Talk:Boston campaign

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Boston campaign/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

I'm going to have a quick few one nitpicks for you, which you'll need anyway if you go for A-class.

• Just checking--all of those refs that come at the end of paragraphs cover the entire paragraph, right?
  • As a rule, yes. Particularly in this article, since it's (as you say) a summary, you can see that many of the cites reference at least two pages, and often more, of the source work. Some of the authors (Fischer and Frothingham especially) are incredibly detailed. (For example, Fischer devotes 12 pages, including maps, to describing other "powder alarms" and seizures, which I summarize in two sentences. Maybe when I get around to promoting Powder Alarm you can read more about them. :) ) Magic♪piano 16:05, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Alright then, good work. PASS! :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 00:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• Otherwise, I'm going to pass this per my comments in the first review. :) Though it is on the short side, it's just supposed to be summaries of all the battles, not detailed accounts! Great work. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 15:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

DNB referencing

I was looking into the two references Stephen (1886), with a view to replacing these with direct links to DNB articles at Wikisource. The one to pages 340 and 341 is OK, because in the indicated vol.7 of the Google Books this is the start of the article for John Burgoyne. The other one is puzzling, because it is to p. 550 and the book has only about 450 pages. A check on the intended ref, please. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Removing now. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:05, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

smallpox myth

That smallpox myth certainly gets mileage. Before I deleted it the text read "The war also had incidents of biological warfare used by the British. In late 1775 and early 1776, the British Army deliberately infected thousands of American civilians and black slaves - men, women, and children - with smallpox then sent them in order to spread disease behind Continental Army lines and the inhabitants of Continental-held towns in Massachusetts. The ensuing devastation of the Continental Army and the inhabitants." all false. In the event 500 people left Boston, of whom 3 (three) later came down with smallpox. They did not cause any losses to the American Army. Boston had suffered a major smallpox epidemic for the previous two years and it was kept well under control. 3 cases out of 500 people was average, not biological warfare. (a total of 40 people died from smallpox and 28 from inoculations). click here for actual facts: Ballard C. Campbell (2008). Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History: A Reference Guide to the Nation's Most Catastrophic Events. Infobase Publishing. p. 1777. Rjensen (talk) 01:21, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Even if the business about smallpox is worth mentioning, placing a whole paragraph devoted to it in the lead is questionable (which, per WP:LEAD, is supposed to a summary of the rest of the article). If it is to be retained, it should be properly integrated into the chronology of the article body. Magic♪piano 19:02, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

the sources cited are not reliable secondary sources. Geoffrey Zubay is a biochemist with no experience with the historiography; he does not cite ANY primary or secondary historical sources. (see his resume at resume online that shows 160+ articles, with zero on history. Given the huge scholarly literature on 1776, that does not pass muster when wikipedia demands "reliable secondary sources." Furthermore the text added to this article does not even follow its poor sources--it adds all sorts of exaggerations (three people with smallpox left Boston; the supposed text says "thousands"; the refugees were all kept in isolation far from the American troops and that worked, As stated in Peters, Smallpox in the New World (2005) Page 42 "His[Washington's] measures seem to have worked, for smallpox did not break out among the American forces near Boston." The rumors were rife: Washington in Dec 1775 warned a a FUTURE plot: "By recent information...General Howe is going to send out a number of the inhabitants...A sailor says that a number of these coming out have been inoculated with the design of spreading the smallpox through this...camp." Washington said he did NOT believe the sailor's rumor but he did take precautions like isolating the refugees. see sparks, jared (1834). the writings of george washington. p. 188. What historians have done (see Ballard Campbell) is sift out the false rumors that were not true. Rjensen (talk) 09:31, 15 March 2014 (UTC)