Talk:Evander M. Law

Evander Law's Profile
I noticed that Laws is credited with commanding an Alabama Brigade. This was in name only, since he also had regiments from Mississippi and North Carolina. My ancestor fought under Laws in the 6th NC in several battles. At Antietam 2 of Law's 4 regiments were from Mississippi (2nd and 11th). At Fredericksburg, 3 of Laws 5 regiments were from NC (6th, 54th, and 57th). In fact, it was largely the 57th NC and 54th NC that saw action under Laws at Fredericksburg. To pretend that he commanded an exclusively Alabama brigade in all these actions is incorrect and insulting to the other states' regiments.

The statement "Law and Hood were used again as the primary assaulting force in Longstreet's surprise attack against the Union left flank, almost destroying Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia" is a gross overstatement. They did experience two marvelous charges, but came nowhere near destroying the Army of Virginia. The entire forces of Longstreet and Jackson were contesting with Gen. Pope's army and together defeated Pope, but did not "almost destroy" his army and certainly 2 brigades of the Confederate army did not almost destroy the Army of Virginia.

I had another ancestor in the 21st NC of Jackson's Corps in Trimble's Brigade. This brigade saw much more action at 2nd Manassas than did Hood's and Law's Brigades. The 21st fought all three days at Manassas including the first evening that was about 20 hours before Laws, Hood, and Longstreet even showed up. So to imply these two brigades accomplished something that the entire Army of Northern Virginia was unable to do is absurd and insulting to the entire ANV and especially Gen. Jackson.

Someone please rectify these inaccuracies and place the qualifying remarks necessary. Misinformation is far, far worse than no information. bwilliams29@nc.rr.com 69.134.18.77 (talk) 02:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look at it. Hal Jespersen (talk) 13:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I updated the article. You are correct that the term "Alabama Brigade" is confusing for the 1862 battles because it was not an all-Alabama brigade until 1863. However, that is the name that is generally used, so I put in a footnote. Also, the assertion that Longstreet's attack was the decisive one at Second Manassas is pretty generally accepted. Jackson obviously played a major role in the battle, but during Longstreet's attack, he really did not do very much. The reason it is appropriate to say "almost destroyed" is that if the Union position on Henry House Hill had been taken and the road to Centreville had been cut off, the Army of Virginia may very well have been destroyed in place. In any event, I have added a citation from John Hennessy, a noted historian of the battle. By the way, I am copying this discussion to Law's Talk page. Hal Jespersen (talk) 22:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

edits May 6
I have made some modifications to the edits that were made on May 6. Hal Jespersen (talk) 23:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I have restored some of the negative information about Law's performance at Gettysburg and provided a citation. If someone has secondary sources that counter Harry Pfanz's judgment on this, please bring them forward. It is not possible to make statements such as "there are no primary sources" and make a judgment unless we have a secondary source to tell us that.
 * I have added a number of flags requesting citations. Normally I don't do this to this extent, but a lot of the material that was added is not covered by the References listed, so we need to get it covered. Particularly since this material contains judgments regarding disputes between officers.

edits May 13
Usually when text is added to articles that does not meet Wikipedia guidelines for verifiability or sources, I simply revert the change as a way of starting discussion. However, the edits of May 13 obviously took a lot of work by new user Asjemery, so I will start with a discussion first. Although the additions to the article are well written, they do not meet the requirements that judgments be documented from secondary sources. The text prior to this indicated the judgment of professional historians and gave a specific quote from Harry Pfanz's work, arguably the most detailed treatment of Gettysburg on July 2. (Pfanz was a longtime chief historian at Gettysburg National Military Park and is widely respected. When I added the citation, I assumed that would be an adequate summation of recent historical judgment.) The edits of May 13 provide numerous statements from primary sources&mdash;a Battles and Leaders article by Law himself and reports from the ORs&mdash;to dispute Pfanz's judgment. The Wikipedia guidelines for selecting the sources to use are in WP:PSTS. When a Wikipedia editor compiles various primary sources and makes judgments based solely on those primary sources, this is called original research and it is not allowed.

Please find secondary sources that make judgments counter to Pfanz's (if you can) and replace the original research and the primary source data. Otherwise, the edits of May 13 will be reverted. Hal Jespersen (talk) 17:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Following a week with no response, I have removed the original research from the article, as described above. There are still a number of citation requests. I will wait another week before acting on those. Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

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