User talk:Kresock/Archive 8

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Thanks

Thanks So much for the Help you have been Lately! Have a Great Day! Lord R. T. Oliver ^{The Olive Branch} 01:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem! Kresock (talk) 01:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Did I tell you that I have decided to run as a Coordinator of the Military History WikiProject? I am quite excited. :) Lord R. T. Oliver ^{The Olive Branch} 04:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I saw that, but I don't involve myself much with the project processes and I don't think I can vote. You do sound giggly! Good luck with the campaign. Kresock (talk) 04:29, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Ha ha is it that noticeable? :) Thanks for the Luck! Have A Great Day! Lord R. T. Oliver ^{The Olive Branch} 04:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits

Thanks, sorry about the United States thing, not sure how that happened, I'll try and watch that. IRT the Maj and LtCol question, is that not ok using the United States rank link vice the generic rank link. I realize that the confederate ranks differed from the United States/Union ranks but it seemed more appropriate than just the generic article. Not sure about the author question, I think that is a generic edit done by AWB, not sure, I have about 1100 edits and its possible that one of them does it for some reason.--Kumioko (talk) 22:28, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem and no offense at all. Somehow me and Hal seem to rub each other the wrong way, but I do so many edits it would be truly bizarre if I didn't make a mistake occasionally. I guess I can stop making the changes to the General CSA links but I still don't agree that pointing them to a page that could refer to any and all generals in the world is better than pointing to the USA. I think it would be better to expand tha USA article to cover the subject.--Kumioko (talk) 01:35, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

re: Alfred Jefferson Vaughan, Jr

Hi Kresock!

Here's the text you requested. It doesn't have any inline citations, so it may not be very useful to you. Good luck with your endeavours! Your new version already looks much better :) — Roger Davies ^talk 06:14, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Moved text to sandbox for now. Kresock (talk) 15:14, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks I'll try to stick to the guide :), I'll fix that reference too. Have A Great Day! Lord R. T. Oliver ^{The Olive Branch} 21:09, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Reference Number 9 is not a Book it is more of a Magazine I put the Publisher. Thanks for putting that picture of Edmund Kirby Smith from earlier in his life, I literally was going to add that picture today but you saved me the trouble, Thanks. Have A Great Day! Lord R. T. Oliver ^{The Olive Branch} 21:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

You're doing good work at CP Stone

You might not be aware of these two articles. Here's an article about "Washington on the Eve of War". It's not clear from the website who wrote the article, so I'll let you puzzle this out. You'll enjoy the answer. This is one of the best articles written on the subject of CPS and Ball's Bluff, by someone who knew him well. James G. Blaine's biography "Twenty Years in Congress" contains some fascinating stuff, and may be able to be found online (didn't see it in google books). BusterD (talk) 00:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I should point point out that Morgan is one of the battlefield guides at Ball's Bluff, has read everything on the subject, and his book corrects much earlier scholarship as it relates to the military actions at Edward's Ferry and Ball's Bluff. IMHO, nobody else has gotten this part of the story right. I hadn't read Winkler yet. BusterD (talk) 00:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, they had two children, but only Hettie lived to adulthood. Did you do your reading? BusterD (talk) 01:28, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I just want to make sure I understand what you seem to have written. Are you saying that Jeff Davis was best man at the wedding of CPS's father-in-law? BusterD (talk) 01:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yep. This link here explains it in the footnotes, and the date of the wedding came from here. If the committee knew this it probably only fueled the fire. Got some reading to do now! Kresock (talk) 01:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to be down at Ball's Bluff next weekend helping get the park ready for this year's tour season. You anywhere close? BusterD (talk) 02:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Congrats on getting Stone back to an earned "B" class. You are just writing up a storm recently. Keep up the good work. BusterD (talk) 01:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

