Talk:Jubal Early

Edits Jan 05
I recently put in a good bit of work editing this page and see that the edits were reverted back. I have restored the edits. If you would like to discuss specific ones and make changes, please do not throw out a lot of the work that you probably should agree with. The changes included a lot of style, spelling, grammar, and category improvements, plus:
 * Removed copyrighted painting, used in violation of Wikipedia rules.
 * Removed lengthy quotations, which were hardly in the style of an encyclopedia, and covered details way out of proportion to the main thrust of the article.
 * Removed excessive detail and map about Cedar Creek. The place for such info is a page about the battle itself, not a biography of one of the participants. This wasn't even Early's most interesting battle.

big_hal 17:54, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Reverted to this text. The Talk page is not supposed to be the text of the original article

big_hal 18:30, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Photo
I am trying to decide which image to use for The battle box. Which one do you think I should use? --BrenDJ 21:31, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)






 * The second one is a better photo. I assume you don't mean 'battle box' literally. Hal Jespersen 21:45, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Jubal Early was my great great great great great grandfather - Anthony Fizer

December 1-3 edits
I have reverted or adjusted several of the recent edits to this article, as follows: Hal Jespersen (talk) 01:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) The editorial comment regarding the look on Early's face is inappropriate for an encyclopedia article. The sentence about his embittered attitude did not fit the preceding sentence regarding recruiting infantry regiments.
 * 2) The description about Monocacy does not comport with the references to this article and deletes some useful information. You will need to provide citations for substantive delays at Harpers Ferry or Lew Wallace having Army of the Potomac troops under his command.
 * 3) I have restored the brief paragraph on his positive contributions and Bud Robertson's quote about him.
 * 4) The version of his memoirs that are referenced in the article have different page numbers than the one cited for the lengthy quotation. I have also deleted the un-cited POV regarding the character of the Southern Confederacy.


 * I have restored the Harpers Ferry Section with a reference to the OR. Historians have long overplayed the battle of Monocacy. It delayed Early for one day. He dawdled at Harpers Ferry for three days before bypassing the small force on MD Hts. At Monocacy, Early was not repulsed, he felt out the Union position, and he defeated Wallace's force with only one division. When Gordon's division went in at Monocacy, it encountered heavy resistance but did not break. Gordon's division was actually outnumbered by Rickets Yankee Division, yet the ramrod Georgian still drove the yanks from the field without aid of the rest of Early's army.


 * The reference you deleted was from Early's original Early book. It is more appropriate to cite the original text over the reprints. Libbie76

I am going to avoid making changes to the article until we have achieved consensus here on the talk page. In making the changes that you have, you have omitted Early's success in the Valley prior to Monocacy ("... defeated several armies ..."). Also, the reference to the OR merely documents troop movements, it does not offer a secondary source analysis of whether the time was wasted or not and whether this had a substantive effect on the battle. Can you provide a citation by a historian that supports your point of view? The current References to the article do not support the claim that three days were wasted at Maryland Heights. As to your point about the memoirs, you did not provide an actual citation, so I found one that was immediately available, the re-issued text edited by Gary Gallagher. The quotation appears to be the same, so it should not make much difference, but if there is a current version of the earlier work in print, please provide the particulars: title, publisher, year, and ISBN. Hal Jespersen (talk) 18:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

December 5 edits
Good idea to discuss here before proceeding. I think this can be a great page. I want to accurately portray Early. I felt that to make claims that weren't true such as winning several victories in the Valley prior to Monocacy would diminish the value of the page. His only battle victory prior to Monocacy came at Lynchburg which is in the Virginia Piedmont on the east side of the Blue Ridge, about sixty miles from the Valley.

I propose we add the following to the beginning of the Valley even though it did not happen in the Valley:

"Lee sent Early with the Second Corps to save Lynchburg, VA, a vital rail and logistics center for the ANV from capture by Union Gen. David Hunter. Early defeated Hunter on June 18, forcing him to retreat into the mountains of West Virginia. Early then advanced down the Valley, crossed the Potomac River and operated around Harpers Ferry and in Western Maryland for several days in early July."

Then go into the Monocacy fight. I do want to emphasize that Early's PRIMARY mission was to divert troops away from Lee at Rich/Petersburg. Threatening Washington was the means to accomplish this. He also had a secondary objective of freeing POW's at Point Lookout which is beyond the scope of this page. I think that I may be getting too much into topics more appropriately discussed on the Monocacy page than under Jubal's page. The point there is that if one day's delay at Monocacy meant failure for Early's campaign, then the loss of three days at HF/MD Hts is 3x as critical. But hey, who wants to read a book called, HF: Futile Maneuvering that Saved Washington. The point is time lost is time lost, regardless of the cause. We tend to focus only on the combat actions and overlook everything else that plays into the big picture. I digress and agree that this is beyond the scope of this page.

Early's first victory in the Shenandoah Valley came on July 18 at Snicker's Gap then a few days later at Kernstown. Both of these were over George Crook, commanding Hunter's former army from the Lynchburg fight. We should probably state that Early held Sheridan in check for more than 40 days before Sheridan was able to defeat him instead of just going into his defeats.

