GDG- Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg

[J. David Petruzzi]

>>There is an historian's disease that some people get. It comes from
dealing with
topics that have been heavily researched and examined over the years,
such as Pickett's charge, and rather then do the legwork to actually
discover new sources of information (harder and harder to do) that
might change current interpretations, they are suddenly struck with
the 'Eureka! everyone else has it wrong!' syndrome. So they take the
same sources already looked at and apply their own 'new'
interpretation without the benefit of significant new information and
'Voila!' They have a book out. It has been my experience that these
sort of 'new' interpretations don't hold up well because absent new
source material, enough credible and competent historians have looked
at the extant sources and come up with credible interpretations based
on them. An exception to this is when the evidence is reinterpreted
in the light of a new theoretical orientation - for example, an
economic perspective, etc. Just some thoughts on the matter for what
they are worth.

Best,

Laurie Schiller>>


Indeed, Professor, and I think this is the exact reason why we got a
particular issue of Blue&Gray magazine last year in which it is purported
that Farnsworth's Charge actually happened nearly a mile away from the
battlefield, and all sorts of similarly head-shaking claims.  No new
evidence, no new sources, just a reinterpretation geared toward a
pre-determined conclusion.

Frustrating at the least.

J.D.