Talk:Earl Van Dorn

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1861 in Texas

Earl Van Dorn and ' on April 17 and then headed for the last remaining regular U.S. Army soldiers in Texas at Indianola, forcing their surrender on April 23' Not accurate:the last force in Texas , the Eight US Infantry, surrendered to Van Dorn near San Antonio on May 9, 1861.

Source Handbook of Texas Online, Kevin R. Young, "Adams Hill, Battle Of," accessed July 20, 2017, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qka01.

Uploaded on June 9, 2010. Modified on March 1, 2011. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Earl Van Dorn and 'Van Dorn was summoned to Richmond, Virginia, and appointed a colonel in the 1st C.S. Regular Cavalry on April 25' Confusing chronology: Van Dorn was not summoned to Richmond until mid-August; on Sept 17 he was in New Orleans on his way to Virginia. See page 90 in

Van Dorn: The Life and Times of a Confederate General By Robert George Hartje Timatsanantonio (talk) 10:23, 20 July 2017 (UTC) Timatsanantonio (talk) 10:20, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• Don´t know about the days in Texas of the formulation stuff, if it is wrong and you have prove then I´d assume you´re free to change it. But about his promotion; that was the day his promotion was dated/ranked. That doesn´t mean that he had to be in Richmond at that time, just a date put in writing. The fact that he was written to be in Texas just two days before in the line above should make this pretty obvious. ...GELongstreet (talk) 10:36, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

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Camp Van Dorn

Camp Van Dorn (1942-1945) has a controversial racist history. Camp Van Dorn Slaughter. This could be mentioned in the article. I am not sure a camp that no longer exists should be mentioned in the introduction. This is a good source article: Camp Van Dorn Mississippi Encyclopedia. An Honors section can be added to the article. Cmguy777 (talk) 15:22, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

More work needed

I edited this yesterday, and today edited the article for the Van Dorn House, neither of which explain the family's slaveholdings, which I believe exist, and should be included to explain this man's personality. Ancestry.com's search feature is usually helpful, but less so for Earl, although I did note from the census cited that the findagrave.com page cited in the bibliography is inaccurate about his second wife and children (his first wife, Earl Jr and Olivia were all alive in 1860). The trouble generally is handwriting digitization, but army officers also moved a lot. Anyhow, before my laptop ran out of power yesterday, I checked the 1830 census for Claiborne County to try to figure out why I could find no record of his father, Peter Van Dorn. I do believe he used slave labor on his plantations, and slaves are enumerated on the 1830 census for Claiborne county, but I could find no name that resembles his (perhaps squashed together or misdigitized). I don't know whether a page was missing from that census (in 54 pages of decent handwriting), or the dates/locations of his other plantations. Normally, ancestry.com's digitization yields better results, and I didn't have time to read his will (probated, obviously by another judge in 1837), which seemed to be available on that site. Since Peter Van Dorn drowned en route to visiting a plantation near Natchez, which is in Adams County, a careful scan of that 1830 census might be worthwhile, but not given my personal time constraints. For what its worth, I also added a rootsweb link to the Van Dorn House article because a couple of the current links had gone bad and it and the NRIS I managed to find were both better than the article as it started out. My laptop power's again running low and I don't have time to clean up Peter's article. Someone may want to search whether Peter Van Dorn was a clerk of the Georgia legislature before moving to Mississippi, or that sentence in the house article I marked as needing a citation might be the result of an earlier editor's carelessness, since my citations say he was a clerk for the Mississippi legislature. Jweaver28 (talk) 17:40, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Now I see why it didn't preview--somehow the section header was omitted. Also, although many U.S. Army officers had personal slaves, not all did, and Van Dorn's financial links to slaveholding may be through his wife's Godbold family, or the Sullivane family (his sister's husband and father of his aide de camp).Jweaver28 (talk) 17:48, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I edited this yesterday to explain his womanizing, and the possible reason for the findagrave discrepancy--his wife stayed home in either Alabama with her folks or in Mississippi with his family, and he took a laundress in Texas as a mistress and had 3 children by her. Also, I apologize to citing to blogs re the pregnancy of his killer's unwed daughter, but that story seems plausible and several sources say there's a book about it--I'm not sure whether its history or historical fiction but the blogs are definitely about history. That mother/daughter situation rather than simple womanizing would also explain his ostracism by fellow Confederate officers, who might not have cared about the mistress away from home. One of the blogs goes into detail about the head shot (explaining it wasn't in the back, but as VanDorn taunted the pistol-wielding doctor rather than plead for his life as he had nearly a month before). I also included an internet archive version of his sister's book, but didn't take time to read it.Jweaver28 (talk) 18:05, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

