Jeb Bush is modeling his campaign on one of military history’s great disasters

By hiring Mr. Diaz, Mr. Bush wanted to send a clear signal that “the culture of the Bush operation will now be a Pickett’s Charge engagement campaign with his main opponents,” according to one Bush ally.

This is a reference to an element of the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. Except Pickett’s Charge was a bloody disaster for the men involved that devastated the strategic position of the men who’d ordered it.

The context was that General Robert E. Lee had ordered a daring Confederate invasion of the North, which eventually led to a massive gathering of Union and Confederate forces in the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On the third day of that battle, Lee ordered artillery bombardment of Union positions on the high ground at Cemetery Ridge, followed by an infantry charge. Union forces correctly predicted what was up, and silenced their guns during the Confederate barrage. That led the rebels to mistakenly believe they’d knocked out the Union’s big guns, so they sent 12,000 men to try to take the ridge. They were cut to pieces by Union guns, suffered a 50 percent casualty rate, lost the battle, and permanently lost the strategic initiative in the larger war.