Talk:George Meade

Name of article

General Meade's full name is George Gordon Meade.

And that's what it says at the beginning of the article. [[George Gordon Meade]] redirects to [[George Meade]]. Ideally, the article should be under his full name, but it would need an administrator to do that, as we would want to move George Meade to George Gordon Meade, which already exists as the redirect. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 19:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The issue is not what his full name is, but what he is best known as. I would agree that he is probably best known by his full name as George Gordon Meade, and will move if there seems to be a general consensus to do so. john k 20:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

West Point

I wonder how he could have been graduated at the age of 19. Were the age-requirements lower at that time?--Anglius 23:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

With Grant

Under the paragraph heading ‘With Grant’. There is a statement that says: (and that Sheridan, his junior, was promoted to permanent major general before he was).

I checked with the reference Eicher & Eicher, Civil War High Commands and it states that Meade’s commission was dated 23 Sept 1864 while Sheridan’s was dated 8 Nov 1864. Meade always outranked Sheridan. This line should be removed. Dmercado 03:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

In his Memoirs, Grant said that he requested that Meade be made a permanent Major General immediately after Spotsylvania, concurrent with Sherman. Despite what this entry says of their relationship (I'm not disputing whether they had a contentious relationship), Grant spoke very warmly of Meade in his Memoirs - referring to him time and again as "The Gallant Meade."Khan_singh 01:09, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I have elaborated on the sequence of events and cited the Grant memoirs. The significant change is the date of Grant's request. Thank you for that research. There is some interesting detail in Grant's biography by Jean Edward Smith. Henry W. Halleck informed Grant confidentially that there were two slots available for permanent major general and that there was some political sentiment in Washington that these promotions be given to Daniel Sickles and Benjamin Butler, the intent being to dilute the influence of West Point graduates in the high command. Grant was adamant that Meade and Sherman get the appointments and sent his political mentor, Elihu Washburne, to lobby with Lincoln. The reason the dates of appointment lag the original request significantly is that the government wanted to wait for demonstrated success in the Atlanta Campaign and the Overland Campaign prior to committing the promotions. Smith indicates that Grant approved of this delay. Hal Jespersen 16:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

updated -- lighthouse refs?

I have done a significant upgrade on this article. If the person who originally added the two books on lighthouses would like to adjust footnotes appropriately and move those back into the References section, that would be fine with me. I have access to neither of those books, so could not use citations from them in this edit. Hal Jespersen 00:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I can take care of the florida lighthouse references, although I think I just returned one possible source to the library yesterday. -- Donald Albury 02:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but as you can see from all of the other footnotes in the article, the way I have it organized is the bibliographic information on the book is covered in the References section and the footnotes themselves carry only the author's name and the page numbers. Can you please update accordingly? Thanks. By the way, since this is such a small part of the article, if one of those references covers the subject, two footnotes will not be necessary. Hal Jespersen 14:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to George Gordon Meade, born on this day in 1815! Hal Jespersen 18:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

record

The following paragraph was modified on May 2 to add the sentence beginning "Notably..." I have removed it for the following reasons:

For the remainder of the fall campaigning season in 1863, during both the Bristoe Campaign and the Mine Run Campaign, Meade was outmaneuvered by Lee and withdrew after fighting minor, inconclusive battles, because of his reluctance to attack entrenched positions. Notably, while in command over the Army of the Potomac (opposed to being a subordinate commander under Grant, McClellan, Burnside, etc.) Meade is distinguished for never having lost a battle to Lee.

1. It is a non sequitur. Following a sentence that describes two failed campaigns against Lee is not the place to claim that Meade is distinguished for never having lost a battle.
2. It is a clumsy construct to talk about command of the Army of the Potomac in this way. Meade never gave up command of the Army of the Potomac for the rest of the war. The only arguable command relationship in the list of examples given was Grant, who was not in command of the Army of the Potomac, although he did give orders to Meade and the other subordinate generals (Burnside, Butler, and Sheridan). Furthermore, a case can be made that some of the blame for the loss at Cold Harbor can be attributed to Meade.