brevets

Howdy. Since I know you are interested in articles about officers, I thought I would drop you a note. I have been doing a little research into brevet promotions and I think some of our usage in ACW articles has been going astray. Eicher page 34 (see http://books.google.com/books?id=Fs0Ajlnjl6AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=eicher+high&ei=7KffSaDAOZqGkASp3O3hDg&client=firefox-a#PPA34,M1) has some good material about why calling these "honorary" promotions or using the term "breveted" is wrong. It is particularly interesting to understand how some brevet officers have seniority over officers of substantive of rank (outside of their regiments). I also found the massive The History and Legal Effect of Brevets in the Armies of Great Britain and the United States: From Their Origin in 1692 to the Present Time by Fry at http://books.google.com/books?id=gDI-AAAAIAAJ . (You need to be careful in this work when they use the term 'corps' because they mean it in the sense of Signal Corps, Corps of Engineers, etc., not something like I Corps (ACW).) This wealth of material makes the article brevet (military) wrong in a number of aspects, particularly the pay of the brevet officer. I am busy with some other projects and I do not feel like wading into that article to correct and expand it. If you are interested, I commend the effort to you. Hal Jespersen (talk) 20:25, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello there! Thanks for the note and links. I've often wondered if we are better off sticking to actual regular ranks. I ran into a usage issue yesterday with Emory Upton, trying to explain it through edit summaries. Personally I'd rather not use brevets just mention them as occuring, and editing Confederate officers is just easier because they didn't employ them. I ran into the corps issue on Charles Pomeroy Stone's page when he commanded a division called a 'Corps of Observation'. Work has me swamped as it always does around holidays, but I'll look into it when I can. Glad you brought this up. Kresock (talk) 23:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I was not suggesting that we do much different with the biography articles themselves, other than avoiding the terms "honorary" and "breveted." (In the latter case it would be more accurate to say, for instance, "he was promoted to [or appointed] brevet major general of volunteers.") It is the Wikipedia article on brevets that needs major surgery. The problem is that laws and regulations make the brevet ranks seem quite important in certain theoretical circumstances, but I get the impression that the vast number of brevets were actually given out in 1865, many backdated to correspond with important battles from earlier years, so they really had little practical impact beyond pats on the back. I am not advocating removing the brevets from the articles; I think we have been going in the correct direction by explicitly indicating brevet in the boxes. Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:10, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Hal for the clarification I obviously needed it. Up to this point I've used brevetted instead of commissioned a lot (which is how they differed in my mind) and this is quite wrong. I see what you're talking about on the Brevet page, where the intro states these were temporary ranks only, and goes on to say it lacked any authority.

From the link you gave and the work by the Eichers, this is how I would now consider the term: brevet promotions held authority only outside their unit, beyond the regimental level (where seniority rules and it would be only honorary) and that an assignment by the President/War Dept. is required for it to have meaning and effect; that they were approved by the U.S. Senate just like regular commissions; that they received the pay corresponding to the rank; that they received a billet corresponding to the rank when one was available available; and according to President Jackson a "regular general" ranks a "'brevetted general" regardless of effective dates. Do I have this right? This does not jive with the Brevet article at all, and I'll correct it when I'm done with Huger's page after Easter.

As for your comment about the late-war promotions, for all those who were made brevet brigadiers on 13 March, 1865, (a slew of them occurred on that date as the Eichers point out) these men held honorary titles unless assigned a posting requiring a brigadier. So as far as I can tell, brevets during the CW were rewards for the most part, not having much effect at all, unlike their use in Mexico. With this deeper understanding, my use of "brevetted" is not correct, and I'll start using something like "Joe Blow was appointed a brevet major general in the Union Army/U.S. Army" as they apply. I have also been replacing "of volunteers" with "in the Union Army" whenever I see them, and adding "in the U.S. Army" for regular army promotions; this is mainly due to your style guide as well as to clarify. Please let me know if you have a problem with this. Good day sir! Kresock (talk) 23:30, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

And this is pure gold! Kresock (talk) 23:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Hee-hee. Sometimes I allow my curmudgeonlyness to come down on the humorous side.

As far as I understand the brevet thing from reading Eicher and skimming through the other lengthy document, let's say I am a colonel of volunteers and I have just been appointed brevet brigadier general of volunteers. This means that within my regiment I don't outrank any of the other colonels who have earlier dates of rank. (And whether they literally mean regiment, I don't know. These regulations were written in an earlier time when there simply were not many larger units. Perhaps it also applies to "line units" such as brigade or division.) I get the higher rate of pay only when I am serving in the capacity of the brevet rank, such as brigade commander. If I stay regimental commander, I do not get the pay increase. However, if I am interacting with officers in other organizations, such as for a court-martial board or perhaps a combined arms task force, I have the rank and authority of the higher grade.

Eicher on page 32-33 shows which officers outrank each other and all of the nuances regarding substantive versus brevet commissions, line versus staff, regular versus volunteer, apply only after section I.A.: "By grade in descending order, or if in the same grade, ..." except that I.B. says that "brevet commissions were not considered in the determination of rank within a line unit." So I'm not sure of the context of your reference to Pres. Jackson. It would seem to me that outside of the line unit, a brevet brigadier general would outrank a colonel of volunteers or of the regular army. I think that in all cases, a regular army colonel in a line position will outrank a regular army colonel in a staff position, a colonel of volunteers, and a brevet colonel.

There needs to be a judgment call about whether we take any of this seriously. The number of situations in which we are interested in officer interactions outside of line units will be pretty small. (Nowadays at the Pentagon, they use rules like that to determine which one of the colonels has to go fetch coffee.) I think we are in reasonably good shape in terms of the biography articles, as long as we do not say "honorary," but the article about brevets needs a lot more information for those people who are interested in the details.

As to your comments regarding "Union Army" versus "of volunteers," I think I would prefer the latter because I don't think we have established the fact that the Union Army was the volunteer army. It was the volunteer army plus the U.S. Army (just as today, the Army is made up of the National Guard, the volunteer army -- called Army of the United States or AUS when I was in the service -- and the regular army, USA).

