Talk:Jackson's Valley campaign

reverted formatting change
I have reverted the large-scale formatting change recently edited by "Civil Engineer III." I have written a number of these campaign summary articles and they are all in a similar style. The reason that third level subheadings are not used for battle descriptions in these articles is that it makes the table of contents unruly for large campaigns and the intent is that the battle descriptions are very brief; thus, having separate section headers is overkill. I would like to be able to revert only that portion of the many changes that CEIII has been making in my articles, but that is quite inconvenient. I would recommend that people who would like to make changes in well-developed articles contact the original authors and discuss their intentions rather than plowing in and making widespread changes without notice. As an aside, the gratuitous adding and subtracting of blank lines causes enormous difficulty in determining what substantive changes are being made, due to faulty version control software at Wikipedia, so I would ask you to avoid those wherever possible. (I really wonder why people find it necessary to make changes that will have no visible effects on the article.) Hal Jespersen 17:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * point well taken; will comply. however, they are not your articles. Civil Engineer III 18:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I know they are not my articles anymore. I use that as a shorthand for articles I wrote and maintain actively, but I am aware of the Wikipedia philosophy of authorship. And if we were discussing a single article, I would not have much to think or say about minor modifications, such as changing the format of headings. However, I have written over 250 articles and edited many more using a common style. I believe it is useful to have a degree of stylistic commonality across articles, both for readers and editors. So what might seem like a good idea for One particular article seems less attractive to me when it is one out of a dozen that now has a different look and feel. Many of the more important ones have my name listed in the maintenance box of the talk page, so it is possible for people to understand who an interested party is when they are considering wholesale changes, and I am always amenable to discussions on issues of this type in advance. (Although I am an electrical engineer by training, I can also be civil at times. :-))

By the way, another justification for the style used in the campaign articles is that the indented paragraphs describe specific battles and the out-dented paragraphs describe movements and events in between the battles. It would take a lot more headings to represent this sequence correctly, making the table of contents even more unwieldy. Hal Jespersen 22:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok. I now understand the philosophy of what is being accomplished and it makes sense. It just didn't seem to match some other styles I've seen in WP, but I don't guess that means much at this point; it is more important probably that there is consistency within one topic than consistency throughout the entire database, which is an impossibility. While I may not agree with some of the choices made (such as abbreviating military rank) I certainly don't have a problem with it. BTW, I do like your indent and outdent battle sequence, now that I step back and look at it. Civil Engineer III 15:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

As to the abbreviation of military rank, this is somewhat of a work in progress because there are many articles that have not been updated to this style. I selected this style because some of the articles have many dozens of generals mentioned and a lack of abbreviation takes the articles pretty unwieldy. (I also use a style that lists the actual rank, not General This and General That.) The abbreviations I use are a bit more user friendly than the ones in modern Army-related articles, such as BG and MG. (I am a former Army officer, so I am very familiar with the U.S. Army abbreviations in use today, but I am certain that many civilians and non-US readers are not.) Hal Jespersen 17:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

What was the "mood" in Spring of 1862?
Hal:

I don't think the "anxious" sentence is quite right or fair for the opening of the Valley Campaign. Look at some of Henderson's statements:


 * Jackson was "reluctant to abandon a single acre" p. 161
 * "the troops were in excellant spirits" leaving Winchester, p. 162
 * Jackson "had never ... enjoyed more perfect health", p. 162

Now I agree that 200K Federals in the D.C. area facing 32K Confederates along Bull Run will cause a pucker factor. But it did not cause anxiety for Jackson. In fact, his case was the opposite. So I think the background section needs to come a touch closer to the Valley Campaign mood, and then in addition simply state what the facts were facing the Confederates as a whole (which was not wholescale anxiety). Wouldn't you agree? Anyone who marches NORTH out of Winchester to retreat has NO anxiety, and so if only for that, you cannot conclude that the entire CSA was anxious. If anything, having held on this long, there may have been artificial hope, or misled hope on the part of the CSA. Anxious is just to far off I think.

And on the link, I beg, please, consider naming the battles from the view of the operator of the Valley Campaign. The Yanks didn't call him Stonewall either, but we don't edit that out. I'm just asking that out of respect for the fact that this campaign was a southern operation, use the southern vernacular. Remember the main page still says "Bull Run" despite the fact that you won't find a single highway sign or tourist brochure around here with those words (or extremely few, if any).