If you assume that Meade was not responsible for his conduct under Grant (which I do not), about the only statement of this type that one can make with impunity would be to reverse its sense: "In 1863, Meade was the only general to defeat Lee in a battle." (In 1861, McClellan defeated Lee in the West Virginia campaign. In 1862, McClellan defeated him at Beaver Dam Creek and Malvern Hill, although his Peninsula Campaign did not go well overall.) If the editor of this revision would like to pursue a statement of this type in a more appropriate location, please provide a citation from a secondary source for the claim. Hal Jespersen (talk) 14:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

References

Meade house in Philadelphia

General Meade lived at 1836 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, and died in the house, 1872. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker in front is copyrighted and trademarked, so a photo of it cannot appear in Wikipedia without permission. The story is that he was offered the house by the citizens of Philadelphia, but modestly declined, so they asked his wife if she would accept it, and she said "Sure!" I have this story from a TV show, but perhaps it is documented elsewhere. --DThomsen8 (talk) 20:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Command Decisions: Question 4/30/11

As fine an article as this is, there are several troubling aspects to it - a lack of citation at some key points and the intrusion at others of an auctorial voice. For example, the last sentence under "Command Decisions" reads -

"His decisions to entrench when practicable and not launch frontal assaults on fortified positions should have been more carefully studied; they were lessons that could have been used to great effect on the Western Front during World War I. See, for example, Gallagher, essay by Richard A. Sauers, pp. 231-44."

How is an editorial comment such as this last sentence (or references to Sickles as "infamous" or "grossly insubordinate"), which is off-topic for an article on Meade and which includes the homiletic "should," ever or in any way appropriate in an encyclopedia article? American Heritage, yes; professionally-written encyclopedia, no. Sensei48 (talk) 15:05, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments about Sickles are certainly not off-topic for a Meade biography, but I have reviewed them and toned down or removed some of the uncited opinions. (I doubt that many Civil War scholars would challenge the adjective "infamous" about Sickles, a Tammany Hall politician who was embroiled in one of the most sensational criminal trials of the 19th century, but it is gratuitous for an encyclopedia.) By the way, you get a prize for the most sophisticated vocabulary used on an ACW talk page. :-) I actually had to look up two of the words you used. Hal Jespersen (talk) 18:18, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

That's a genuine LOL, Mr. J. - I figure that you are pretty much the ranking Wiki Civil War maven and know whereof you speak. I still forget that hlj is you - you may not recall, but you helped considerably several years ago with improving the article on George Armstrong Custer, in which I've had a particular interest as well. As I look back at my initial note here, I think it was a bit too abrupt - and I happen to think that American Heritage under Catton several decades back was as finely-written a magazine as the U.S. ever produced, so I actually meant it as a compliment. I'm a bit of a CW buff and agree that an assessment of Sickles actions here is fully warranted, but I think your edits and sourcing brings the section more in line with standard encyclopedia style. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 20:51, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

That was about 10,000 edits ago, so I cannot say I recall the details of GAC. That is one of the articles that I took off my radar a long time ago because there was too much controversy (primarily postbellum activities) and I lost patience trying to keep up with it. Hal Jespersen (talk) 17:12, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on George Meade. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100812023454/http://www.chestnuthilllocal.com:80/issues/2005.12.22/locallife3.html to http://www.chestnuthilllocal.com/issues/2005.12.22/locallife3.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 03:38, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 21 January 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. General consensus against moving George Meade (merchant). There's some support for moving George Meade to somewhere but none gained enough consensus here. I would suggest a new RM to determine the correct new title for that page. (non-admin closure) –Ammarpad (talk) 08:32, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

---

• George Meade → George Gordon Meade
• George Meade (merchant) → George Meade

– Per COMMONNAME and NATURALDIS. The general is most commonly given his middle name or at least an initial, which distinguishes him from his lesser-known merchant grandfather and his son.

