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This page is an Archive of the discussions from WikiProject Military history/American Civil War task force talk page (Discussion page).
(August 2006 – August 2007) - Please Do not edit!

Start

I'm kicking off in the most logical place I can find by placing {{WPMILHIST|class=Start|ACW-task-force=yes}} on Talk:Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War. • CQ 20:47, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

One minor point: for bookkeeping purposes, it would be good to also add US-task-force=yes on any articles that are missing it, as (just about) everything in the scope of this task force is also in the scope of that one. Kirill Lokshin 20:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
OK. Done. Are we using "importance" criteria or an equivilent? I added importance=Top but saw no change in the banner. CQ 21:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Nope, we're not; the project decided to discontinue importance ratings about a month ago due to there being too much strife over how things should be compared. Kirill Lokshin 21:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't everything fall within the US task force? I'm trying to think if there would be any exceptions. Can't think of any... Unless you're not wanting Confederate stuff under it? plange 21:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking of the various negotiations in Europe related to the ACW, actually; I'm not quite sure whether all of them had any American involvement. It's possibly too minor a point to be worth mentioning, though. Kirill Lokshin 21:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm new here and not very familiar with how the US task force operates. I think that a main reason for starting this taskforce is to scope things chronologically within the Civil War period and geographically to the States. Sure this taskforce should be seen from within as a sub-task-force of the United States military history task force. CQ 21:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
This task force is a bit unusual in that the topics it deal with are a subset of those dealt with by another task force, rather than cutting across mulitiple task forces; hence, some of the initial subtleties of wording and inter-task-force relationships that we don't really have experience with. Having said that, I very much doubt this will be an issue in practice; the wording in the scope is more to stave off the inevitable question of how articles should be tagged than to resolve any significant conflict. Kirill Lokshin 22:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Structure

I'm proposing that we begin a timeline along the principles outlined at Grand Unified Timeline of Human History geared to "plug in" to the timeline shown on Portal:United States. This timeline will be grafted onto the Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War.

We have started a micro-version of this sort of timeline at Kentucky in the Civil War/Timeline. I would like to produce a Timeline of the American Civil War as a master document that can include, exclude and transclude elements from smaller, more detailed timelines. There might also be a Timeline of the Aftermath of the American Civil War or Timeline of the Reconstruction (American Civil War) or some such timeline.

I would also like to make a large master map and submaps that show where rivers, railways, forts, battlefields and other geographical points can be seen and expanded or contracted by both readers and editors. This is an ambitious and crazy idea, I know.

Next, is a comprehensive treatment of personalities, by allegience (North|South|Neutral), by state, unit or whatever from a biographical perspective. The List of American Civil War leaders probably exists in some form that I am not yet aware of.

My philosophy is to find, catalog, expand, contract and refine existing articles and resources before creating new ones that are most likely redundant. Brother against brother is an example of a new article concerning border state issues that is supplimental to Wikipedia's treatment of the American Civil War.

Lots of work is here for this taskforce. I'm interested enough to chip away at it and look forward to collaborative efforts to Git 'er done. • CQ 21:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting idea with the timelines. This is probably a good area in which to experiment with such things, as it's more limited in scale than some of the other task forces dealing with particular conflicts; I'm sure that editors working on other periods would be interested in adopting some of these ideas once the actual details of implementation have been worked out. Kirill Lokshin 22:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
One minor point to note would be that Kentucky in the Civil War/Timeline should really be moved to something like Timeline of Kentucky in the Civil War, since subpages don't really work properly in the main namespace. Kirill Lokshin 22:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

How do I...

see articles marked with the Needed class? I was browsing the new article category and saw the Virginia in the Civil War talk page which was marked as needed. How do I find others marked similarly? plange 04:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

They should show up in the Category:Needed-Class military history articles page once the bot makes its rounds. Oops! Looks like we have not yet implemented this. I've started this. Hope it's OK. Krill? You here? • CQ 07:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm. A Category:Unassessed-Class articles exists but not a Category:Needed-Class articles. But that's more of a concern for WP:1. The Category:Needed-Class military history articles should automatically fill soon. See Category:Military history articles by quality and the master list. I'm not sure how to work with a list this large. CQ 07:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
OK. The break between Category:Stub-Class military history articles and Category:Unassessed military history articles currently happens on Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Military history articles by quality/21 (page 21 of the master list). I think the bot needs a master Category:Needed-Class articles listing to put those in the main bot list, so I may have flubbed up. I don't know how (or even if) they/we do this. We'll have to ask Walkerma or someone at WP:1 unless Krill knows. CQ 08:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Umm, not to rain on anyone's parade, but nobody can actually work with "needed-class" articles: because the talk page wouldn't have an article associated with it, it would be speedy deleteable under WP:CSD G8. If we're just listing articles that need to be created, we have to go with simply listing them by hand on the task force page (and/or the template box there). Kirill Lokshin 09:35, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

States in the Civil War

I marked These pages with the non-implemented "Needed-Class" tag:

We should probably discuss if they are "needed" or not. The point to what I was doing was to see what states were using the "[Some State] in the Civil War" naming scheme for separate articles of this type, and if other naming conventions exist. I'm here from Wikipedia:WikiProject Kentucky and Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states. See Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states/Matrix. CQ 16:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

OK. I refactored the "States" section on the Project page. The red links tell the story. I think I got all the states in that were involved, except maybe Texas, come to think of it. Idaho seems stange in there, but there was one event there — Bear River Massacre. I went ahead and added a category. Maryland, Tennessee and Virginia are conspicuously missing. Louisiana has been created. I also announced this taskforce at WikiProject U.S. states. • CQ 00:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

New York in the Civil War

Just finished populating this category, will turn my attention to Delaware and Minnesota next, then probably Maryland. I have already created and populated 8 Northern states' categories. Scott Mingus 19:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Delaware and Minnesota are finished and populated. Moving on to Maryland. Noticed that CQ set up Louisiana - thanks! Let's help him add articles to that cat. Scott Mingus 02:40, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Completed early work on Texas in the Civil War and created and populated Category:Texas in the Civil War. Scott Mingus 13:44, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Overly specific categorization?

