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George Pickett died 150 years ago today. (vanity)
7/30/25

Posted on 07/30/2025 8:46:17 AM PDT by Borges

I saw nothing in the media marking it. Pickett's Charge is certainly a keynote moment in American history.


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: cw; cw1; georgepickett; gettysburg; greatestpresident; insurancesalesman; pickettscharge; thecivilwar
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To: Verginius Rufus
“ Pickett outlived Robert E. Lee by almost 5 years. I don’t think he ever forgave Lee for ordered the charge.”

“That old man destroyed my division.”

21 posted on 07/30/2025 9:15:28 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: Borges

From Gone With The Wind

RHETT:

There’s a little battle going on right now, that

ought to pretty well fix things. One way or

the other.

SCARLETT:

Oh, Rhett, is Ashley in it?

RHETT:

So you still haven’t gotten the wooden headed Mr.

Wilkes out of your mind? Yes, I suppose he’s in it.

SCARLETT:

Oh, tell me, Rhett, where is it?

RHETT:

Some little town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.


22 posted on 07/30/2025 9:16:02 AM PDT by xp38
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To: Leaning Right

Things may have been different if Stonewall Jackson had been there. Lee relied on him quite a bit.


23 posted on 07/30/2025 9:19:51 AM PDT by Doche2X2
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To: Pete Dovgan
“ Gettysburg, in my mind, was never as consequential as Grant taking Vicksburg.”

Agreed. I think Chattanooga was the most decisive battle of the war. Not only was it a brilliant victory but it convinced Lincoln to give Grant command of the entire Northern forces.

24 posted on 07/30/2025 9:20:27 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: happyathome

Longstreet was correct, of course. The quality if Lee’s thinking as a commander deteriorated along with his decline in cardiovascular health during the war. Much of the post-war hostility against Longstreet was due to his embrace of reconciliation and Republican political loyalty.


25 posted on 07/30/2025 9:22:41 AM PDT by Rockingham
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To: Doche2X2
“ Things may have been different if Stonewall Jackson had been there. Lee relied on him quite a bit.”

Perhaps. Jackson has been mythologized. People forget his failures. He disappeared during the battle of 7 days and he was the only southern General whose lines were completely breached at Fredericksburg. Not saying he wasn’t a good General, he was. But he had his failures.

26 posted on 07/30/2025 9:24:42 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: chrisinoc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLq6GEiHqR8

The definitive account of the Pig War :)


27 posted on 07/30/2025 9:29:57 AM PDT by Borges
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Comment #28 Removed by Moderator

To: Pete Dovgan

Not so sure about blaming Stuart for leaving Lee “blind.” Stuart did not take all of the ANV cavalry brigades on his flanking march around the AoP. He took about 1/3rd of the cavalry force leaving the rest to screen the ANV’s line of march. Lee could have taken interest in which brigades that Stuart took with him, or he could have used the remaining cavalry units more aggressively. Lee did neither.


29 posted on 07/30/2025 9:37:38 AM PDT by Tallguy
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To: BenLurkin
"I blame Jeb Stuart"

JEB Stuart commanded seven brigades of cavalry, he left four of them with Lee. This video is great discussing how Lee's biases, and the refusal of those brigade commanders to work together, left Lee "blind." (fast forward to 24:25)

Battle of Gettysburg: why J.E.B. Stuart ends up in Carlisle

30 posted on 07/30/2025 9:39:02 AM PDT by Flag_This (They're lying.)
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To: Verginius Rufus
I don’t think he ever forgave Lee for ordered the charge.

I saw a history show a few weeks ago. Apparently Lee used the same strategy in a previous battle (attacked the flanks, then the middle); he thought it would work again

31 posted on 07/30/2025 9:41:27 AM PDT by 11th_VA
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To: Borges

Wilson Picket died 19 years ago in January.


32 posted on 07/30/2025 9:44:08 AM PDT by rey
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To: Borges

Mistake by Lee
Should have taken high ground first afternoon
Can’t win forever in a strategic long shot war anyhow


33 posted on 07/30/2025 9:44:24 AM PDT by wardaddy (I am older but I try to be polite )
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To: BenLurkin

Yes he contributed
Bedford would have known butter


34 posted on 07/30/2025 9:45:03 AM PDT by wardaddy (I am older but I try to be polite )
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To: Doche2X2

Jackson was really good in the Valley and in the Wilderness of northern Virginia, and was just OK everywhere else. He performed poorly in the 7-days. It would largely have depended on “which Jackson” showed up in Gettysburg. I would say that Jackson would have likely taken Culp’s Hill on the first day, so the “real battle” probably would have taken place at the Pipe Creek line a few days later.


35 posted on 07/30/2025 9:46:47 AM PDT by Tallguy
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To: Borges

Inventer of the slide rule. And fence.


36 posted on 07/30/2025 9:48:58 AM PDT by bigbob (Yes. We ARE going back)
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To: mairdie

Yep. Visited the battlefield 20 years ago and wept when I looked from the Union position at what the Confederates were ordered to do. No army in the world could walk (not charge) a mile in open field against cannon, then, at 50 yards, massed musketry from an entrenched enemy. It was suicide.


37 posted on 07/30/2025 9:52:00 AM PDT by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." Jimi Hendrix)
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To: ConservativeMind
"We have all enjoyed his fences, ever since."

There is a fence at Gettysburg that is pretty significant from a historical-trivia standpoint.

Prior to the Civil War, Daniel Sickles had been serving in the US House as a representative from NY. While in DC, he found out that Daniel Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key, had been diddling his wife. Sickles tracked Key down in Lafayette Park across from the White House, and shot and killed Key. Sickles would be acquitted in the first successful use of a temporary insanity defense in the U.S.A.

When war broke out, Sickle, who had held a commission in the NY militia, but never had any formal military training, was promoted to Brigadier General, and despite his lack of military experience acquitted himself quite well, certainly when compared to other "political generals," in the course of the war. Ultimately, Sickles lost his right leg to a cannon ball at Gettysburg.

Years after the war, Sickles played a prominent role in the preservation of Civil War battlefields and the establishment of the Gettysburg National Military Park. In order to separate the bounds of the park and the national cemetery from the existing Gettysburg town cemetery. Sickles, through political maneuver, was able to secure the iron fence from Lafayette Park in DC, where he had killed Barton Key, and had moved it to Gettysburg where the fence stands to this day.

38 posted on 07/30/2025 10:00:18 AM PDT by Joe 6-pack
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To: Borges

Comradeship between Custer and classmates who had become confedrates during the war, including attending a confederate wedding.

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/george-custer-and-the-confederate-wedding.191231/


39 posted on 07/30/2025 10:05:03 AM PDT by Swirl
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To: Borges

Pickett followed orders. RE Lee threw the dice and got snake eyes that day.


40 posted on 07/30/2025 10:08:30 AM PDT by lurk (u)
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