See Google Ngram. From a quick search of the modern scholarly references in the article that I could look at, "Gordon" is given by Coddington (p. 209), Huntington (title), Sauers (title), Sears (p. 198), Tagg (n.p.), Warner (p. 315); only "G." by Eicher (p. 857), Sauers (in Gallagher, p. 231), Rhea (p. 8). Also in The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, and Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. I found none which omit the middle name entirely, except in short form after giving it in full. Kim Post (talk) 02:47, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

• Support George Meade → George Gordon Meade and oppose George Meade (merchant) → George Meade. George Meade should be the main title header of the George Meade disambiguation page or, alternatively, if the George Meade disambiguation page is not created, it should redirect to George Gordon Meade as WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:10, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Certainly George Gordon Meade is much more famous than his grandfather. But why not take the opportunity for natural disambiguation? The merchant will still have the general's name in the lead sentence, or even in a hatnote if desired. Kim Post (talk) 04:22, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia has an entry for yet another George Meade, a minor political figure from New York, George L. Meade, a George Meade disambiguation page can certainly be considered, but not with the general's grandfather as the default WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

That does complicate matters, but again, there's the opportunity for natural disambiguation. My working principle is that the creation of disambiguation pages should be avoided if possible. But I'd agree that the proposals can be considered separately; the first move would be an improvement even if the second is not done. Kim Post (talk) 04:39, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose George Meade → George Gordon Meade and oppose George Meade (merchant) → per George Meade (disambiguation) In ictu oculi (talk) 08:57, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose the move of general "George Meade" to "George Gordon Meade". George Meade the General is the more known name and thus should be kept as the main article, the others are only minor figures. However, if a move is decided it would suffice to have a disambiguation page for all "George Meade" persons, and a move to George G. Meade for the general as there is no need to have his full second name as part of the article's name. -- fdewaele, 21 January 2019, 10:53 CET.
  • "Tolkien" would suffice to identify J.R.R. Tolkien, or "Bach" for Johann Sebastian Bach, but conciseness isn't the only criterion. These articles are at the most common form of the name, and their famous last names redirect. Kim Post (talk) 13:45, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose the George Meade (merchant) should be SNOW/SPEEDY removed from the RM; even the nom says that person is lesser-known than this one. A quick source suggests that this person is generally referred to as "George Meade" except in legal situations where their whole name is used. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:46, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. Regarding the use of the middle name, there is no consistency where Civil War figures are concerned — Robert E. Lee is rarely if ever referenced as Robert Lee and infrequently as Robert Edward Lee (Robert Edward Lee (sculpture)). Ulysses S. Grant is likewise infrequently referenced as Ulysses Grant or Ulysses Simpson Grant (Ulysses Simpson Grant Elementary School). William Tecumseh Sherman is rarely if ever referenced as William Sherman, but fairly frequently as William T. Sherman. In the case of General Meade, George G. Meade or George Gordon Meade (George Gordon Meade Memorial) would be equally preferable to the least-used George Meade.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 18:18, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose George Meade (merchant) → George Meade - not the primary topic. Oppose George Meade → George Gordon Meade - not most commonly used. Support George Meade → George G. Meade - most commonly used per google books search.--Staberinde (talk) 18:08, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for the most part. A large of majority of people who look for "George Meade" are probably seeking this George Meade. However, I think it would make sense to move this page to George G. Meade (which is the common name imo), and redirect George Meade to George G. Meade. Orser67 (talk) 04:28, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose the specific request. I would support moving "George Meade" -> "George G. Meade", keeping "George Meade (merchant)" as is, and making "George Meade" either a redirect to "George G. Meade" or a DAB. - Donald Albury 15:04, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
• Requester comment: Evidently moving George Meade (merchant) won't succeed (stricken from request). For the general, it would helpful to establishing consensus if respondents specified why they prefer the initial over the full middle name, or vice versa. I favor the full middle name because it is most common in the literature I've read, especially as part of book or article titles—which are in my view a better guide than body text about where a reader would expect to find the article. Kim Post (talk) 21:33, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. He may often be seen with his middle name or initial, but he is as or more often not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:14, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

'Google-eyed' snapping-turtle

I just reverted an edit that added "Google-eyed" to Meade's nickname, "Old Snapping Turtle". A couple of sources I found for including "google-eyed" were blogs, but I did find this publication, Stowe, Christopher S. (December 2015). "George Gordon Meade and the Boundaries of Nineteenth-Century Military Masculinity". Civil War History. 61 (4): 363–399. doi:10.1353/cwh.2015.0072., in which Meade's comment that soldiers had called him a "d----d old google-eyed snapping-turtle" is labeled as "perhaps apocryphal". I therefore question the significance of including a possibly apocryphal "google-eyed" in the infobox. - Donald Albury 16:08, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Sheridan’s drive on Richmond

Meade [reluctantly] deferred to Grant's judgment and sent [Sheridan] on a raid toward Richmond, directly challenging the Confederate cavalry.