So can we agree on a middle course? Respectfully, Grayghost01 (talk) 01:41, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The place of the 1862 Shenandoah Campaign in the overall war, especially from the CSA perspective, is significant and should be included in the article exactly as it is. I provided one source, but could have found any number of others that say the same thing.  For instance, Gallagher in his book on the campaign writes in the intro, "In terms of efect, what had happened at these engagements counted for less than when it had happened. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 11:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

You folks clearly have a POV and wrapper you wish to taint all the history with. None of these say anything about anxiety, anxiousness or anything of the sort. Henderson nails it with some direct quotes from letters, which is the basis for his view. Hotchkiss gives no such view either. Why don't we cite the preponderance view, instead of the minority view?Grayghost01 (talk) 00:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As usual, you resort to personal invective over a content dispute. I have replaced the subtle language of "anxiety" with exact quotes that clearly clarify the circumstances of the CSA in the spring. It's a shame that you are unable to differentiate between the morale of one group of troops (as noted in a letter from Jackson to his wife -- Henderson's actual ONLY source for the claim) on the eve of battle with the overall situation in the CSA.  Even Henderson wrote of Virgnia in the autumn of 1861, "Although the war upon the borders had not yet touched the cities of the South, the patriotism of Virginia saw with uneasiness the inroads of the enemy in that portion of the State ... ." Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 11:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * My apologies to Grayghost because I somehow missed the lengthy comment posted above, addressed to me. (I have over 2000 articles in my watchlist and the flurry of robot editing sometimes causes me to miss things.) I'm glad someone was watching it and my thanks to Tom for straightening out the citations regarding the Southern anxiety. By coincidence, the McPherson source is the one I used as the basis for that original sentence, although that was written in the prehistoric days before Wikipedians emphasized the use of footnotes in articles.


 * We have had numerous discussions of battle naming over the years and I believe that the consensus is that we select the battle names that are most widely known by the general public and we use those consistently, regardless of whether the article is about a Southerner or a Northerner. So the biographies of Stonewall Jackson and Irvin McDowell should use the same battle names, for instance. It would be confusing to the reader if battle names changed based on the participants. In almost all instances, we have used the National Park Service naming convention for battles, but there are two notable exceptions that I can recall -- First/Second Manassas are the names used by the NPS and, frankly, a number of Civil War buffs, including me. However, it has been a consensus of Wikipedia editors that the name Bull Run is by far more widely known by the general public, both in America and internationally. I just looked at my bookshelf, for example, and found five books about the two major battles there; four have Bull Run in the titles, one (an Osprey book published in the UK) solely Manassas. The other exception I can think of is Third Winchester, which the NPS somehow names Opequon, and the consensus was that this is such an obscurity that we had to deviate. Hal Jespersen (talk) 17:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Missing it might have been my fault Hal, when I added the boxes to the top of this page after Tom's response had been posted. Sorry if that was the case. Kresock (talk) 22:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

In 5 years of instruction and teaching at MCU I never came across any view of the Confederates being "anxious" in connection to Jackson's Valley Campaign. Nor has my fellow Marine, Ed, been given over to such silliness. I notice he's got my photo of SJ's house in Winchester for his last Valley Campaign tour: http://www.civilwartours.net/trips/tours_08.pdf So anyway, we stretch some "low morale" and "nadir" opinions from the revisionists to fit the Valley campaign, I throw the penalty flag, and out comes the "invective" title. The history of this most-studied-campaign-in-military-history is self-evident. "Nadir" will not be among the conclusions or thoughts of very many students, and certainly never made it into a paper submitted to me. Could a bunch of hand-wringing rebels really rout the ranks of yanks that rigorously? It makes for a comical read. If I were able to edit this article, and we had to have the "desperation" spelled out ... I'd certainly describe it well: CSA outnumbered 7-to-1. Situation is dire. Magically Jackson memorably proves himself the Mozart of the Military, and Lee is lounging halfway to Lancaster after running his anti-clergy cleanup. But Nadir is enertaining, and so "uncle".