Something to consider: is it really necessary for a single article to have (a) its own campaignbox and (b) its own category? Perhaps these are merely placeholders for more articles yet to come; but, given how thorough the coverage of the ACW seems to be, I suspect that this isn't the case.

I would suggest that a comprehensive review of the category and campaignbox structure of the war may be advisable at this point. Both the templates and the categories are intended primarily as navigational tools, but have been broken down very minutely by using "official" campaign designations exclusively. I think it might be better to merge related categories and templates; otherwise, they're not all that useful. The "correct" campaigns can, of course, be indicated within the relevant articles; but there's no reason, in my opinion, why we cannot group related operations together for the purpose of making navigation easier for the reader. Kirill Lokshin 20:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Forrest's Expedition into West Tennessee and Kentucky seems a bit too specific also. I agree and am concerned that the campaignboxes are a bit unwieldy. I'm new to Military history and just learning about the ACW. I think it's important to review the whole shabang comprehensively here at the taskforce. I, personally have a lot to learn about the various theatres, campaigns, armies, etc. We should probably get the rest of the categories on the taskforce project page.
I'm finding lots of potential tasks. Looks like the articles in Category:American Civil War orders of battle might could be wikified better, converted to a more tabular form, and merged into single articles per battle. We've barely scratched the surface here, from what I can tell. • CQ 03:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
There's definitely a large number of campaignboxes (and associated categories) that have only one or two battles in them, so a lot of merging can probably be done to reduce their number and make them somewhat more useful for readers.
There was, I think, a massive spurt of initial article writing on ACW topics early on in Wikipedia's history (since that's what the predominantly American contributor base tended to be familiar with), but it's died down somewhat. Hopefully, this task force can start going through and actually wrapping up some of the articles that have been sitting in limbo for years now. Kirill Lokshin 03:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I've created over 50 articles on the Civil War (mostly bios), but there are hundreds more to go. I would like to see at a minimum an article for each general on both sides, and that has been something I have been working at slowly as time allows. My main goal will be to finish articles for all remaining Ohio and PA generals (my home states), but there are some glaring omissions in the article base for other leading generals. Another thing that needs done (not my cup of tea) is to expand the battle stubs. Scott Mingus 03:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I've added what I think might be a usable general idea for the theater/campaign/battle category scheme. One major advantage of it, in my view, is that there would be no requirement to have a separate category for every campaign, since individual battles could be placed directly in a theater's battle category. Kirill Lokshin 03:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Ah. Very nice, Kirill! I was thinking down those same lines, but wasn't sure how to go about it. Thanks!
And good job Scott, too. I'm from the Ohio-Mississippi river confluence area myself and visit local battlefields when I can. Could you maybe do something helpful with the "People" section of the project page, since you have a biographical leaning? CQ 04:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
My suggestion is that you leave the campaign categories as-is. With the exception of some obscure, small campaigns, many of the campaign boxes that result are actually useful guides to appear in articles. Having a campaign box that listed all of the battles in a theater would be so large as to be useless. If there is a concern that someone cannot find an article, there are superior methods already available. Battles of the American Civil War lists battles by state and by year. Eastern Theater of the American Civil War and its sister articles combine many of the small campaigns into larger themes and explain how they fit together. For those who may say that these articles are not 100% accurate, I would reply with two points: (1) the effort to make them accurate would be work better spent than moving categories around; (2) the categories we have not 100% accurate either. Hal Jespersen 20:18, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I rather doubt anyone was suggesting that we combine things to the point of having only a single campaignbox for an entire theater; rather, the idea is that the trivially small (primarily one-battle, and some two-battle) campaignboxes might be better off being merged together, or simply eliminated. I, for one, can't really see the practical purpose of having a template linking to a single article (as well as a separate category for that article); given that these templates are meant for navigation, rather than to replace article content, how useful is a navigation template that provides nothing to navigate to? Kirill Lokshin 20:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, since I see that you are already implementing changes, I guess discussion is not really necessary. Although it sounds theoretically good to take two or six one-battle campaigns and combine them into one, it will be interesting to see which ones you select to combine, whether they are really logically connected, and whether it makes it any easier to navigate. Who will make these decisions? One of the advantages of the existing approach is that professional historians in the National Park Service made the previous decisions, so little argument is required. Hal Jespersen 22:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, as far as I can tell, the only changes I've made so far are purely ones of nomenclature (putting battles under categories named "Battles" versus putting campaigns under categories named "Campaigns"); I don't believe I've made any substantive alterations to the current scheme as far as the actual division into campaigns is concerned.
The other side of these is that we need not necessarily combine campaigns; in some cases, it may simply be an issue of deleting the template/category and moving the single isolated battle up to the parent category (or leaving the category in place but deleting the campaignbox). While a categorization arguement can be made for keeping even very small campaigns, it doesn't really apply to templates which are explicitly meant for navigation among articles, rather than as a canonical "hierarchy" of operations. Kirill Lokshin 22:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Userbox

I've created a userbox for this task force at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Outreach/User WPMILHIST American Civil War task force, if anyone would like to use one. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 04:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Shelby Foote