We need to point out that Sheridan’s raid actually failed, despite the trophy-killing of Jeb Stuart, and that Meade’s judgment was totally vindicated.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Valetude (talk • contribs)

You can add that yourself, but please cite a reliable source that supports it, especially the part about Meade's judgment being validated. - Donald Albury 14:42, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:George Meade/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 00:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this over the weekend. I'm moderately familiar with Meade and own print copies of a few of the sources, so I figured I'd go ahead and review this. Hog Farm _Talk 00:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

For starters:

• rootsweb is not a reliable source
• history.com is no longer considered a reliable source
• hmdb is not RS
• " "10 Things You Didn't Know About the Cast of Lost". www.thethings.com. www.thethings.com. Retrieved February 8, 2023." - probably not a reliable source
• the in popular culture section should almost certainly be removed - these are all trivial things that don't warrant a mention in an article of this form
• the notable relatives should be worked into the prose somewhere, not just thrown in as a list (this would probably best be done by mentioning his wife/children briefly and then stating that those folks are descended from him)
• In 1869, following Grant's inauguration as president, Sherman succeeded him to the rank of General of the Army, opening up the Lieutenant General rank. At the time, the senior-most Major Generals were Halleck (who, by then, was an outcast), and then Meade. Before the inauguration, Meade met with Grant and intimated that he felt most deserving of the rank, by virtue of merit and seniority; nevertheless, Grant nominated Sheridan to the rank over the senior Meade, and the latter effectively served in semi-retirement as the commander of the Military Division of the Atlantic from his home in Philadelphia - this entire paragraph is sourced only to a one-page book review, which doesn't support this content
• There's a couple CN tags that should have been resolved before taking this to GAN
• Meade, despite his aggressive performance in lesser commands in 1862, had become a more cautious general - While Rhea p. 259 does discuss Meade not wanting to attack fortifications, it doesn't make this contrast that I'm seeing
• "although the aggressive maneuvering that eventually cornered Lee in the trenches around Petersburg were Grant's initiative as well" - Rhea p. 14 is discussing mid-May performances and makes no mention of Petersburg
• "The four generals, Reynolds, John Sedgwick, Henry Slocum, and Winfield Hancock, recommended him for command of the army and agreed to serve under him despite outranking him" - not seeing how this is entirely support by Tagg pp. 2-3, which references Reynolds, Slocum, and Darius Couch as the three generals who recommended Meade and indicated willingness to serve under him
• "and was brevetted to first lieutenant for gallant conduct at the Battle of Monterrey" - Warner p. 316 doesn't state why he received this brevet
• "At the Battle of Antietam, Meade assumed command of the I Corps after Hooker was wounded and the ranking division commander, James B. Ricketts, was injured when his horse was shot from underneath him" - while Eicher does mention Meade taking command of the I Corps, Eicher doesn't have the detail about the injuries to Hooker and Ricketts. The other cited source, Warner, doesn't have those details either
• Several instances of opinions needing inline attribution to the authors who stated these things: In all of these cases, Grant bears some of the responsibility for approving Meade's plans, but Meade's performance was not at the same level of competence he displayed on other occasions and He has been accused of not being aggressive enough in pursuit of Confederate forces,

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to quick-fail this one. With uncited text, unreliable sources, and spots where not all of the content is supported by the sources, these needs a fair bit of work before it's close to GA status. If you disagree with my decision to quick-fail, you can ask for a second hearing at WT:GAN. Hog Farm _Talk 03:03, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:George Meade/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 14:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this again but it'll be slow going. Hog Farm _Talk 14:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Waiting til the end of the review to go through the lead, and will start with the beginning of the body

