# Pickett's Charge **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 3, 2021, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626 "2021-07-03T20:07:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2021, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/1 "2021-07-03T20:07:12Z")
158 years ago today the largest artillery barrage in North American history began as a prelude to the stupidest military maneuver ever seen on these shores. I’d just like to take a moment on this anniversary to say FUCK THE CONFEDERACY AND EVERY MOTHER-LOVING PERSON WHO STILL FLIES THEIR FLAGS!!! **Especially** on Independence Day weekend. Sherman let them off easy. Should’ve burned the South to the ground and sowed salt so nothing would ever grow there again. Buncha traitors, both then and now. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2021, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/2 "2021-07-03T21:50:50Z")
Damned if it isn’t indeed July 3. We tried to be nice afterwards and southern black people got a century of apartheid shoved down their gullets in appreciation for it. We might wanna re-think this need to always appease the worst of us. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2021, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/3 "2021-07-03T22:29:20Z")
Bobby Lee, and not the funny one, thought it was a good idea at the time: [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0E9WjlSlQuk/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-BIAC4AOKAgwIABABGGUgZSg-MA8=&rs=AOn4CLD6dB3CxzjG-TcFcrVCBTiQZ1cFig "MadTv - Bobby Lee as Tank") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E9WjlSlQuk) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2021, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/4 "2021-07-04T22:54:45Z")
_““I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse”_ - U.S. Grant’s perspective at Appomattox. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2021, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/5 "2021-07-04T23:05:19Z")
Regarding Pickett’s charge, did the European observers learn NOTHING they could bring back prior to 1914? Forget machine guns; massed infantry fire from quickly reloaded rifles won the day for the North. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2021, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/6 "2021-07-04T23:07:55Z")
Being blown apart by canister shot from guns right in front of you, was not a very nice day. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2021, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/7 "2021-07-04T23:52:04Z")
I pit this pitting. The OP should study history, and take note of how the people who lived through the experience reacted to it. If they – Lincoln, Grant, etc. – could find it in their hearts to be charitable, surely the OP can as well. > In turn, if ultimate meanings were beyond our sight, Lincoln was saying, our duties here and now were clear. They were duties counseled by the religious and moral traditions of both sides, in Lincoln’s words, to “bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have born the battle and for the widow and his orphan”—with “malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.” > **[What Lincoln Knew](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/lincolns-second-inauguration/617698/)** > > In his second inaugural address, the 16th president had a message for a war-weary nation. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/8 "2021-07-05T01:16:08Z")
Is Lincoln saying that it’s okay to laugh at a buddy who nearly killed himself performing a stunt while you held his beer, or that Lincoln was a better Christian than me? Being a bit sociopathic I need to know. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/9 "2021-07-05T03:55:30Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > The OP should study history, and take note of how the people who lived through the experience reacted to it. If they – Lincoln, Grant, etc. – could find it in their hearts to be charitable, surely the OP can as well. If those historical greats knew how far the South would go in it’s efforts to continue the fight over a century later, they might not have felt so charitable. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/10 "2021-07-05T04:09:04Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Should’ve burned the South to the ground and sowed salt so nothing would ever grow there again. Buncha traitors, both then and now. It is like you don’t even know or care that you are wishing death on SMDB members. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/11 "2021-07-05T04:26:06Z")
They were political figures wanting to politically facilitate a reunification by letting the losers “keep some dignity” so they could then cooperate later on, since the dominant classes of both sides still shared much common ground. The “charity” was not entirely selfless. The failure was how the losers took that as license to convince themselves they never were wrong to begin with and did not need to cast out and spit on the Old Ways that led to their ruin. And so then a hundred years later those dominant classes were _again_ being told “Stop doing that!!” at bayonet-point … and coming out of the experience _still resentfully thinking they did not do anything wrong_ and were being unfairly picked on. But yeah, let’s hear it for Lincoln, Meade, Grant, Sherman, etc. for whippin’ good them losers Lee, Pickett, Davis, et al. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/12 "2021-07-05T05:51:03Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > I pit this pitting. The OP should study history, and take note of how the people who lived through the experience reacted to it. If they – Lincoln, Grant, etc. – could find it in their hearts to be charitable, surely the OP can as well. I think there is a difference between political expediency and trying to get the country back on track and thinking that Lincoln and Grant found it in their hearts to be charitable. (Also, is the OP about Pickett’s charge or the Civil war overall? Kinda confused on this point.) ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/13 "2021-07-05T06:10:34Z")