The argument on keeping two lone internet pages called "Bull Run" while the modern tourism world uses Manassas, including the Feds, is entertaining to read. Like Opequon, the name is vainly resurrected, but is still not in general use. I believe that most people living five miles on either side of the very short Bull Run don't even know what it is, or where it is. "the Occoquan" is what people call the water-thing they cross at Yates Ford or route-123. I don't even think there is a "bull run" sign on Route-28. If it weren't for the hiking-horse-trail park, the name would be entirely unknown from non-use in Virginia in 2008. And why are we talking about "bull run" on a Valley Campaign page anyway? I really don't get that. But later the article says "and suddenly a hero at First Manassas" ... with out all the "bull" (pun intended). Should we move Manassas National Battlefield Park to Bull Run National Battlefield Park? Just kidding. But I want to point out the incredible resistance on this issue. Of course, the article uses "Battle of Bull Run" again and again in the page, violating the very name of both the page and the battlefield. That shows to what length the craziness goes.

Grayghost01 (talk) 03:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The anxiety in the Confederacy was general because of the overall strategic situation, not "in connection to the campaign." The successful campaign helped turn around that anxiety, which is partially why Stonewall became so famous. We have provided a couple of citations to document that. If you have secondary sources that contradict that assertion, they can be added for balance. As to the name of the battle, we are not basing this on the modern tourism industry or on what some Virginia congressional delegation can get the National Park Service to name a park in their state (you will notice that the Maryland congressmen have successfully imposed the name Antietam on the town of Sharpsburg), but on the overall public understanding of Civil War history at a high level. It is safe to say that the vast majority of people worldwide who understand a bit about Civil War history have never set foot in the state of Virginia, so the name of the battlefield park is not so interesting when they start searching for an article about a battle they've heard something about. Hal Jespersen (talk) 22:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The National Park Service refers to the Battles of Manassas as such. The National Park Service is the "source" used for Wiki, per your and others claims. Yet the Wiki articles are not named Manassas. Therefore there is a double standard. I am simply adding that in addition to the NPS, there are dozens of other very good reasons for the title Manassas, such as common use, tourism, and so on. The argument for using the name Manassas is overwhelming. My conclusion is that this is a POV issue.

Many books don't cite an "anxiety" of the South, because there was no conclusion that there was one. So it is impossible to cite a negative. Therefore you are asking for the impossible, or by logic, all books NOT citing "anxiety" are citations of a lack of anxiety. In the citations of "anxiety", however, the case is still not made. There was a "nadir" and a "low morale". So that is what is in the article per Mr. Northshoreman, who would cite a gum wrapper if it could make his POV-case. I argue further that even "nadir" and "low morale" can be debated on the preponderance of the lack of such conclusions elsewhere (but, again, we cannot cite a lack of a conclusion, remember). If an historian, such as Henderson, makes a conclusion, you will notice the use of first-hand evidence, such as letters from Jackson or his wife. Revisionist historians just make it up, without first hand letters, diaries, and etc. I'd love to see the first hand source for "nadir".

Since the background MUST pertain to the Valley Campaign in SOME way, there MUST be a tie. So while I understand the emphasis on nation-wide affairs for the Confederacy ... I fail to see the tie-in with the Valley Campaign and its folks that were in good spirits, ready to fight.Grayghost01 (talk) 01:42, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * And the personal invective still flows. Jefferson Davis on February 22, 1862 when he was inaugurated as president as the permanent government replaced the provisional one:


 * The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and least responsible form of despotism, has denied us both the right and the remedy. Therefore we are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty. At the darkest hour of our struggle the Provisional gives place to the Permanent Government. After a series of successes and victories, which covered our arms with glory, we have recently met with serious disasters. But in the heart of a people resolved to be free these disasters tend but to stimulate to increased resistance.


 * “Darkest hour of our struggle” -- sure sounds like “nadir” to me.


 * That old neo-Yankee (your term) revisionist Shelby Foote (p. 231 vol. 1) even chimes in with, “In Richmond, as elsewhere throughout the Confederacy and among her representatives overseas, the spirit of men were correspondingly grim.” Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 12:25, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Does every ACW article that covers events in 1862 start with this same "grim" background statement, for consistency? What is the tie to the Valley Campaign? Did the "grim" mood take away from the butt-whooping in the Valley? How did the "grim" mood diminish Jackson's mood? What was Jackson's actual mindset? What was the mindset of his army? Was the "grim" situation somehow different than any other year of the war? Was it bright and cheery by comparison in 63 or 64? How about 65? Was, indeed, the spring of 1862 actually the CSA's "darkest hour" of their struggle, or was it darker at some other point?

