Talk:Siege of Vicksburg/Archive 1

Untitled
This page now describes loser just battle/siege of Vicksburg, not the entire Vicksburg Campaign. This 'page' started out as eight separate articles. The material in those eight is now in here, the Vicksburg Campaign, and the Battle of Champion Hill. Once people have had time to digest this change, I intend to REDIRECT the remaining 7 of the 8 articles (the "sub-pages") to the main campaign article. They don't fit into the overall encyclopedia style anyway. They are long-winded, colloquial, seem to have section headers for every few sentences, and are packed with quotations from popular historians. And they include too much biographical commentary on Grant. It's more like a very long magazine article than an encyclopedia article. Hal Jespersen 20:28, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

POV?
There seems to be an awful lot of "dramatic language" and theatre in this article. Sometimes it reads like an excited movie plot. "...shells rained upon the rebels...," "...backs against the mighty river....," "...soldiers full of meat and vegetables..." "Grant's soldiers were well-fed,"I think gets the point across clearly and conscisely without over dramatizing.

I think the author got a little carried away with the glory of war. I think the content is mostly good though. I am not a Civil War buff but I think the section on the reprecussions of this battle could be expanded. It seems too brief. co94 Nov 19, 2005


 * Seems OK to me, although you are invited to make edits appropriate to calm down any language too "dramatic" for your sensibilities. "Shells raining down" does not seem to express a POV to me, but perhaps you can reword it. I was not the original author of this material, although I did a huge amount of reorganizing and pruning. The reason the Aftermath section is brief is because this is simply one article in a Campaign series. BTW, you ought to reserve plastering on the POV warning for those occasions when edits you've offered are rejected and you want to object to the lack of respect for minority opinion, which is not the case here. Hal Jespersen 16:21, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Im not going to argue with you here, but if you think this dramatic narrative is worthy of an encyclopedia entry, then so be it.  This article contains far too much dramatic language.  Plain and simple.  Phrases like, "odors assaulting rebel noses," are not appropriate in an encyclopedia entry.  It is expository writing.  An encyclopedia entry is not an essay.    I dont want to change anything because, like I said, I am not an expert on Vicksburg.  I came to this page to read up on it, but instead of reading a description of the battle, I read a colorful essay.  Whoever this author is, he or she brought too many theatrics to this article.   It isnt badly written per se; it is just inappropriate for an encylopedia.  I dont understand how you cant see that.

As an example, compare this article to the article on the Battle of Bunker Hill. In that one, there is no dramatic language, no colorful imagery, or etc. It presents the facts in a descriptive and clear way. I think it is a better example of an encyclopedic entry for a battle.


 * OK, since you are reluctant to edit it yourself, I have taken a stab at it. Comments? Hal Jespersen 18:00, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

It's much better. I might make a few subtle changes but it reads more imformatively now. On a side note, I read the link to the Vicksburg Campaign. I think that article is well-written.

One other thing, you included a lot of specifics in the article. Anecdotes, figures, etc. There are no references listed however. From where did all this information come from?


 * I wrote the Campaign article myself, so thanks. You have caught me in an oversight. When I reorganized these articles, I neglected a Refs section and will add it tomorrow. Hal Jespersen 01:45, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Date??
Someone needs to put a dat in the first sentence, the very top. Lots of other Civil War articles have it.

I expect a date, too
I'm doing an essay that's due tomorrow, and I really need the date. Thanks!

How do I cite this?
How can i properly cite this article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.126.150.185 (talk) 16:29, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

I added the date on the second paragraph. In other words in on May 16- July 18, 1863!

???
Apparently 30,000 confederate soldiers set out. about 10,000 died. yet somehow, 30,000 were paroled??? were dead people paroled? --Pogs 12:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I have updated the figures with some references. It is actually very difficult to make the comparison you are asking about because this was a six-week siege in which the size of the Confederate Army changed over time. At the very beginning of the siege, Pemberton had only about 7,000 men in the trenches and the army gradually grew to about 30,000, who all surrendered at the end. One of the problem with these summary battle boxes is that it is difficult to depict this sort of information in a single figure. Hal Jespersen 00:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Siege
I have just spent a week in Vicksburg and find that the National Park Service and local historians do not use the name Battle of Vicksburg, instead referring to the Campaign and Siege. I would like to rename this article Siege of Vicksburg unless anyone objects. Hal Jespersen (talk) 23:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I entirely agree that this article should be retitled "Siege of Vicksburg". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.141.206.227 (talk) 04:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

When was the last post or revision???
I need to know for my paper —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.167.229.49 (talk) 00:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * To what? The article? Click the 'history' tab on the top of the page. Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