Im so confused. You are a teacher. When Sherman burned, looted, (likely) raped and murdered his way through the South attacking civilians its a wonderful thing. When Hitler did it against the USSR it was a war crime. Which is it? ---
**Author:** ![gnarator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gnarator/32/8266_2.png) [@gnarator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnarator)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/14 "2021-07-05T07:03:29Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > 158 years ago today the largest artillery barrage in North American history began as a prelude to the stupidest military maneuver ever seen on these shores. I’d just like to take a moment on this anniversary to say There were other, equally stupid military maneuvers in the Civil War. As the Confederates advanced, the Union troops started chanting, “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” As a child growing up in Minnesota, I was taught to remember the sacrifice of the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg. The 1st Minnesota was the first group of volunteers received after Lincoln called for troops after Fort Sumter. The 1st was something of a hard luck regiment, in many of the major engagements in the east, including Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg, they had to plug a hole in the line on the second day, charging the enemy, and were nearly wiped out. The survivors were placed in the center of the line on July 3rd, where they fought off Pickett’s charge. There is a Confederate flag occasionally displayed in Minnesota–captured by the 1st Minnesota repelling Pickett’s charge. On occasion Virginia has demanded its return, threatening legal action. And the answer is NO. So occasionally [some idiot around here](https://www.startribune.com/aside-stars-and-stripes-firetruck-flies-confederate-flag-in-albert-lea-holiday-parade/311675081/) will fly a Confederate flag, claiming it’s about “free speech,” or they’re against “PC” or “cancel culture.” I just shake my head. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/15 "2021-07-05T07:22:01Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Regarding Pickett’s charge, did the European observers learn NOTHING they could bring back prior to 1914? Forget machine guns; massed infantry fire from quickly reloaded rifles won the day for the North. The 1904-5 Russo-Japanese war showed what happened when modern armies clashed. ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/16 "2021-07-05T12:22:49Z")
Of that war, I know only the naval side. What land battle would you suggest I read about? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/17 "2021-07-05T12:28:05Z")
> [@Capn\_Carl](#): > > Of that war, I know only the naval side. What land battle would you suggest I read about? > **[Siege of Port Arthur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Port_Arthur)** > > Naval battles > Land battles > The siege of Port Arthur (Japanese: 旅順攻囲戦, Ryojun Kōisen; Russian: Оборона Порт-Артура, Oborona Port-Artura, August 1, 1904 – January 2, 1905) was the longest and most violent land battle of the Russo-Japanese War. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/18 "2021-07-05T13:09:34Z")
In 1905 Russians hadn’t acknowledged the stupidity of frontal assault in industrialized warfare from when they themselves attacked Plevna in 1877. It was a society were shells were expensive and lives were cheap. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/19 "2021-07-05T13:16:15Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Im so confused. You are a teacher. When Sherman burned, looted, (likely) raped and murdered his way through the South attacking civilians its a wonderful thing. When Hitler did it against the USSR it was a war crime. Which is it? Congratulations. You are awarded the coveted Reductio ad Hitlerum with moron ribbon. Comparing Sherman’s march to SS and regular army atrocities in the Soviet Union is actually beyond ignorant. > **[Mass Shootings at Babyn Yar (Babi Yar)](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kiev-and-babi-yar)** > > At Babyv Yar in late September 1941, SS and German police units and their auxiliaries perpetrated one of the largest massacres of World War II. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picketts-charge/945626/20 "2021-07-05T15:57:02Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > FUCK THE CONFEDERACY AND EVERY MOTHER-LOVING PERSON WHO STILL FLIES THEIR FLAGS If it makes you feel any better we were just in southern and central Alabama and Mississippi. Hadn’t been to either in 15 years. Spent a couple of weeks down there. During the entire time we were there we did not see one rebel flag. Not flying on anyones yard, not on any vehicles, not even any bumper stickers. Their absence jumped out at us. Certainly different from when and where we were there in 2006.