If I had it to do all over again, I would've established a notation of links something like this:

[[Regular Army (ACW) | USA]]
[[Volunteer Army (ACW) | USV]]

with the appropriate articles (perhaps links to within sections of the Union Army article, although that article is mute about most of this stuff). So you could say he was promoted to colonel, USV, or major, USA. The problem that we have is that we have used the Eicher reference for so long and their standard is to omit reference to the service for the volunteers. My style guide adjusted to that fact and said that we only have to worry about calling out the regular army instances, but that was established at a time when many of these biographies were much shorter and we did not go into all of the excruciating detail about promotions. However, and it is a big however, I am very reluctant to propose this change to the overall community because guys like Grayghost and Kumioko will go absolutely bananas in directions you can probably predict. Hal Jespersen (talk) 19:08, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello again! I think you are absolutely right about the can of worms that would be opened, and I greatly prefer small edits to the existing bios to reflect what we've learned. I am gonna clarify those listed on my user page first, finish with Huger, then attack the Brevet page. Any other bios we can edit as we usually do, as they come within our sights so to speak. I believe you are correct about the pay, such a brevet officer getting it only when acting in that capacity outside their "home" unit. I only intend to change the U.S. portions of the Brevet page if that's cool with you. The country sections probably should be alphabetized, and I was tossing around the idea to pipe directly to the U.S. part, something like:

[ [  Brevet (military)#United States|brevet  ] ]  

but not sure if it's worth it. Seems unnecessary to me unless the Brevet article grows significantly. Maybe down the road? Good day, Hal!. Kresock (talk) 03:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure your clarifying comment about pay is correct. The pay is not related to the home unit, it is whether you are acting to fulfill the responsibilities of the higher grade. A concrete example is West Point graduates who were brevet second lieutenants. Those guys were given brevets because there were not a sufficient number of second lieutenant commissions available, but I am sure that they were paid for that rank when they were assigned to a unit. And a Col. who is given a brevet to Brig. Gen. would be paid in that grade if he were assigned as a brigade commander. You know, the one thing I have not been able to figure out and maybe you have found it is whether the brevet promotion came with the uniform rank insignia. On March 13, 1865, did all of these guys rush out and get new shoulder boards or was it entirely a paperwork exercise? On the link, I don't see the need to redirect to the United States portion. If the article got long enough that that was necessary, I would hope we could come up with a link such as "brevet (ACW)" or "brevet (USA)" that would redirect appropriately. Hal Jespersen (talk) 16:11, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I also am not sure of the uniforms, or for that matter how they were addressed or signed their name. The vast majority of those fellows I've gotten pics for are depicted in their last non-brevet rank. When Bragg resigned, was he wearing straps showing the two bars of a captain, or the light oak leaf of a lt. colonel by way of brevet? Winfield Scott was a three-star brevet for years; any pics of him in a lieutenant general's uniform? James B. Fry, the author of the brevet book you linked, used the form name, reg. rank and position/assignment, brevet rank and I wonder if this was typical of the Civil War period. If so, can you imagine their business cards? Check out his comments on p. 13 as to the uniforms, pay, etc. as of 1877:

The latest laws on the subject, retroactive in their operation, supplementing those cutting off all pay and allowances, forbid officers in their official capacities from wearing the uniform or being addressed by the titles of their brevet grades. That is to say, having received these rewards, of no pecuniary value whatever, for gallant, distinguished, or meritorious services to the nation, the receipt of which is acknowledged in the certificate, the recipient of the reward is forbidden to make the usual exhibition of it... It may therefore be said that this inducement provided by the laws of the United States, as a special reward for gallant, distinguished or meritorious conduct on the part of officers of the army, has become almost valueless.

Another thing I've been unsure of is when those brevet second lieutenants are made second lieutenants, is this transaction considered a promotion or an additional commission? Kresock (talk) 17:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

The photos I've seen of Scott look more like a hotel doorman and I couldn't guess how his rank is displayed. :-) I went to http://www.generalsandbrevets.com/ to find some photos, but the site is down today.

Here's a site I just found with some info: http://www.alia.org.au/~kwebb/Brevets/

The quote you found is interesting. Without reading the full 200+ pages, it's hard to tell what was in effect during the war--these regs changed over the years. Perhaps the 1877 law was written to change an abused practice.

The step from Bvt 2LT to 2LT is a new commission document and Eicher usually lists the event and date. (I generally use the verb 'appoint' or 'promote' for any action following the first 'commission', but the certificate signed by the President says 'commission' each time.) Hal Jespersen (talk) 20:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Downed links

Interesting, the archive.org links are down right now also. BTW, if you'd like to do any of this sort of discussion in email, I have that interface enabled on my user page. Hal Jespersen (talk) 14:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

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Template:infobox Confederate State ACW

How do I use this, I'm trying to fill in the parts that aren't in the US state infobox, (on another wiki site and my profile), like the population of free and slave, troops, casualties, and such. Please help me on this thing. Lucas Duke (talk) 21:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

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