Talk:United States Secretary of War

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the United States Secretary of War article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

United States Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Military history: Biography / National / North America / United States C‑class

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

C

This article has been rated as C-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Military biography task force
	National militaries task force
	North American military history task force
	United States military history task force

Update?

Well, who's the current one?

There isn't one... Travis Cleveland 03:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sherman

Sherman was only acting Secretary of War. We usually don't list acting secretaries in our lists - we certainly don't keep them for numbering purposes. john k 00:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why not list him between 29 & 30 without a number (maybe just an *) with a footnote that says that he was the only acting Secretary of War? Otherwise, there is no way that anyone could get from this list to his page, and it leaves a hole in the list. RSStockdale 11:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I Think We're Forgetting Something

Was the Secretary of War split into the Secretary of the Amy, Secretary of the Air force, AND the Secretary of the Navy? There is no mention of the Navy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.164.20.119 (talk) 16:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Secretary of the Navy already existed. I've tried to clarify the sentence. Station1 (talk) 20:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Grant (and Sherman above)

Should we add Ulysses S. Grant (who served briefly as Secretary of War "ad-interim) and Acting Secretary of War Sherman to the list, albeit unnumbered? I don't see why not, and it would make the list more complete and matching modern Cabinet Secretary lists.--Tim Thomason 06:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

File:SecretaryWarPatterson.jpg Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:SecretaryWarPatterson.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests March 2012

What should I do?

Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so.

If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use)
If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used.

To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:SecretaryWarPatterson.jpg)

This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 19:51, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Stanton was secretary under Lincoln as well

Stanton served for many years under Lincoln, and famously so. The article currently says he just served under Johnson.

I'm a newbie to wikipedia so couldn't figure out how to make the table look pretty :).

Sources: Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005) on Lincoln's cabinet. Probably any source cited on Edwin Stanton

Cjrieds (talk) 19:38, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edwin Stanton

Anybody know how to fix the table, to show that Stanton was also Secretary under Andrew Johnson? GoodDay (talk) 11:23, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it was "fixed" to show Stanton was secretary under Johnson, but no longer shows he was under Lincoln (which was far more important). Cactusframe (talk) 01:24, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Treasury 3rd, not War

Secretary of the Treasury is before Secretary of Defense in succession today. Was it changed or was this an oversight? 74.69.9.224 (talk) 01:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Corresponding presidents

McHenry was originally appointed by Washington, and Stimson by FDR, but this page shows them only as serving under Adams and Truman, respectively. In Stimson's case, this is in spite of the fact that he took office five years before Truman became president. Is there any way to show that these men served under multiple presidents.?Nathaniel Greene (talk) 03:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Nathaniel Greene, GoodDay, and Cactusframe: It's an HTML bug (sort of); see Help talk:Table/Archive 8#Is rowspan broken?. The rowspans are all set correctly, but you wind up with rows that don't have a height. Forcing the height fixes the issue immediately, but there isn't a sustainable way to do that. I think the better approach is to recast the table to be like the one in United States Secretary of Defense. It's going to be more accessible that way as well. Mackensen (talk) 05:56, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's a mess up, for sure. Not certain how to fix it, accept look for another US appointed officer article, that has the problem solved & copy their solution. The way it's done at the US Secretary of Defence article, seems to be that solution. GoodDay (talk) 06:05, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The modern approach uses tables, here's an example:

No.	Portrait	Secretary of War	Took office	Left office	Time in office	Party	State of residence	President serving under	Ref.
1		Knox, HenryHenry Knox (1750–1806)	September 12, 1789	December 31, 1794	5 years, 110 days	Federalist	Massachusetts	Washington, GeorgeGeorge Washington

It's some work up front to convert the existing list, but it's done once and then you're in much better shape. The current format is unusable. Mackensen (talk) 13:09, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think I can dial up a regular expression to simplify the conversion. Mackensen (talk) 13:28, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And done. Mackensen (talk) 17:45, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]