Talk:Battle of Belmont

Result

I am a bit confused by the result. In the infobox it says "Union Victory", however in Aftermath is says "Southern victory". Both have cites. It seems this depends upon perspective. Should the infobox be altered accordingly? Dbsseven (talk) 18:40, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Trust me, this was a decisive Confederate victory. All you have to do is look at Official Records entries and old newspaper archives and anyone will conclude this. Be careful not to read any book on this battle published after 1992. The "Union Victory" came from a committee formed to preserve, protect and expand civil war battlefields. The POTUS then appointed several to the committee who then slipped in battle summaries designed to discredit CS victories and submitted the bill to Congress. Unwittingly, Congress approved the committee's summaries of this battle in 1993 as a Union victory and since then the Park Service follows that considering this is now U. S. law now and they are simply following orders. Several other battles were similarly altered in this manner. As I attempted to make proper corrections the page was shut down to editors. Rjr1960 (talk) 18:38, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Battle of Belmont

Hi, my minor alteration of the summary table of the Battle of Belmont article was incorrectly reversed by you for no reason given. My minor edit changed the incorrect summary that the Battle of Belmont was a "Union victory", when it in fact was not and no book I've read has ever made that claim. The south claimed victory and the northern press 'lamented defeat' in the aftermath of Brig Gen Grant's retreat back to Cairo. It actually explains why it was a Confederate victory in the last part of the article. I'm not sure why you insist it was a Union victory as the source that was linked is now dead and no longer active, when the battle resulted in no loss of territory held by the occupation force of General Polk. It's like claiming that the Confederates won the Battle of Shiloh because on the first day they took most of the Union positions but that ignores the events that followed in which a counterattack resulted in defeat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Futurefilmmaker (talk • contribs) 18:54, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I copied the above from my talk page. My revert was explained as "Unexplained change to siurced [sic] material." The claim that I gave no reason is false. No explanation was provided for why the change was made nor was it readily apparent from the edits that the link was no longer good. The NPS link did claim it was a Union victory; as a reliable source the NPS is used throughout Civil War articles.

It is true that Grant's actions were criticized at the time and continue to be criticized in reliable sources today. I went through several sources I have; they all describe the positives and negatives of the battle results for both sides. In none of them could I find a declaration that either the USA or CSA "won" the battle. The best statements I could find as a conclusion to the battle were:

"Despite the celebrations and claims on both sides, the Battle of Belmont was of little importance except in making veterans out of raw recruits." ("General Leonidas Polk C.S.A." by Joseph H. Parks)

"The argument of who won the battle of Belmont has never been resolved." ("The Battle of Belmont" by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr.)

Hughes goes on to note that criticisms similar to those made against Grant were also made, in the South, against Pillow and Polk:

"When Confederates finally learned the actual size of Grant's expeditionary force, their morale sagged. Southern patriots doubted the competence of Pillow and Polk. They began to doubt themselves. The enemy had beaten them on their own ground, one-one, then slugged their way back through fresh Confederate reinforcements to their boats."

My suggestion would be to add more balance to the "Aftermath" section and change the result in the infobox to either "disputed" or "inconclusive". Of course, if you have actual sources that call this an actual CSA victory, please bring that info to this discussion. Hughes notes that John Logan stated, "If this was a Confederate victory, there could scarcely be too many of them". Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:26, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

As mentioned above, you cannot trust any book written in 1992 or after. These authors were influenced by the bogus NPS declaration that the battle was a "Union Victory". This was a decisive Confederate victory. Reports in the Official Records and period newspaper accounts, north and south, clearly say this. Grant lost his horse and baggage during the battle. He is on record requisitioning the government for pay for his lost horse. His men left behind 1,000 small arms on the field. Grant came back in 1864, rewrote his reports on this battle and inserted them into the records. His adjutant did this for him and wrote a book afterward about this. Just read any book, report or newspaper account prior to 1992. This was a Confederate Victory. Rjr1960 (talk) 07:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC).

I understand the argument for Belmont being "inconclusive" in that it acheived no decisive result either way. However, there is no question that Union forces were driven from the field and forced to withdraw. Therefore, if Belmont is, in the face of that, "inconclusive", then so too is Shilo or Stones River. I would argue that Belmont is a Confederate victory for the same reason that those other battles are Union victories.

We go by what the WP:RS say (and if they disagree, we act accordingly). Do you have reliable sources for a Confederate victory? As mentioned above, NPS calls it a Union victory. Mojoworker (talk) 09:23, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The National Park Service description describes the battle as a "nearly ending in the federal disaster" and notes "Grant’s troops barely escaped as Confederates hounded them all the way back to their ships". https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/battle-of-belmont.htm

The NPS take certainly does not suggest the battle was "inconclusive". IBrock (talk) 20:50, 17 June 2022 (UTC)