I've talked to a Civil War historian about various topics, and Shelby Foote has come up on various occasions. This historian says that Foote's books don't provide sources and are thus considered fiction by many historians. Therefore, should we not be using his books as sources? This is certainly a subject that should be carefully sourced, IMHO. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 18:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Considering that many Wikipedia articles point to anonymously authored websites and to magazine articles, newspapers, and television shows that provide no sources, I would say that Shelby Foote is in very good company. I use him primarily for quotations and other bits of color in articles and I intend to continue using him. Hal Jespersen 20:18, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
This is certainly more serious subject matter than "television shows". The requirement for sources should be of just about the highest caliber that's possible. If Foote's works (as good as they are) aren't well-sourced, or sourced at all, we *must* take that into account. We must. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 20:41, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't saying that articles about TV shows are serious. I said that many Wikipedia articles *cite* TV shows. In the early days of ACW articles here, a few cited the Ken Burns PBS series, for example, although I think I have those weeded out by now. Of more significance in my previous paragraph was that there are many Wikipedia articles that cite websites and magazines that are not sourced and are sometimes anonymous. Shelby Foote does list the sources he used in his Narrative, he just doesn't use footnotes. It is actually up to the reader to determine the validity of a citation we use here, particularly in those cases where portraying different POVs requires multiple, conflicting sources. I'd prefer a citation to Foote over one to mycivilwarvanitysite.com any day. Hal Jespersen 22:18, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. We're not as far apart as I was thinking. Whew! I'm only saying we must consider Foote's lack of footnoting, so when something he says comes up against a fully footnoted reliable source that is in disagreement, we will weight each position accordingly. I guess I just get alarmed about any historical work that isn't footnoted (I mean, I thought true historians did that), but you're right, Foote's work would eclipse many websites. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 06:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
One more thought and I'll go away. In addition to the web/magazine unsourced works, here's a brief list of works I have used widely in ACW articles (all except the last) and none of them use footnotes:
  • Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders, Louisiana State University Press, 1964, ISBN 0-8071-0822-7.
  • Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Louisiana State University Press, 1959, ISBN 0-8071-0823-5.
  • Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3. (He has very detailed lists of references, but does not associate specific claims with those references.)
  • Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T., eds., W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04758-X.
  • Any AmericanHeritage book, including the big one with James M. McPherson and Bruce Catton listed as authors.
  • Time-Life 40-volume ACW series.
  • Bruce Catton's trilogy on the Army of the Potomac. (His trilogy on the Centennial History of the Civil War does have a small number of footnotes, as does his works on Ulysses S. Grant. In both cases, we're talking less than one footnote per page, which would probably be rejected as a featured article in Wikipedia.)
  • The revered Encyclopaedia Britannica (and, in fact, any of the public domain encyclopedias used widely in Wikipedia).
In all of these cases, the reader is relying on the name of the author or publisher to vouch for the accuracy of the material within. It is only due to the anonymous nature of Wikipedia that there is any discussion of using footnotes in an encyclopedia. Hal Jespersen 15:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Keep the states categories!!!

I saw some comment that Idaho in the Civil War may be a temporary category. I STRONGLY object to eliminating or combining the states categories, as that's the way many people search for information - from their own state, not from a particular campaign. Keep the states. Scott Mingus 23:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, where did you see this? I don't recall it being mentioned here, so I'm not sure what you're referring to. Kirill Lokshin 23:53, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
My error - misunderstood comments about removing Civil War category from article...and now back to your regular programming. Scott Mingus 03:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I totally agree they should be kept, at any rate. :) Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 06:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Question on format?

I experimented in the new Texas in the Civil War article that I am working on by adding the campaign boxes specific to battles in that state. Not sure if I like this, but I stuck them in anyway. Do folks like this approach, and should it be continued for other "<State> in the Civil War" articles? Also, feel free to add more text to the Texas article. The Mississippi one needs a lot of attention (Mississippi in the Civil War as I merely copied a couple sentences from the parent article. Scott Mingus 00:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I haven't looked at all of them yet, but I like the format at West Virginia in the Civil War because it lists battles and leaders. I just added a Virginia in the Civil War article and category and announced it and this project at WikiProject Virginia.
Thanks for falling in on the state-by-state analysis Scott. We've made some progress but still have a ways to go. Maybe we can get some other state WikiProjects to join in. North and South Carolina and several others lack categories and the extra large {{American Civil War}} does not yet appear on all the state articles. I think it may be nice to remove the "State involvement" section, replacing it with a {{American Civil War by state}} template or such. I dunno. Just thinking out loud. CQ 16:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I would suggest replacing the entire {{American Civil War}} with a {{portal}} and creating a Portal:American Civil War to list all the important topics; but that's just me. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I think a portal is a great idea! Do you want me to take a stab at setting it up? plange 17:20, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I vote we go for it. Gotta watch that Portal skeleton, though. We'll need GAs, FAs as well as FPs and FLs, So look at the Assessment page. Featured pictures abound. I like that Map. Look at the "Resources" section on the project page. I'll be kindof "on the road" for a couple of days, but I should be logging in from the Library at Paducah, Kentucky when I get to the other side. Cool. Thanks! • CQ 18:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

American Civil War Portal

Maybe {{American Civil War}} can be replaced in all instances by {{Portal|American Civil War}}.. • CQ 18:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been researching the portal idea for some time User:BusterD/portal, and have been beefing up the list of topics and acw people and such. The ACW portal is a natural addition, and the menu becomes a wonderful guide as to what sorts of things would be appropriate to portal. We have a number of featured articles, and tons of interest. BusterD 19:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
OK. The Portal is there, at least. BusterD and I have been kicking around some color schemes. Go to Portal:American Civil War/box-header and flip through the revisions and let us know what you like or add your own. Thanks CQ 22:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
The current scheme looks pretty nice (but then again, I'm a big fan of gray colorschemes). Might I suggest having an outer box (e.g. Portal:War) with some different colors there? Kirill Lokshin 23:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Wow, you people work fast! :) Hopefully, there will some attention to providing balanced coverage, that is, giving the Union and Confederates roughly equal coverage. At any rate, the portal has a great start. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 23:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

More work on the state categories

I created and populated Category:Maryland in the Civil War, as well as populating Category:Tennessee in the Civil War and Category:Washington, D.C. in the Civil War. I also finished populating Category:Texas in the Civil War. I normally add the major politicians, generals and naval officers from the state, significant places / battles, and related articles. Scott Mingus 01:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

A lot of hotel time here in rainy Boston (business trip) - created and populated Category:Colorado in the Civil War and Category:New Mexico in the Civil War, and created short articles as starting points for others to finish for Colorado in the Civil War and New Mexico in the Civil War. Scott Mingus 10:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Very nice work! Kirill Lokshin 11:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Kirill! Just knocked off Category:Georgia in the Civil War and Category:Arkansas in the Civil War. Will work on more as time allows... Scott Mingus 02:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Too much hotel time these days... but I was able to populate Category:Alabama in the Civil War. Feel free to add anything that I may have missed to any of these state cats. Scott Mingus 02:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Missing topics list