General Order 11 and Holly Springs Raid

The content in this article regarding the relationship between General Order 11 and the Holly Springs Raid needs to be tightened up. As written, it seems like the raid was conducted to delay the implementation of General Order 11, when there is no evidence cited that the relationship between the two events was anything but incidental. Why is this link between these events mentioned multiple times and so prominently in this article? CrudTaylor (talk) 05:31, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

"Greatest to have ever lived"

This article is currently making the very strong claim that Van Dorn "is considered one of the greatest cavalry commanders to have ever lived". While admittedly I haven't read a standalone biography of Van Dorn (I have a print copy of Hartje's work somewhere but haven't read it) this is not something I've ever seen in the related literature that I've read - including works on CSA cavalry and some of Van Dorn's operations (Holly Springs, Pea Ridge, Second Corinth). This is currently sourced to a History Press book, and I frankly don't believe that publisher is strong enough for extraordinary claims. I propose to remove this material unless someone can provide stronger citation(s) for this. Hog Farm _Talk 19:32, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I quote from Hartje's introduction:

"[After failure in army command] Relegated to the secondary role of cavalry commander in Mississippi and Tennessee, he showed courage, energy, and vision as he achieved some success in a type of operation for which he was better adapted. Cavalry came into its own in the West in late 1862, and Earl Van Dorn was one of its most successful commanders. Enemy outposts, railroad lines, bridges, roads, and supply depots were his targets as he continually harassed the armies of Generals U. S. Grant and William Rosecrans and helped hold off their final push. But even in these campaigns, his weaknesses sometimes shone through. Although his battle plans were well conceived and his overall objectives were well chosen, he never seemed to master all the details necessary to bring great success. Van Dorn was a good officer, but he could not adjust well enough to changing situations to be called a great leader."

Carter's epilogue:

"Van Dorn had a fearless and dashing nature, coupled with a love of danger through-out life. During the prewar days in Texas, he had shown remarkable ability as a cavalry officer and Indian fighter. Later, his talent as a leader of mounted troops came to the forefront when he proved his true value to the Confederacy by leading the successful raid on Holly Springs, Mississippi, in December of 1862. Early promotions in a rapidly expanding army had thrust him into high positions of command that he was unqualified to fill, since he lacked the necessary experience and the innate leadership characteristics of great military commanders."

My emphasis in bold. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 19:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I've never seen anything remotely like this, either. I've seen him described as "skilled," but usually with qualifiers of some kind. Intothatdarkness 19:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Probably safe to file this under WP:EXCEPTIONAL; one reference is not sufficient. There have been plenty of cavalry commanders throughout history, after all. Parsecboy (talk) 20:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The key here is that he was one of the greatest "cavalry commanders" ever. Cavalry are a coordinated army of men on horseback. Van Dorn was NOT great in command of infantry (infantry were on foot) but, as is well known, Van Dorn never lost as a cavalry commander and was masterful in that command. The book sourced by History Press was written by Civil War scholar Dr. Brandon Beck who is director emeritus of the McCormick Civil War Institute at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. What's more, Military historian Richard P. Weinert summarized Van Dorn: "A brilliant cavalry officer, he was a disappointment in command of large combined forces" (infantry). Again, Van Dorn was great as a cavalry commander and it was assumed that would transfer to on-foot infantry but it did not. Also, in the book, "The Tarnished Cavalier," one of the book's major points is that Van Dorn was a savant as a Cavalry commander but others wanted him to be an infantry commander. They soon realized that his gift was Cavalry command and so they put him back in that command and he remained unbeaten until his assasination. Also from the book, "The Tarnished Cavalier," written about Van Dorn, it is said by Arthur Carter, "Van Dorn had become the best known officer in the United States Cavalry, with his unbroken string of military successes..." (pg. 22). It was also as a Cavalry commander that Van Dorn achieved what the top General of the army of that time, General Twigg, said was "a victory more decisive and complete in the history of Indian warfare." It was also as Cavalry commander that Van Dorn saved Vicksburg from certain Union takeover and the poet Paul Hamilton Hayne wrote a poetic salute to him entitled, "Vicksburg: A Ballad." He dedicated it to Van Dorn. Earl Van Dorn was one of the greatest Cavalry Commanders to ever live. But he was a fish out of water when they tried him in infantry. Historytenn (talk) 18:55, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

