{"id":21719,"date":"2025-06-24T12:05:47","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T18:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/picketts-charge\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:09:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:09:04","slug":"picketts-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/picketts-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Pickett\u2019s charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

On July 3, 1863, during the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate army made a mistake that cost the Confederates the battle and possibly the war. Major Gen. George Pickett defied his commanding general, James Longstreet, and commenced a frontal assault across an open field against the Union\u2019s center.<\/p>\n

It is known as Pickett\u2019s Charge. It was a devastating loss for the South and is considered the turning point of the Civil War. Longstreet ordered patience and that Pickett and his troops refrain from attack when they would be too vulnerable to Union fire. Seduced by bravado, Pickett charged nonetheless and lost over half his men before retreating.<\/p>\n

Similarly, tempting in this week\u2019s position is for white\u2019s knight to escape the threat from black\u2019s pawn and hop to f7, capturing black\u2019s pawn and forking black\u2019s rooks. Why is this a devastating mistake?<\/p>\n

Black capitalizes on knight takes f7 by exploiting white\u2019s vulnerability on f2. At present white\u2019s queen protects its king from black\u2019s queen and knight, which target f2. After the white knight\u2019s capture on f7, black slides a rook under the knight. The white knight must flee and takes black\u2019s rook on d8. Because now black\u2019s rook joins the assault on f2, black\u2019s knight takes white\u2019s f2 pawn with the support of its queen and rook (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mating lines for black are now in the air if white tries not to lose material. For example, if white\u2019s h1 rook moves to safety and defends f2, white\u2019s queen slides to e3, penetrating white\u2019s center with check. White may block the check with its queen but black\u2019s knight snatches white\u2019s bishop with check. White\u2019s queen is pinned so the king moves over to d1 only to soon be mated by black\u2019s d7 bishop checking from a4 (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

White delays its demise by blocking the check with its queen.<\/p>\n

From the original position, the best move is the simple knight retreat to f3, forsaking the more swashbuckling attack on f7, which invites trouble. Indeed, discretion is often the better part of valor.<\/p>\n

The lesson is, then, listen to the General Longstreet in your head. This may avert having a flawed attack named after you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

white\u2019s best move?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77430,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21719\/revisions\/77430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21719"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}