GEORGE MEADE, THE VIETS, AND ME

By Jimmie von Tungeln

September 30, 2023

After beginning my study of the battle, intrigue led me to the National Parks service. The service maintains a web site on the battle of Gettysburg. I went there to find out more about this man Meade. If any site should direct my study, this one should.

      At that time, the effort met with failure and surprise. The National Park Website on the Gettysburg Battlefield Park did not mention General George G. Meade whatsoever. Instead, it concentrated on, as might be expected, Robert E. Lee. It also featured prominently a rebel division commander, George E. Pickett. The latter’s division was present for only one day of the battle, Being a fresh unit, it took part, with two other divisions, in the most spectacular failure of the battle. More on that later. Having enjoyed a 100-year publicity campaign by historical revisionists, that rebel general now represents America’s most famous, yet beloved, loser.

      As for the forgotten General Meade, Allen C. Guelzo summoned it well in a 2013 essay republished in 2017:

      “And yet the mention of Meade has always been met with a certain degree of pause—surprise that an officer with such modest credentials could manage to pull off such a mammoth victory as Gettysburg, and then chirping criticism that, having triumphed as he did, Meade failed to do more, failed to stop Lee from escaping back into Virginia and thus end the Civil War right there and then. Although both of those reactions are unfair, they are also accurate. And together, they have come to define George Gordon Meade’s long-term reputation.”[i]

      At the time of this writing, the NPS website on the battlefield treats Meade with more deference, a sign of a growing but grudging acceptance of the man’s remarkable performance. That it has taken a century and a half for such redemption seems regrettable, but is welcome, nonetheless.

      Age has resulted in the most beneficial catalyst for the Viets. At this time, they have become too “long in the tooth” to play ubiquitous crazed psychopaths, lost souls, or deranged superheroes—sometimes a bit of each. Those are roles they filled for years in film, TV, and modern literature. Oh, they stand in on occasion as the most despicable in a clan of despicables, usually southerners or actors attempting to portray southerners. These days they mostly appear as old men with funny caps who wander the streets dreaming of lost love and “lid bags.”

      As Scott Cooper expressed in it a piece for the Modern War Institute at West Point in 2021:

      “In Vietnam the troops lost their noble and heroic image. To others, they were baby killers and suckers. The stereotype of the US soldiers in the war were the goons who perpetrated the atrocities of My Lai, or the blue-collared Boston Southies who didn’t have the connections to get out of the draft. And the result is a generation of combat veterans perceived as products of a single mold, one that gave us James Webb and John Rambo—that of the aggrieved warrior.”[ii]

      All parties, General Meade and the Viets, wander through history with their images drawn to whatever viewpoint correlates highly with an individual viewpoint. Like the nautical Flying Dutchman, their true legacy has never found a safe harbor.

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[i] Guelzo, Allen C. “George Meade’s Mixed Legacy,” Historynet, 2017 https://www.historynet.com/george-meades-mixed-legacy/

[ii] AFTER VIETNAM, AMERICAN SOCIETY’S RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS MILITARY WAS BADLY FRAYED. AFTER TWENTY YEARS OF POST-9/11 WARS, IT IS AGAIN. Scott Cooper

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[i] AFTER VIETNAM, AMERICAN SOCIETY’S RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS MILITARY WAS BADLY FRAYED. AFTER TWENTY YEARS OF POST-9/11 WARS, IT IS AGAIN. Scott Cooper