I'm not sure if it's any help, however I've created at missing topics list based on Clifford L. Linedecker's Civil War, A to Z: The Complete Handbook to America's Bloodiest Conflict. I'm still cleaning the page up bit by bit, however I certainly invite everyone to take a look. MadMax 22:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Very nice! Once all the bluelinks are removed, we should probably copy over the remainder to the task force page and use it to feed the to-do list. Kirill Lokshin 22:28, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
It looks like you did a tremendous amount of work on that list. Browsing through it, I noticed a dozen or so anomalies. Do you want people to make corrections to that page or wait for another step? Hal Jespersen 23:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I certainly appreciate the compliment (if you think that was hard you should see the, as yet incomplete, Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography list). :) I've fixed the majority of the red links as best I can, although I did notice several error which I assume is probably attributed to a printing error (mostly reversed or mispelled names). I did find it helpful however in finding useful redirects and red links, particularly on the Find-A-Grave missing topics list. If there's anything out of place, please feel free to edit it. MadMax 01:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
That second list is absolutely amazing, even if incomplete. Is there any chance you might be able to copy the contents over to WP:MHREQ once you're done with it? Kirill Lokshin 01:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Max, I corrected a few minor typos on your list that changed some red links to blue links. Also, note that Benjamin Franklin Butler is who you want to refer to; not sure where Benjamin Freeman Butler came from. Curious as to David H. Todd - who is that? David Tod was governor of my native Ohio during the Civil War; could that be who you are listing? Great work, by the way! Scott Mingus 02:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Mr. Mingus,
Thanks for all your help, and I greatly appreciate the compliments. Lieutenant David H. Todd, incidentally a half-brother of Mary Todd Lincoln, is listed as the commandant of Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia (pg. 303). I am puzzled by Benjamin Butler, as there may be some inconsistancy between the book and the Wikipedia article. Also I've just finished a related Civil War missing topics list based on Sparticus Educational. MadMax 01:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Multiple battles on same field

I've been beefing up the list of Task Force requested articles by copying red links from various list pages. I've come acoss a couple of things which bear thought by the community. First is this issue of whether battles should be listed as First Bull Run and Second Bull Run or Bull Run I and Bull Run II. I'm not trying to stir up controversy, and perhaps there's a guideline which no one is using I haven't yet read. Yet before we write a bunch of requested articles, it would be good if at least we knew which direction the community wanted to go. We follow both formats amongst a dozen or so articles. Then we could cleanup pretty quickly. BusterD 13:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's WP:MILHIST#Naming conventions. Per that, it definitely shouldn't be "Bull Run I" and "Bull Run II", since that's a convention not followed for any other conflict or country. The preferred general convention is be "Bull Run (1861)" and "Bull Run (1862)"; but "First Bull Run" and "Second Bull Run" can be used if that's more common in the literature (even though that disambiguation form is typically used only for multiple battles in the same year). Kirill Lokshin 15:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Ethnic groups during the Civil War

I recently started an article on German-Americans in the Civil War and I was curious if it might be useful to create a wider range of articles dealing with ethnic groups (Irish, Scandinavian, etc.) during the period in a similar fashion as states during the Civil War ? MadMax 01:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Check out Dr. David Valuska's book on the Dutch at Gettysburg... lots of good material on Pennsylvania Germans in the Civil War. Scott Mingus 02:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Union Army officers

Somebody started putting that tag into articles, so I went ahead and made the category page. Feel free to populate. Stilgar135 14:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Questionable edits

Can anyone verify the information added in recent edits to Military history of African Americans#African Americans in the Confederate Military (see [1]) ? The edits were made by an anonymous user, and parts of the new info are quite different than what was previously there. Also a few NPOV issues, I think. -- Jwillbur 23:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you like this ACW task force Userbox?

new ACW task force Userbox!

--Fix Bayonets! 12:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I added this to my user page. Thanks! Scott Mingus 02:10, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm using it now too, although it would look better if its height were reduced to be in line with other userboxes, and if the Union and Confederate flags were equivalent in size. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 02:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed! Scott Mingus 02:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Further delineated Category:American Civil War people

A few of us have been trying to reduce the number of entries into the once overly massive category. It's now been effectively broken into much more specific categories. HMains added Category:Bushwackers and Category:Union Marines recently, and I just added Category:American Civil War industrialists for those arms makers and other business people that were previously merely Civil War people. I also created Category:Native Americans in the Civil War. As you create biographies in the future, please try to use the specific categories instead of the broader more generic American Civil War or American Civil War people. Thanks! Scott Mingus 12:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

What do people think of these categories I suggested? --plange 03:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Mmm, the general idea seems fine. The names may need to be changed once the whole Category:Military personnel tree finally gets a standardized naming scheme; but that may be some time off, so going with the ones you suggested seems as good an approach as any at the moment. Kirill Lokshin 03:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, added them-- first time I've done this, so let me know if I did it wrong :-) --plange 03:47, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

New Template

I have created and populated several Ohio in the Civil War related articles with a new template that I created, Template:Ohio in the Civil War. This is modeled after User:Americasroof's Template:Missouri in the Civil War. I will create a similar one for Pennsylvania (my current state of residence) when I get the time and inclination to do so. Scott Mingus 03:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

New ACW cat and articles

I added Category:U.S. cities in the American Civil War to be consistent with the state category. I copied the Civil War text from a few individual city articles into a separate ACW-related article as a starting place for further expansion and text addition. I merely added a header paragaph (for example, see New Orleans in the Civil War). I added similar articles for Savannah, Charleston, Atlanta, Richmond, etc., joining my previous articles on Cleveland and St. Louis, and ones from other folks. Please, please, please add suitable text and edits to these articles to better flesh them out, as this was a mere starting point. Scott Mingus 00:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Just added a new article I wrote early this morning, New York City in the Civil War. Feel free to check it out and suggest any changes. Scott Mingus 18:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Very nice! I'm a bit surpised that there's no Washington in the Civil War yet, though. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 19:17, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
There will be - it's on my list of [[<City> in the Civil War]] articles to write. Scott Mingus 22:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Decree: Washington, D.C. in the Civil War shall lead The Grand Parade of the States. 0^#o 22:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Then, we should add more text to the article and flesh it out more. Please expand this, folks, as you have time. Scott Mingus 22:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for doing this, and I especially like the cities template you created. In fact, it makes me think it would be nice if the big ACW menu (as cool as it is) could be broken down into separate templates like this, while relying on Portal:American Civil War to tie everything together (it already includes the big menu). Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 14:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Abe in FARC

Just wanted to let everyone know-- Wikipedia:Featured article review/Abraham Lincoln — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plange (talk • contribs)


New Category?