The problem is, you would need to provide sources that support your claim, which is that he was "one of the greatest cavalry commanders to have ever lived". That is a very specific claim, and very different from what the sources you have so far provided state (which can be summarized as "Van Dorn was a great cavalry commander". Saying someone is among the greatest in recorded history (bear in mind we're going back thousands of years here) is an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim that requires more than just a few sources that explicitly state what you're trying to add to this article. What we aren't doing is making our own evaluations. Parsecboy (talk) 18:23, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the statement from the lead, although I do worry that parts of the article are written in an overly positive light. Hog Farm _Talk 19:05, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I think that to be likely. The third paragraph of "assessment" portrays itself as a untarnished quotation, when it is in fact a combination of parts of Carter's epilogue (from which I partially quote above), removing a good half of the section which is dedicated to critique of him. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 19:16, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Van Dorn was doing well at Pea Ridge, we are told, but somehow lost. ("Although each side suffered about 1,300 casualties, the Battle of Pea Ridge was the most one-sided victory won by an outnumbered Union Army during the war." (James B. McPherson, "Battle Cry of Freedom." p. 405.) On the first day at Corinth, his forces, which the Union forces nearly matched in size, drove the Union Army back - but on the second day Van Dorn's forces lost again when a Union counterattack "put Van Dorn and Price to flight". (McPherson, p. 523.) The Holly Springs Raid was connected in some way to General Order 11? Is it shown the timing of the raid was anything more than a coincidence?

His great achievement as a cavarly commander was capturing 1,500 mostly sleeping Union infantry and cavalrymen at Holly Springs with his 3,500 cavalrymen (David J. Eicher, the Longest Night, p. 389). Yes, the destruction of the supply base set back the Vicksburg campaign but that was the result of a successful surprise attack, not a battle. Other than destroying a few scattered lightly defended posts or railroad tracks, he did little else as a cavalry commander. He was in charge of infantry again when Confederates successfully attacked the 2,827 Union force (one infantry brigade and one cavalry brigade) at Thompson's Station (Spring Hill). The Union infantry surrendered, "being badly outnumbered by the Southerners." Confederate Brigadier General William H. Jackson led the cavalry division which included "the hard fighting brigade of Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest." (Eicher, p. 437). The sum total of Van Dorn's achievements as a cavalry commander fall far short of making him one of the greatest cavalry cammanders of all time. His performance as a commander of infantry and in overall command fall far short of the brillance this article appears to convey. The assessment that he was a good officer (but perhaps only as a raider?) may be justified, but that he was not great overall, is also accurate. His performance on the smaller stages of the Mexican-American War and on the frontier aren't sufficient to set him out as the greatest cavalry commander of all time either by themselves or in combination with his American Civil War performance. Some of the language and descriptions in this article don't square with reliable sources. Donner60 (talk) 06:21, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

They weren't sleeping but were awake and on post. Grant had not been caught unaware of Van Dorn's raid but was, instead, outmaneuvered. Grant had placed his U.S. cavalry on a 24-hour watch to protect his supply line.[42] U.S. cavalry commander T. Lyle Dickie had warned Grant that Van Dorn had left Grenada and was headed northeast.[42] Grant had warned commanders of Van Dorn's raid by telegraph post. Colonel Murphy had been warned by Grant twice that Van Dorn was headed his way.[43] Grant's wife Julia and son Jesse were not in Holly Springs during Van Dorn's raid. They had left the night BEFORE to meet with Grant at Oxford.[44] Historytenn (talk) 19:37, 26 May 2024 (UTC)