired at Port Hudson we have a portent of what Cold Harbor was to entail one year later.
Indeed, the story is redolent of the warfare in France and Flanders half a century later.
Let me reiterate that this is penned by Pennsylvanian journalism, at a time when Gettysburg must have been to the fore in the public perception, and this is to the credit of those reporting.
More generally, the complete candour of the report into what the fighting entailed stands as evidence of a profound robustness in the democratic polity : the press of 1914-18 would have been constrained if it revealed what was happening in the trenches, even if people at large were aware.
Regards, Phil
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"Egad, sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!"
"That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes
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