Stevie and I were talking about this on his talk page, and he suggested asking here. The question was breaking the Category:Kentucky in the Civil War down into subcats Kentucky People in the Confederacy and Kentucky People in the Federal Service or something akin to that. What is the general consense of this idea? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Soldan (talk • contribs)

I'm thinking along the lines of "People from {state} involved with the {Union|Confederacy} in the Civil War". Yes, long, but that's the thought. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 19:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, maybe "[Union/Confederate] people from [state] in the Civil War" to allow for similar categories like "Union officers from [state] in the Civil War"? Or is that too complicated? Kirill Lokshin 19:26, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Stevie and I were more looking at making it a subcatagory of "People from" and "[state] in the civil war" while also easing it down to include which side they were on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Soldan (talk • contribs)
I think that would work, then:
  • "People from [state] in the Civil War" (a child of "People from [state]" and "[State] in the Civil War")
    • "Confederate people from [state] in the Civil War" (a child of "Confederate people" and "People from [state] in the Civil War")
Am I missing something obvious here? Kirill Lokshin 20:50, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
As the person who created 90% of the categories and populated them, PLEASE do not further break them down into subcats. Most of these are people-related, with some scattered places and events and battles, but frankly, I like the idea of one-stop shopping. Way too many subcats already! Keep it simple in this case, please! Scott Mingus 22:26, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I have no real problem with having it one way or the other. Do keep in mind, though, that some state categories are likely to be disproportionately larger than others (Virginia, in particular, comes to mind), and may need careful management to avoid becoming unusably bloated. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:32, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Due to time constraints and wiki-burnout, I'm withdrawing from this project. I will continue to watch and develop Louisville in the Civil War (and a couple other Civil War-related articles) however. Good luck for the future, and Cheers! Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 22:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Unnecessary category?

Category:Battle Fields of the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War - not sure why this category was created since we already have a cat for the battles of the campaign. I recommend deletion - any other thoughts? Scott Mingus 17:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't seem useful unless we're actually categorizing the battlefields (i.e. the related parks) themselves; otherwise, we'll start a not-very-useful trend of tagging cities with an extra category for every war they've been involved in (which, in some cases, will be dozens). Kirill Lokshin 20:07, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Confederate generals that still need biography articles

I have created a list of some of the leading Confederate generals that still do not yet have articles on Wikipedia. It can be found at User:Scott Mingus/sandbox for now. When I finish the Union list, I will republish these as a separate article / list. Feel free to work on any of these topics, or add generals that I have missed. Scott Mingus 03:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, the comparable list of Union generals has also been generated. Please feel free to write biographies for them, or to add any significant missing generals. Scott Mingus 17:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I've made a rather controversial assertion at Portal:American Civil War/Did you know

Re: Battle of Westport, I've boldly asserted that this conflict was the largest single combat engagement west of the Mississippi in American History. Could someone dispute this and prove me wrong? Largest alternate is Battle of Contreras, and that's several thousand short. BusterD 15:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The answer depends on the precise meaning of the term "American history." If that means United States history, you may be correct (although I will point out that the entire Pacific theater of World War II is west of the Mississippi :-) ). But if you mean North American, see the discussion at Talk:Battle of Gettysburg#Largest Battle. Hal Jespersen 16:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
And since the Battle of the Aleutian Islands was on US territory, it would need to be "the largest battle in the continental United States west of the Mississippi". ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:31, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
My claim refers to the North American continent, but I'll make sure I list as land action. Thanks. Amazing isn't it? BusterD 17:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

OR lookup?

Anyone have the OR handy? I wanted to see if an individual was in there before I made the trek to the Univerity library that has these. Of course only if you have them at your fingertips... Person is John W. Johnston a.k.a. John Warfield Johnston. Was apparently the Confederate States Receiver? Thanks! --plange 16:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

According to the index, I see 4 John W.'s: 1) lawyer, series IV, vol. 3; 2) C.S.Artillery, series I, vols 24, 32, 38, 39, 45, 47; 3) from PA; and 4) 12th WV. Which one sounds right? BusterD 17:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
And one always has access to OR via Cornell's Making of America. Check out the Official Records article for links. BusterD 17:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
The winner is #1. Series IV, Vol. 3, p. 812. A letter from Henry J. Leory to Confederate Sec of War Seddons briefly refers to "Mr. Johnston, a distinguished lawyer in Abingdon (a nephew to General Joe Johnston), writes to General Echols the secret order is growing fearfully in that part of the country." (referring to the suspension of habeus corpus). No other references to this figure appear in the ArmyOR. I'll have to check navy (which is tougher because of poorer online indexing). Anybody got Dr. Aimone's CD? BusterD 18:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a bunch!!! No worries about ORN, I have a copy of the set at home (!) so will look him up there. if anyone ever needs an ORN lookup, just let me know... --plange 19:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Battle of Raymond

There's a new peer review request for Battle of Raymond that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 02:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Standardization of Unit Names?

In looking through a few different category and list pages for Civil War regiments, I noticed that, even within the USA, for example, there is no standard presentation for regiment names. Does this variation actually reflect variation in how these units were officially designated while in active service during the Civil War? If not, what would be the most apropos standardized format? From the USA standpoint, it would probably be however the US Army designated each regiment in official fashion. For the CSA, either CSA official designation or each individual state's own official designation would suffice, I'd guess. Any suggestions?Dogface 16:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

At one time, we were trying to standardize the names used in the articles as xxth State Infantry or yyth State Cavalry. The individual states did have different ways of formally titling their commands (for example, in my native state, it was 8th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. For the article, we preferred 8th Ohio Infantry to be consistent. See User:Hlj/CWediting) Scott Mingus 13:27, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Coal torpedo

There's a new peer review request for Coal torpedo that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 03:19, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Union Army Balloon Corps

There's a new peer review request for Union Army Balloon Corps that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 23:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Infantry in the American Civil War