My suggestion is that you all consider creating a page, perhaps The Darkest Hour of the Confederacy: 1862. Put all this material there. Link it to all the articles of 1862 actions, since this is such a key issue. Meanwhile, show the historian who makes a link from this grim, darkest hour to the events of the Valley Campaign. Cite and source that, and then put that text in.

Grayghost01 (talk) 02:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Princeton Court House
I have been editing the Valley Campaign article to expand it and I have just noticed that there is a battle in the campaign box that is not mentioned: Battle of Princeton Courthouse (it actually should be Court House to match other similar article names). The few references to this battle on the web seem almost entirely based on the CWSAC summary page, including the Wikipedia article. None of the references to the Valley Campaign article associate this battle with Jackson's campaign, other than Kennedy, whose book is strongly based on CWSAC. Would anyone object if I omitted any mention of this battle from the campaign article and removed it from Campaignbox Jackson's Valley Campaign? Hal Jespersen (talk) 22:01, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Since the events of Mercer County occurred many miles away from the events of the Highland and Augusta counties, I'd agree with the deletion. Commanders of completely different (and apparently uncoordinated) military departments were involved, and the action at Princeton Court House had no apparent effect on Jackson's campaign. Boatner puts the skirmish of 1862 in the West Virginia Operations of 1862 article, better associated with the September Battle of Charleston (1862) than with any operation of Jackson. Might request an article on Battle of Lewisburg, which occurred simultaneously with Front Royal, and group them under Cox's Kanawha Valley Operations of 1862. BusterD (talk) 20:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

some thoughts
Hal, you can have the final say. Consider, though, that the post-war histories generally created the Valley Campaign category as a default biography of LtGen Jackson, and his personal campaign, and at that, some abbreviate it to exclude elements such as the Romney Expedition, such as is done here on the Wiki version of the Valley Campaign. In the motif of the University at Quantico, we took more wholistic examinations, and an item such as LtGen Jackson's campaign was not divorced from the greater picture. The background to the "Valley Campaign" (really Jackson's Valley Campaign) was the intent of the invading Federalists to pierce that fantastic mountain/valley barrier at two points in Virginia: Staunton and the New River valley. Col Wharton did a fantastic job of repulsing the invaders attack at New River and protected the MORE vital railroad/backbone of Tennessee and Virginia. This served the dual purpose of (a) protecting Jackson's rear as he left his repulsive effort at McDowell to head back north and (b) eliminated a possibility of Jackson opting to swing south and protect the railroad from this intrusion. If BG Cox had succeeded, history may have recorded a different outcome, with Jackson taking a notionally safer route of protecting the railroad first, which was a more valuable strategic defense that coming back to the aid of poor Winchester, a much more sentimental but less valuable location. Jackson would then have perhaps engaged the Federal invaders afterward in the "Battle of Staunton" vice the "First Battle of Winchester". In other words, the Valley Campaign is arguably effected by the whole picture. I could go on, in similar fashion, on how the Romney Expedition, its failure, its change in the units under Jackson, and other aspects greatly affected and were a key part of the "Valley Campaign". It was the beginning of the Campaign. But it failed, so the glory-writers begin the deification of Jackson with the unarguable First Kernstown, yet another loss, but often called the "only loss" of Jackson. So, I do resubmit to you, for due consideration, the inclusion of Romney, and the greater treatment in the Valley Campaign article.

And that, then, is the point. Is Wiki writing a biography of Jackson? Or an indexed full treatment of the whole picture? You'll notice in Template:Campaignbox American Revolutionary War: Southern 1775-1779 and Template:Campaignbox American Revolutionary War: Southern that at least most (not yet all) of the South Carolina battles, conducted by at least 5 different major commanders, are logically strung together into the correct chronological series of events, simply divided by before Cornwallis' invasion and after Cornwallis' invasion.

This is an example of where Wiki takes the logical approach of an encyclopedia and categorizes for the purpose of education and information. There are no books, references, authors, etc, which write purely on those terms for the war in South Carolina at that time.