GAN
Is anyone working on the issues brought up in the GAN review? It's been a week, and nothing has been done. Unless something happens in the next day or two, I will fail the article. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Beefed up the lead a little. The para that's not cited (All through June, the Union dug lines parallel to and approaching the Confederate lines. Soldiers could not raise their heads up above their works for fear of snipers. It was a sport for Union troops to poke a hat above the works on a rod, betting on how many rebel bullets would pierce it in a given time.) could easily be cut without much loss, I think. Kresock (talk) 02:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and cut it. I'll check out the lead right now. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ I don't usually get involved in the reviews, but I can't believe a week passed without action. Kresock (talk) 03:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Louisiana operations
A new section was added on Louisiana operations. I performed some minor editing on it before it occurred to me that this material belongs in the Vicksburg Campaign article, not the sub-article about the siege. The campaign article needs a general expansion (in particular, re-writing portions that are copied from public domain National Park Service webpages) and when I get around to doing that, I will be moving this Louisiana material to that article. If someone would like to undertake that before I have time to do it myself, please be my guest. Hal Jespersen (talk) 01:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

background
I have removed the following recent addition to the Background section:
 * During the U.S. Civil War, an important part of the Union's Anaconda Plan consisted of taking control of the entirety of the Mississippi River, which would sever the western part of the Confederacy from the rest. Joint campaigns proceeded up the river from New Orleans and down the river from Union territory in 1862. By the Spring of 1863, nearly all of the river was under Union control; the holdout was Vicksburg, Mississippi, which was heavily defended. Early attempts to take the town were repulsed; a larger attack would not occur until Ulysses Grant arrived on the scene.

The link to the Vicksburg Campaign article is intended to give the background about the importance of Vicksburg and the campaign(s) leading to the siege. This paragraph is wholly inadequate in describing the background to this particular article. It is also uncited and states incorrectly that Vicksburg was the only holdout (remember Port Hudson, please). Hal Jespersen (talk) 16:42, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Contemporary map of the Siege of Vicksburg
A large (6444x9278 px) scan of a map of the Siege of Vicksburg is available at
 * http://www.flickr.com/photos/mississippi-dept-of-archives-and-history/9475550732/sizes/l/

It is a color-coded image on a page from the July 11, 1863 issue of The Illustrated London News. The scan is from the collection of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and is appropriately licensed for inclusion into Commons. It might be a nice addition to the article. 67.101.5.59 (talk) 00:45, 15 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing it out. Although it is colorful and attractive, it is significantly inaccurate, so I question its value in the article. Hal Jespersen (talk) 20:07, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Pemberton's army size
In the background it says: Over three quarters of Pemberton's army had been lost in the two preceding battles.. (i.e. Champion Hill and Big Black River). I think this a bit misleading: It seems to me that this refers only to the mobile force that went out of Vicksburg to fight the Federals, not including the two divisions that stayed back in Vicksburg. On the other hand it includes Loring's division that left to join Johnston. Am I correct? (Hal Jespersen can you help?) Yoavt (talk) 14:30, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

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Decisive Victory
30,000 Confederates surrendering plus their nation being cut in half is a decisive victory. This is often considered the turning point of the war, so I see no reason why it shouldn't be labeled so. -- LightSpectra (talk) 03:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I explain this avoidance of adjectives in User:Hlj/Why. There is no consensus this was the turning point, BTW. Some historians will say that this plus Gettysburg was the turning point, so "half-decisive" might be appropriate, but there are other historians who argue for other turning points, so perhaps "arguably half-decisive." But turning points--a nebulous concept at best--are not decisive points. The outcome of the war was not decided in 1863. But Union victory is inarguably true and can stand without footnotes or POV. Hal Jespersen (talk) 23:04, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Again I ask, what debate is there that this was a decisive victory? The only complaint seems to be that you think it's inarticulate to use the phrase "decisive victory," which is a bit self-defeating since you're using that justification for its own sake. -- LightSpectra (talk) 05:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If you can (1) define what decisive victory means unambiguously (which that link does not do); (2) demonstrate that there is an overwhelming consensus that historians use exactly that meaning and apply it to this battle; then you would be justified in using the term in the info box without further explanation. Otherwise, stick with 'victory', which is self-explanatory, and you can use the Aftermath section to describe the results of the battle in more detail, including the differing POVs about its importance. Hal Jespersen (talk) 15:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Vicksburg_Campaign, an article which this article links to, fulfills both of the criteria you just asked for; how it was decisive and the fact that so many agree with this statement. Again, you seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing, nobody would deny that this was a decisive victory. -- LightSpectra (talk) 19:31, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I wrote that article and can tell you I don't use the term decisive victory in it. If you would like to continue discussing this, answer (1) and (2) in my previous posting before proceeding with your own definitions of terms. Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a decisive victory because it was an essential one that lead to the end of the war with favorable terms for the Union. Do you really need me to cite sources as to how many people think this was a decisive victory for the Union? -- LightSpectra (talk) 01:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * So your definition does not match the one (well, the three, actually) in decisive victory and is more akin to the less well-defined turning point, which has more to do with a retrospective look at the way the war progressed from that point than the results dictated at the time. (A decisive victory is one that "decides" the result of a conflict. Your definition of "leading to the end with favorable terms" could be applied to every battle prior to May 1865. And there are a number of scenarios that could be constructed in which the South "won" after Vicksburg, such as if Atlanta had been a debacle, Lincoln had lost the election of 1864, and the Democrats sued for peace. Vicksburg would have decided nothing if that had happened.) If you do find an author who says it was 'decisive', how do you know which definition is being used? Yours? Wikipedia's? Someone else's? Hal Jespersen (talk) 14:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * How is this for a definition of decisive victory -- one of the protagonists major armies surrenders and the country is cut in half. Vicksburg is pretty decisive to me. --Amcalabrese (talk) 20:59, 7 September 2018 (UTC)