Fellow ACW editors, I have at the suggestion of Hal Jespersen (User:Hlj) created a new article, Infantry in the American Civil War. Please have a look at this, and feel free to aggressively polish and edit it to improve it. I intended it to be a baseline for further efforts. Thanks in advance! Scott Mingus 01:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Style guide

Hal created a very good style guide some time ago (see User:Hlj/CWediting). I propose that the ACW Task Force formally adopt Hal's guidelines for maintenance of existing articles and creation of new ones, and police our watchlists accordingly. If agreeable to everyone, I will copy his guideline to a new subpage of this task force, remove the first person references, spruce it up just a wee bit, and link it to our main page. Sound OK? Any other style guidelines that we should add, or anything to be changed or omitted? Thanks! (off to nearby Gettysburg now for the annual reenactors parade and Remembrance Day celebrations!) My only minor exception with Hal's list (and it's a very minor nit) is that the Union army did not officially use the Roman numerals to designate the corps until after the war, and they are rarely used in the ORs, instead being spelled out (First Army Corps or First Corps). Scott Mingus 13:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It's a pretty good guide; I would, actually, suggest copying it to the task force page directly, rather than to a subpage, as additional levels of subpaging tend to sharply reduce the number of people who'll actually notice and read it.
There are a few points that I think need to be updated, though:
  • Under "Battles", the use of Roman numerals to disambiguate battles is deprecated by the project as a whole, in favor of either "First"/"Second" or parenthesized dates.
  • Under "Boxes", the text should be generalized to all infoxes (as unit ones, in particular, tend to show up on ACW pages a lot), and should probably be trimmed of the commentary.
  • Under "Refs and Links", the current trend has actually been to include external links directly into a mixed book/link "Further reading" section. Also, "Notes" is typically placed before "References".
  • Under "Footnotes", the correct text to use is generally <div class="references-small"><references/></div>.
  • Under "Quotations", the current trend is to prefer regular blockquote formatting over the quotation templates.
Kirill Lokshin 17:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, the reason I placed it under my User page tree was that it represents my standards for style in articles I have written or edited significantly. A few replies to the above: The Roman numeral corps were not historical usage during the war, but are very widely used in current history texts. They also are easily disambiguated from Confederate corps. Placing Notes before Refs only make sense when they continue full bibliographic info, which mine do not; I use only author names (and titles if there are multiple books by the same author) and page numbers in the Notes. My footnote section style is the one recommended in WP:FOOT#Helping editors unfamiliar with this system of footnotes. I am starting to use the reflist template for longer footnote sections. I have no objection to combining things into Further reading, which does make sense, but there are easily 1000+ ACW articles that violate that new guideline. Hal Jespersen 00:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The fact that articles violate something isn't really an issue; most articles aren't yet at the stage where we ought to really be concerned about minor points of formatting. The idea is to have some recommendation that editors can refer to when they need advice on how to do something, not to impose the one true style of writing articles that everyone must follow.
(The footnote positioning is a complicated question—printed works, for example, will put even short-form notes before the associated full bibliography—and one that's governed by the personal preferences of an article's main editors in any case.) Kirill Lokshin 00:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The bottom line is that I really like Hal's personal guidelines, and have adopted the vast majority of them into my edits and articles to be consistent with him. They were quite useful to me when I started editing Wiki articles as they provided some commonality for a newbie like me to pitch in and feel like I was contributing right away. My purpose in bringing this to the attention of the task force is that with som many new folks joining it recently (a very good thing!), that we should ALL try to use the same general guidelines and principles to avoid revert wars, etc. Great day, by the way! All day in Gettysburg on the battlefield, and then my beloved Buckeyes win! Scott Mingus 00:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
That's a good way to approach this, I think. We may as well adopt them (in modified form, if need be) as a general recommendation by the task force; while some (usully more experienced) editors may not follow it in all cases—as they're likely to have their own approaches to certain points—the average editor doesn't really have a strong preference on most stylistic issues, and is just looking for some guideline to follow when contributing content. Kirill Lokshin 01:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

How should we handle categories?

  • One further question - I note several styles for categories. In some articles, they are in chronological order (which I try to follow); in orders (including some recent edits by others) they are in alphabetical order. In some cases, they are random. What is the preferred style for all ACW bios? We should agree and follow that style (minor point I realize, but as a scientist, I like order and consistency. Scott Mingus 23:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Category rename

Hello. Apparently, members of this WikiProject were unaware of the recent consensus at CFD to rename "U.S. States in the Civil War" categories. I am alerting you per request of WikiProject member Scott Mingus (talk • contribs). Any problems, drop me a note on my talk. --RobertG ♬ talk 17:07, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Seems like a sensible renaming; somebody should probably fix the relevant links on the task force page, though. Kirill Lokshin 18:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Done, although we now have a disconnect with the actual articles, which still are CW, not ACW. I have no desire or interest to immediately rename all of them, however. Scott Mingus 18:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

American Civil War

May God Bless You Always!

I need a little help. I was working with the American Civil War Articles and noticed a probelm. Kansas was involve in the American Civil War and has and article in Wikipedia discussing its involvment. Kansas in the Civil War. However, Kansas is not listed in the American Civil War as a state involved. I want to edit this and add Kansas, but cannot find the American Civil War Template. Please help.


Yours in Christ, (Steve 18:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC))

{{American Civil War}}, I think. Kirill Lokshin 18:23, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


May God Bless You Always!

Thanks you for the help. I was able to make the edit. Thanks again!