What do you think? I can get the citations for all of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Liberterian1776 (talk • contribs) 01:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * This is fine. If you are unfamiliar with Wikipedia citation markup (which I infer from your previous edits), feel free to add the general information here or e-mail it to me (see my user page for an e-mail link) and I will get it formatted correctly. My comments regarding victories over several armies will be satisfied if this level of detail is included. Hal Jespersen (talk) 01:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Nick
I moved the edit regarding Early's nickname here: ", "My Bad Old Man" (by General Lee)" It can be added back with a cite, either in box (without Lee) or within the body of the article. Kresock (talk) 21:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Added text to Wikisource
I recently added A memoir of the last year of the War of Independence, in the Confederate States of America to Wikisource. Please come over and help proofread it. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 04:38, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Early mentioned in NCIS LA TV series
For the "popular media" Section of this Article: Early is mentioned in the TV series "NCIS Los Angeles" by the head of the LA Devision, Headdi (?) as "the last person to have fun in Washington. (...) He was attacking it." NCIS LA episode 1x08 "Ambush" - around 15:30mins 84.62.32.100 (talk) 19:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * That's pretty non-notable. Hal Jespersen (talk) 23:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Ransom of Frederick (Jubal A. Early as "terrorist")
Is there no information in this article about the $200,000 extortion in 1864, wherein Gen J.A. Early demanded money from the City of Frederick, or else he would burn the city to the ground? Was the information previously included but deleted?21:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)160.253.0.8 (talk)


 * Since Early's entire campaign into Maryland and back is covered in two paragraphs, this is a level of detail that we chose to omit. He actually attempted to get ransom from a number of cities in Maryland. Since terrorism is poorly defined, and rarely used in in conjunction with the actions of regular armies, I would counsel you not to use it for this example. Hal Jespersen (talk) 23:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * ..and for the article the use of such term would would need a citation from a reliable source to even be considered. That is a fairly anachronistic way to describe it. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—►  01:02, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * If editorial colleagues are reluctant to use the word "terrorism" to apply to Early's annihilation threats (and ransom demands), that's fine. But I wonder about the correctness of invoking a distinction based on the notion that Early's extortion was "in conjunction with the actions of [a regular army]." Because it was an insurgent force organized in rebellion during a civil war, it is not clear that the Confederate States Army should be considered a "regular army." But regardless of whether or not one chooses to consider the rebel Confederate States Army a "regular" army, it is clear that Early's extortionate threats to target civilians and cities for destruction (like the actions of Sherman against civilians in the South) were contrary to the emerging "rules of war," reflected in such contemporary documents as the Lieber Code.

160.253.0.8 (talk) 17:14, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I have a citation for that if you'd like it. History of Frederick County by the Historical Society of Frederick County I can ask them where they found that if anyone would like.  I actually just read that PDF and came here to see if the ransom was mentioned anywhere in the article.  It seems to me to be an especially large ransom and might be worth mentioning on that note. Zell Faze (talk) 16:25, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Statue at the Courthouse in Rocky Mount, Virginia
I have removed the statement in the Honors section that claims the statue on the front lawn of the courthouse in Rocky Mount, Virginia is of Jubal Early. As the various archived newspaper articles and press releases on this page of the Jubal Early Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy document, the statue is of a "Confederate soldier", not Early. The question was even addressed in The Roanoke Times of June 9, 2007: '''Over the years residents mistook the statue of a Confederate soldier as the county's famous native son Early, who fought in the war and later became a prosecutor for Franklin and Floyd counties, said local historian and physician Dr. Francis Amos. "Gen. Early has a plaque on the site, but that's not him," Amos said. "The man in the statue carried a rifle. Gen. Early would have had a sword."''' --79.76.127.101 (talk) 17:53, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Temporary rank?
I cannot find any sources in the article substantiating the claim that his rank was temporary. Luke (talk) 16:27, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In the Official Records you´ll find the exact wording. As they´re available online we have Davis's letter to Lee over here and Lee`s Special Order No. 138 right here. ...GELongstreet (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

More work needed
I did a major cleanup of this article, which has had sourcing problems for years. The previous reference list seemed to be an advertisement to buy books, rather than providing actually useful in sourcing statements, so I made it "further reading" along with the other (formerly disfavored) publicly accessible sources. However, I'm not in Virginia right now, so cannot consult local histories to determine even which counties Early represented politically, although I did speak with someone at the House of Delegates, where the computer with historic archives may be down for a while in transition. IMHO, the article previously jumped around a lot chronologically, and sections seemed hagiography. If someone finds my edits offensive, they can be changed, but with sourcing per wikipedia standards I hope.Jweaver28 (talk) 02:53, 8 February 2018 (UTC) I removed the insufficient footnotes tag after adding several sources over the past few weeks, although I haven't finished reading even Cooling's relatively short biography. Obviously, more work still needs to be done, but the tag now looks incongruous.Jweaver28 (talk) 18:26, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * This article, IMHO, still needs a lot of work. His pushing of the Lost Cause needs amplification. His spats with Confedertes who accepted defeat were numerous amd need addressal here. Also, the CYA aspect of his postwar writings (e.g., in disagreement with Mahone, Mahone wrote something along the line of, "while his name was Early, he was always late." Boo Boo (talk) 17:44, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

White's Ferry
White's Ferry has removed Jubal Early's name. The White's Ferry website (which has moved to https://www.poolesvillemd.gov/338/Whites-Ferry) hasn't been updated yet, though I assume it will be soon. Mahousu (talk) 20:30, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Death.... oops!
" tripped and fell down granite stairs"... haha couldn't have happened to a nicer White Supremacist! 137.188.108.201 (talk) 18:24, 1 March 2023 (UTC)