 * That article says that a decisive victory "is an indisputable military victory of a battle that determines or significantly influences the ultimate result of a conflict." How does that not apply to Vicksburg? You have not told me yet, you are simply quibbling that the word "decisive" is not an effective description, even though the article itself well explains why it was such an important battle for the Union. You're using such a strict definition (one that's more strict than any other Wikipedian I have ever encountered) that I'm curious as to why you don't go change the articles on Midway, Blenheim, Tours, Saratoga and Narva to just "victories" on the same basis; these battles were just as decisive, if not less, than Vicksburg. -- LightSpectra (talk) 16:07, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I concentrate on battles of the American Civil War and have no interest in improving the accuracy or precision of articles about other wars. I am concerned about the logical consistency across all of the battle articles in this war and understand that if this loosely defined term is allowed in one article in the group, there will be virtually no end to it. I would actually be happy to see an article on decisive victory that said precisely what you quote above, because then it would be relatively easy to decide which of the Union victories of the war were decisive and putting that notation into the abbreviated description of the infobox would cause little confusion. However, the general public -- and many historians -- also use the third definition from within that article, a synonym for "clear-cut victory," and they never make it clear which of the definitions they are using. And so Wikipedia editors will desire to use it for victories such as the two Bull Runs, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, etc. That usage is completely wrong by the definition you are espousing. So, yes, I am arguing precisely about the meaning of a single word and not the overall concept of the importance of this battle. (You could very well say "important victory" in the box, although I think that is pretty silly.) The Vicksburg Campaign is obviously one of the most important of the war (although some historians will argue that the Battle of Champion Hill -- and I tend to agree -- was actually the decisive battle in the campaign and that the result of the Siege of Vicksburg was simply a foregone conclusion). But I think the nature of these summary info boxes requires a level of precision so that the average reader can understand exactly what they mean without having to resort to footnotes or "(see Aftermath)." That's why they are typically limited to terse summaries of quantifiable information: commanders, strength, location, number killed, dates. None of those require additional explanations. There is no way that decisive victory could be used without a footnote on any article in the American Civil War. And in many cases, the lack of consensus about the term decisive would mean that it would be POV to use any label at all. Hal Jespersen (talk) 16:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Slippery slope arguments are not convincing. It does not follow that because Vicksburg fits all definitions of "decisive victory" (both the one I quoted, and the more general "clear-cut victory") that therefore we have to allow many other battles to fall under the same label. Now, what you're saying is that the word "decisive" is not self-explanatory because you have to read the article to find out why it's decisive. Doesn't this apply to, you know, essentially everything? How about you remove the title of the infobox, "Siege of Vicksburg," since it's unclear which "Vicksburg" is being referred to? (That's why slippery slope arguments are frustrating, by the way.) Your argument follows that the word decisive should not be applied to any article. Well, if you ever get Wikipedia to make a policy change, I'll gladly follow that. But there is currently no reason why Vicksburg does not fit the criteria and so I'm going to edit the article. -- LightSpectra (talk) 17:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, I've wasted enough time on this. I have footnoted the use of the term and hope I don't see the other 10-20 battles of similar characteristics modified as well. Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)