God Bless, (Steve 18:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC))

Those of us who maintain the menu normally require that discussion and consensus occur on the template talk page prior to making a change, but since this was an obvious omission in a very well-defined category, we'll let this one slide. God bless you, too, Mr. Buff. By the way, if you ever wonder how to find a template, select a page that displays it, edit the page, and you will find a list of all the templates used at the bottom, which can then be clicked to edit. Hal Jespersen 00:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

KIA

The categories for World Wars I and II, Vietnam, and Korea were fairly well filled out, but there was no category for ACW. A handful of general were listed under the parent category Category:American military personnel killed in action, so I created a new Category: American Civil War killed in action and began to populate it with the first 90 or so articles. Feel free to add to this cat, and remember to use it for future articles you write or edit if the subject fits. By the way, I did NOT include Stonewall Jackson in this category, as in the opinion of some historians, he died of complications from his wound, not from the wound itself. Hence, I didn't put him in the list (as well as a few others that similarly died of complications). How do you guys feel about Stonewall - KIA??? Scott Mingus 20:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Thaddeus Lowe

My article on Thaddeus S. C. Lowe received an A from the Bio Project reviewers. Military gave it a B. Could someone on the force please review it for at least a GA rating. It has all the other qualifications fulfilled. Thank you --Magi Media 03:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Every rating above B-Class needs to go through a formal process of some sort; see WP:MHA#Quality scale. Pick the one you like and nominate it there. :-) Kirill Lokshin 03:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

French Civil War generals

This reminds me of Maximillian I of Mexico, where an Austrian prince ended up Emperor of Mexico. What were these French Civil War generals up to!? Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac is a great story. But what I came here to ask is whether anyone knows who these other French Civil War generals were? Bored European aristocrats seeking excitement in a war half a world away? Or what? Carcharoth 01:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I assume you mean French generals of the American Civil War, rather than in one of France's many ones? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, French-born US Civil War generals if you want to be picky... :-) That's the phrase used at the article I linked to. A member of the House of Grimaldi, incidentially (linking to category cos the article is not good enough yet). Carcharoth 02:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Just the same as Lafayette and von Steuben in the war of independence. Besides you may start to argue about German- and Irish-born footsoldiers, there were lots of immigrants involved in all US conflicts. please make it clear what the scope of your question is. Wandalstouring 06:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette and Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben? I found the first one fairly easily, but your spelling of Stein misled me for the other one. I found his name by searching for 'von' in the American Revolutionary War article. I found both those article very interesting. Thank you for that. To make the scope of my question clearer, I am simply following up the following, quoted from the Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac article: "He was one of the few French-born generals in the war." This implies there were other French-born generals in the US Civil War, and I was hoping that someone here might be able to help. Category:American Civil War officers is a bit too large to search. I know there were a lot of recent immigrants serving in that war, but I guess I am after anyone similar to the three examples above (Lafayette, von Steuben and the Prince of Polignac) of European aristocrats being involved in wars in North America. The war of independence makes sense, because Europe was still heavily invested in their colonies or former colonies in North America, but getting involved in the US Civil War is more intriguing to me. This Prince of Polignac sounds like a right globetrotter, with an incredibly interesting life. I wonder if there is any way to categorise non-US-born military people like this, and seeing whether anyone has found out what their motivation was for getting involved. This Prince of Polignac sounds like a career soldier, rather than a mercenary. Carcharoth 11:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I've looked a bit further, and found Category:People of the American Revolution, in which you find people like Prince Whipple, Category:French people of the American Revolution, Category:Hessian mercenaries, Johann de Kalb, Category:Spanish people of the American Revolution. That deals with the American Revolution, though a quick look through Category:Continental Army generals throws up Louis Lebèque Duportail (who I've now added to Category:French people of the American Revolution), and also Tadeusz Kościuszko and Kazimierz Pułaski. I've created Category:Polish people of the American Revolution to put them in. I considered a Category:European people of the American Revolution, but want to exclude Britain as it was one of the main combatants. I'm really looking for a Category:People not from the US or Britain who went to fight in the American Revolutionary War (not a suitable category title), but maybe this is best dealt with by a section in the American Revolutionary War article, telling the stirring story of how soldiers and officer from across Europe converged on the colonies to fight in this war. The closest thing I could find was Military leadership in the American Revolutionary War, but I haven't checked to see if that includes all the above. I think most of them are, but Duportail at least is missing. I guess what I am looking for is something similar, if it exists, for the US Civil War. I found Military leadership in the American Civil War, but Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac was not listed at Military leadership in the American Civil War#Native American and international officers in Confederate Army (I added him), though both that and Military leadership in the American Civil War#Native American and international officers in Union Army are, finally, what I was looking for! Philippe, comte de Paris and Régis de Trobriand. It did take me a while though. Was I just looking in the wrong place (the categories), or could the linkage and cohesion of the coverage of international participation in these two conflicts be improved? In particular Category:People of the American Civil War could do with some 'People of...' subcategories for non-US people. For Ireland we have Michael Corcoran, Thomas Francis Meagher, and Patrick Cleburne. for Germany we have Carl Schurz and Franz Sigel. For France the three mentioned above: Philippe, comte de Paris, Régis de Trobriand, and Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac. Any others? Carcharoth 11:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you want to make a list of half the Federate army? First of all this topic belongs into the American Civil War task force and secondly stop listing stuff and define a scope that is reasonably manageable. Wandalstouring 19:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, generals aren't half the army, in any case. ;-)
The broader issue—classifying military personnel from one country that serve in a different country's military—is a good question; but I suspect a real resolution is going to have to wait until we figure out how we're dealing with countries in the entire personnel categorization scheme. For something like this, a list may be better, since the scope is fairly limited; e.g. Non-American military leaders of the American Civil War or something of the sort.
(Wandalstouring is right, incidentally, that this should probably be continued at the ACW task force.) Kirill Lokshin 19:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. Kirill Lokshin 19:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for not limiting my ramblings to manageable proportions (though note that I actually did a bit of tidying up as I was writing the above stuff). How about I just throw up one question for now: Juan de Lángara is in Category:Spanish people of the American Revolution, but the article doesn't mention this. What is going on here? Is something missing or lost from the article, or is this just a misapplied category? Hope that question is well-defined enough. Carcharoth 02:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope, it's right; what war would you guess the "1779 naval campaign in the Narrows against Britain" was part of? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 02:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Right. Would that be the Penobscot Expedition battle? "the 1779 naval campaign in the Narrows against Britain" means nothing to me, unfortunately. Carcharoth 02:45, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
It's this, actually. Kirill Lokshin 02:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah, right. So it was part of the wider, niggling campaigns to annoy the British navy. I think this sentence sums things up best: "The rambling operations of the naval war until the close of 1780 began to assume a degree of coherence in 1781". Anyway, thanks for clearing that up for me. Not sure how to edit the article to link them. Maybe you can think of something? Carcharoth 02:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Third Battle of Winchester

I am in the midst of research on Winchester during the War of Northern Aggression (Civil War) in regard to occupation timelines and events. I came across some errors on the Wikipedia pages regarding events in Winchester, as well as a mis-named battle for the Third Battle of Winchester (erroneously refered to by it's estoeric name of Battle of Opequon). Subsequently I've been told that local, regional and state naming conventions for this battle are to be disregarded in lieu of a National Park Service so-called convention.