I argue that this approach should be taken for the Valley Campaign. The ACW articles over-adhere to popular (and biased) books. An encyclopedist seeks to categorize, organize and layout the information summary in a way that is condusive to understanding and study. Therefore the entirety of actions in the Valley in 1862 should be summarized and outlined together in that Campaign article and campaign box.

Notice, too, the Valley Campaign article's aftermath focuses on piedmont actions, such as the misnamed "Second Battle of Bull Run" (named after the losing participant, and not in accordance with all Federal and State highway and park signs). What about the aftermath of the Valley after the Valley Campaign? Where is that? It's missing from the article. The aftermath of the campaign is not the glory of Jackson, "the most celebrated soldier in the Confederacy". Rather, the aftermath was the protection and defense of those Virginians in the Valley, spared the wrath of Xerxes II (Lincoln) as their Hoplite Army defended the only two entrances: New River and Shenandoah River valleys. Only this time, their Hoplites decimated the barbarian hordes and returned to defend them for yet a season more. The final tragedy, however, of the Valley Campaign is that later the Hordes did come, and Xerxes' lieutenant, Satrap Milroy, did occupy starting on Jan 1, 1863, removing all former liberties and freedoms of the classical Greco political paradigm, as he persecuted women and children, played the tyrant warned about by Socrates and Xenophon, and violated all norms of western civilization that had been established 2300 years previously. A Greek general, when mistreatment was given to a Hoplite soldier, was executed after a court hearing. But tyrants like Lincoln and Milroy won the day.

So that is the bigger picture, with my philosphical flourishment to underscore the impact and aspects of that series of actions of the Valley, a part of which was Jackson's.

My finest regards, as I leave the decision to you: Grayghost01 (talk) 19:36, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I was not expecting such a wide ranging reply--Xerxes II, indeed. :-) I am not going to try to delve into ancient history or even the American Revolution on Wikipedia to come up with a good solution here. I am merely trolling around for possible objections for an action that some might consider controversial. By the way, I would not object to renaming this article "Jackson's Valley Campaign" if you thought that was more in line with the philosophy of inclusion/exclusion of events. That, after all, is what CWSAC calls it. I wrote the original article way back when and I do not recall why I named it what I did.


 * Currently the article merely mentions the Romney Campaign as part of the background section. Peter Cozzens includes it in his book, although I will have to say that it seems pretty trivial. (I am going to be going on a bus tour of the Romney Campaign with Ed Bearss in a few weeks, so maybe I will change my opinion.) I think the focus of most writers is on how Jackson outmaneuvered Federal opponents and bled away Union attention from the Peninsula Campaign, so actions against the B&O and by other generals outside of Virginia don't seem to relevant to this particular article. It is interesting to see in the Battle of McDowell article, which is currently completely plagiarized from the National Park Service (which I intend to correct pretty soon), that they claim some military historians don't even include Kernstown as part of the campaign.


 * The aftermath section is at the end of the article and I have not reached it yet. Hal Jespersen (talk) 22:07, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Shenandoah Valley Campaign
Why does Shenandoah Valley Campaign link to the 1864 campaign? It seems it should be the 1862, which is more famous. Jehorn (talk) 19:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You are right. But rather than simply changing the link, we'll need to examine which articles link to it and fix them first. I'll work on this soon. Thanks for pointing it out. Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I have corrected all of the links and redirected Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Hal Jespersen (talk) 17:53, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Here are remarks I have seen elsewhere (haven't done a THOROUGH check of the Wikipedia article we're talking about here):

Jackson was denied reinforcements, because of the help that was needed at Richmond, so this campaign became the brilliant diversionary movement that we know of.

Jackson moved on Front Royal by using Massanutten Mountain to conceal his troops moving along the EAST side of that mountain; a Union General (Banks?) thought Jackson was along the Valley pike (on or near modern-day U.S. 11, running parallel to and WEST of Massanutten Mountain).

During this campaign, Jackson took his troops southeast and out of the Valley to trains at Meacham (sp) Station; most of the troops were from the Shenandoah Valley and thought they were being sent to Richmond, leaving the Valley pretty much defenseless, but they were pleasantly surprised when they found the trains were headed west. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.20 (talk) 14:47, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

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