Talk:Battle of Appomattox Courthouse

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Contents 1 Grammar 2 Grant's Headache 3 Confederate casualties 4 Something weird is happening to the edit button 5 Surrender Importance 6 The Last Battle 7 saluting

[edit] Grammar

This article has some serious run-on sentences. We need commas, STAT! I don't have time to do it now; hopefully, someone else can get to it first.

[edit] Grant's Headache

"Grant who's headache had suddenly disappeared when he received Lee's note arrived in a dirty private's uniform with only his shoulder straps showing his rank."

It's not mentioned previously that Grant had a headache. Does anyone know more about this? -- Arekku

• A quick Google search reveals a few mentions of Grant's physical condition prior to and during Appomattox, including this reference from PBS.org's site on Ken Burn's Civil War documentary :

Grant noted at several points in his memoirs that he was suffering "very severely" with a "sick headache". He used what was probably the traditional remedy for that in the mid 19th Century, which included bathing his feet in hot water and mustard as well as putting mustard plasters on his wrists and back part of his neck.

Grant noted that as soon as he read Lee’s note suggesting they meet to formalize the surrender of the Confederate army, his headache disappeared.

• I suggest something more be added earlier in the article about Grant's headache. For now, I'll revise the existing line. --Nick 17:01, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Confederate casualties

I noticed that the "Casualties" column for the Confederate side lists 28,000. I assume that the intention here is to indicate that Lee's army surrendered, and so the entire army was a "casualty." However, I'm not sure that this is appropriate. I've always known casualties to mean soldiers killed and injured in action, and while I could see this being extended to missing and captured soldiers I don't think it applies well to an army that surrenders and is allowed to return home. Does anyone else have an opinion? Perhaps the best solution might be to give a figure for soldiers injured and killed, and then note that the army surrendered and was dispersed. TomTheHand 19:19, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Something weird is happening to the edit button

In both the Firefox and Opera internet browsers, the edit buttons for the first three paragraphs are in the wrong spot. In Firefox, they're overlapping the last battle section, and in Opera, all three are at the bottom of "The last battle" section. I checked in Internet Explorer, and it's working, so I don't know what's going on. Could someone please look at it?

Daniel

I find that Campaignboxes following the Infoboxes make many articles rather fragile in this regard. Oddly enough, although I have been Wikipedia-ing for a couple of years, I have no idea where to report bugs like this. Perhaps someone can enlighten us. In the meantime, can you reconsider your edits that put these comparatively large flag images into battle articles? Either reduce them to a manageable size (50px?) or forget about it, pls. (I see that Internet Explorer, which I rarely use, displays them quite clumsily in comparison to Firefox.) Hal Jespersen 02:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Surrender Importance

I've included the actual text written by Grant to Lee in the McLean House, which was needed. The surrender was just too important to be stated as a minor entry. Could a separate article on the surrender be written, if not already? Carajou 05:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I think this is the appropriate place for the information you have added. The problem with having a second article is that I cannot imagine a name that people would immediately think of: Surrender of Robert E. Lee? Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia? Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse? In any event, since the detail you have added is not overly long, I see no problem with leaving it here. Hal Jespersen 16:56, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

True, and I thought of that after I included some of Grant's and Chamberlain's details. If I may suggest, since what happened at Appomattox is one of the most important days in this country's history, we go into detail by including as much as possible from those people who were there at the time, not just Grant and Chamberlain, but Lee, Longstreet, Gordon, etc. It should provide the reader with something that could be really used (like a kid doing homework). I think this should also clear up the grammar problem as well. Carajou 19:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

You need to balance human interest material with the content and formatting requirements of an encyclopedia. If the material about the other generals is primarily personal in nature, such as their thoughts and reactions, I think it would be better placed into their biography articles than here. Hal Jespersen 20:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Last Battle

Minor edit of quotations from Gordon and Lee. I checked against what was written in Freeman's book on Lee as well as more current books for accuracy. Carajou 07:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] saluting

I have removed the following unencyclopedic editorial comment from the main article:

The reference to the V Corps saluting the Confederates (Gordon) was a myth perpetuated by Chamberlain (his Union peers came to despise the man as the man to boast his political goals blew the Gettysburg incidents out of portion). This was a common thing for the age Mrs. Jackson did the same for Thomas as did Mrs. Pickett and later Mrs. Custer. It just was not acceptable and considered in bad taste when done by the indiviual. In reality the salute was nothing more then relieving the men who standing in one position became very tired; they were ordered to change positions every few minutes. (Diaries show that the men rather then being friendly had to be relived of the ammunition to ensure shots were not taken).

Before this paragraph is restored to the article, we will need to have some citations from secondary sources to back up this claim. We also can do without the POV opinions on the characters of Chamberlain and the other Civil War generals mentioned. Hal Jespersen 21:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)