• "the eighth of eleven children of Richard Worsam Meade and Margaret Coats Butler. His grandfather George Meade was a wealthy merchant and banker in Philadelphia" - cited source does not mention eighth of eleven children, does not mention Margaret Coats Butler by name, and it does not describe his grandfather as a banker, only referencing the merchant trade and land speculation
  • added Huntington reference to support Margaret Coats Butler and eighth child status - changed eighth of ten children to match Huntington ref - changed banker to land speculator to match ref Dwkaminski (talk) 20:14, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
• "He was ruined financially because of his support of Spain in the Peninsular War; his family returned to the United States in 1817, in precarious financial straits." - [citation needed]
  • Added Huntington page 12 ref
• I think it ought to be mentioned in the list of sources that Cleaves is actually a reprint of a 1960 work; this can be accomplished using the |orig-date parameter in the citation template
  • I updated ref date to 1960 Dwkaminski (talk) 20:32, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
• The title of Hyde 2003 is wrong - should be "Speak" not "Speaker"
  • updated Dwkaminski (talk) 20:05, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to take this section-by-section due to the amount of time it will take to verify the sources in each section. Hog Farm _Talk 22:40, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• @Hog Farm: - I've updated the issues you mentioned in this first section. Dwkaminski (talk) 20:32, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

• No mention of the severe illness in Florida in 1836 that Sauers and Cleaves report? Cleaves even implies that it was part of the reason he was assigned out of the state.
• "He became a full second lieutenant by year's end, and in the fall of 1836, after the minimum required one year of service" - are you sure of this? Hyde p. 15, which this is sourced to, doesn't mention second lieutenant until after his 1842 re-entry. Neither Cleaves nor Warner mention such a promotion in this time frame, so that claim is probably spurious
• Warner and Cleaves both mention a station at the Watertown Arsenal before he resigned, seems worthwhile to note in the article
• "and was assigned to the staffs of Generals Zachary Taylor[21] and General Robert Patterson" - from a grammar perspective, either make the first general singular or drop the "General" before Patterson's name.
• "In 1852, the Topographical Corps established the United States Lighthouse Board and Meade was appointed the Seventh District engineer with responsibilities in Florida." - WP:CLOP of the source, which says {{Xt|In August 1852, the Topographical Corps set up the United States Lighthouse Board, and Meade was named a Seventh District engineer with responsibilities in Florida". More than just changing a couple words needs done to avoid close paraphrasing
• " Dean, Love, Reef Lights: Seaswept Lighthouses of the Florida Keys, The Historic Key West Preservation Board, 1982, ISBN 0-943528-03-8. McCarthy, Kevin M., Florida Lighthouses. University of Florida Press, 1990, ISBN 0-8130-0993-6." - any chance we could get page numbers here?
• "When Bache was reassigned to the West Coast," - more close paraphrasing, almost identical to the phrasing in the source
• Sauers p. 11 says that he was promoted to 7th District supervisor, which seems worthwhile to mention
• Per Cleaves p. 49, Meade was supervising the Florida District and the New Jersey/Delaware one at the same time; recommend making that a bit more explicit in the text
• "Absecon Light in Atlantic City and the Cape May Light in Cape May. " - sourced to Sauers, p. 11, who mentions neither of these things
• "He also designed a hydraulic lamp that was used in several American lighthouses" - while this appears to be true, it is not supported by the cited source (Sauers), which instead only mentions Meade explaining the use of the Fresnel lens at the New York Crystal Palace
• Recommend mentioning that Meade was actually assigned to the Lakes Survey in 1856; the current phrasing implies that he didn't go there until he became commander of it in 1857
• " In 1858, based on his recommendation, instrumentation was set in place for the tabulation of records across the basin" - no, per the cited source, the instruments were not installed until spring 1859

I'm sorry, but I still don't think the sourcing is at a GA-level; I've found too many unsupported passage/omissions/errors here to be comfortable with the sourcing. I don't think the GA reviewer should have to line-by-line the article's citations like this. Going to go ahead and fail it here; I don't have time to continue to line-by-line for the rest of the review, and I don't feel comfortable not digging in that deep. Hog Farm _Talk 23:05, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.