Talk:Pickett's Charge

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Pickett's Charge has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.

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The following users are actively contributing to this topic and may be able to help with questions about verification and sources: Hlj (Hal Jespersen) (talk • watchlist • email)

The term Pickett's Charge is used as a metaphor quite often. In fact, today, this would probably be the most common usage. However, I fail to grasp the meaning of the metaphor from this article. Does it mean attacking the center, or what?

I didn't get it either. The article could also benefit from being broken into sections.--

reply: I always assumed it referred to any endeavour that is doomed from the outset.

Contents 1 June 15 edits 2 Longstreet's Assault 3 footnotes 4 January 16, 2007 edits 5 Good article

[edit] June 15 edits

I reverted both paragraphs of the edits today. The first is misplaced as a primary cause, presented so early in the argument. Although all agree that McGilvery's guns were a surprise to the Confederates, the edits make it seem like it was some sort of plot -- "luring" them into defeat. And there were plenty of other guns the Rebels knew about before stepping off. The second new paragraph is so poorly worded and punctuated that I really have no idea what the point is supposed to be. Maybe you can try again. Hal Jespersen 02:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Longstreet's Assault

The term "Longstreet's Assault" is much more commonly used for the Confederate attacks on July 2 on the southern end of the battlefield. It is quite rare to see it used to describe Pickett's Charge, although admittedly, it has been used a couple of times as such. Scott Mingus 01:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] footnotes

I added footnotes today, but as I go through the article again, I see that I have not provided sufficient detail about the assault itself. I will add an expansion to my to-do list. Hal Jespersen 01:30, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] January 16, 2007 edits

In cleaning up the edits applied today, I took the opportunity to re-read the initial paragraph and pruned out a good deal of the hyperbole and POV: "by far the most bloody single military attack in American history", "cut down the flower of the Confederacy's officer corps in the most important theater of battle in the War."

The reason I deleted the new paragraph regarding the Battle of the Crater is that the lead paragraphs of the Wikipedia article is supposed to summarize the remainder of the article, not introduce new material, relevant or not. (A much more apt comparison to Pickett's Charge, by the way, is the Battle of Franklin II.) Hal Jespersen 22:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good article

I've passed this for Good article status. It is obviously well sourced and seems to cover the subject fully. My only complaints would be the skimpy popular media and battlefield today sections just seem awkward, but there may not really anything else that can be put there. I would find a way to expand those somehow in the future. The image of Cemetary Ridge is strangely sized to me, I would have it either cleaned up to remove the border or made large enough to read the caption at the bottom. Good job, though, kept very NPOV in my opinion. -KingPenguin 20:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

The popular media section is only there because someone put it in and I saw no compelling justification for removing it. If I had my druthers, none of these Civil War articles would spend time talking about movies, alternate history novels, mentions on The Simpsons or South Park, etc. But some people insist that trivia be included.

I am a little surprised that this article was nominated and judged to be "good" because it is still quite skimpy in the description of the assault itself. It is one of the articles on my to-do list. Hal Jespersen 22:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)