I have double checked, and found no NPS presence in regards to the Battles of Winchester, but could be mistaken. Ownership of battlefields and forts has been made independently of any NPS involvement. Therefore, future preservation efforts are very unlikely to refer to this as the Battle of Opequon.

Furthermore, within the Commonwealth of Virginia, home to the majority of the actions of the War of Northern Aggression, the state has generally taken the perogative to name the battles in accord with the records of the Provisional Army of the Confederate States and the CS government. Thus the First and Second Battles of Manassas are called such. In regard to battles outside of the Commonwealth of Virginia and outside of the formerly seceded States, such as Maryland, they name their internal battles as they see fit, and so the Battle of Antietam is such, and not the Battle of Sharpsburg.

The "Battle of Opequon" is fairly nonsensical as well for the Northern States name, as the Opequon is not even close to Winchester, and rather forms the eastern boundary of this county, Frederick Co., VA. The Federals should have named it the Battle of Red Bud Run. Regardless, all battles in Virginia are not known by water-names (e.g. its the Battle of Fredericksburg, not the Battle of the Rappahannock, and so on).

Therefore, until such time that the NPS decides to spend money and preserve the battlefields of Winchester, the naming convention for battlefields within the Commonwealth (other than NPS sites) generally falls to Virgnia, and even then I don't believe NPS has named any sites against Virginia's tradition, but I could be mistaken.

Furthermore, I suggest that the Wikipedia page for the Third Battle of Winchester be named so, and the virtually unused and unknown name of "Battle of Opequon" be dropped in deference.

Meanwhile, as I can get the free time, I will offer inputs to the pages on Winchester's local battles, to bring them up to snuff and reasonable accuracy, and will try to include Occupation of Winchester history, perhaps which can be made into its own page, covering events such as the oppression suffered under Banks, his subordinates, and later under "My will is absolute law" Milroy and finally under Sheridon and Scott, etc.

These battles in Winchester are very under-rated, but were all crucial battles to overall Lee srategy to extend the war and threaten the Northern States with pathways of counter-invasion. The Second Battle of Winchester is likely the most lop-sided victory of any battle in the war, and the most brilliantly executed.

Thank you for your consideration

Grahghost01 27 February 2007 (UTC)

We very much welcome your edits and opinions. However, be very, very careful as you write or edit articles. Wikipedia has a strict policy of maintaining nonpolitical point of views (impartial is preferred), and your writing above is full of pro-Southern sentiment. This must be kept out of articles, just I must suppress my pro-Union or Yankee anti-rebellion feelings and emotions when dispassionately writing objectively about the Civil War / WofNA / WBTS or whatever you wish to call "the late unpleasantness." Winchester articles should not be rewritten or edited from a Virginia viewpoint, but from the military facts. I look forward to your contributions, and welcome aboard! Scott Mingus 01:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for American Civil War

There's a new request for A-Class status for American Civil War that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 19:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Another city added to the template

See Winchester in the Civil War, a new article just pulled together by User:Grayghost01 from the larger article on the modern city of Winchester, Virginia.

Any other prominent cities that should over time be added? User:Hlj at one time mentioned the possibility of a separate article on Gettysburg in the war (broader than just the 1863 battle), but I have yet to take the time to do so.

Scott Mingus 18:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Vicksburg or Norfolk, perhaps? Kirill Lokshin 18:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I just added Columbia, South Carolina, in the Civil War. 8th Ohio Volunteers 21:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

New Cincinnati in the Civil War article

As an ongoing part of my work to expand, improve, and create Ohio-related Civil War articles for Wikipedia, I have recently created Cincinnati in the Civil War. I will continue to polish this article as time allows, but feel free to have a look at it and make suggestions as to further improvements or additions. I grew up in southern Ohio, went to college there, and still spend a few days each month there on business. Scott Mingus 14:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for American Civil War

There's a new request for A-Class status for American Civil War that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 12:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


Info on use of Images

Permission has been granted by the artist John Paul Strain to use a digital copy of his painting, The Romney Expedition, and it is currently used in the Romney Expedition article. We graciously thank Mr. Strain for the use of his image. Anyone who desires to use images of any of Mr. Strain's artwork, please contact him through his website at www.johnpaulstrain.com[2]

Permission has been granted by Paul at www.sonofthesouth.net [3] to use a reduced (300 pixel wide) version of his digitally mastered scan of his graphic of Winchester, Virginia from page 569 of Harper's Weekly, September 7, 1861, which is found in two articles: Winchester in the Civil War and Romney Expedition. He has not released permission to use any of his high-quality print worthy images located at his website, and asks the help of our Task Force to prevent the unauthorized use of his high quality images. If you see any of those, please assist by tagging those files for deletion. Paul's scans and digital mastering is noted by its high quality and sepia-toned false coloring which distinguishes it from other scans of Harper's Weekly. We graciously thank Paul for the use of his image. Anyone who desires to use images of any of Paul's artwork, please contact him through his website.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Grayghost01 (talk • contribs)

Moved from Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/American Civil War task force by Kirill Lokshin 18:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Err, are these Wikipedia-only releases or general ones? If it's the former, we can't use the images; we need them to be released under a free content license that allows reuse by other parties, or we need to make fair-use claims for them (in which case the question of permission becomes irrelevant). Kirill Lokshin 18:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
general releases.Grayghost01 02:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay, that's very good to hear. (We've had no end of problems with this issue before, unfortunately.) Kirill Lokshin 03:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Please Expand...

Hello,

I just joined the American Civil War task force.

Before I joined this task force, I already made some articles about Civil War soldiers and the wives.

Here they are:

Soldiers

Wives

Unfortunately, many of these articles are only stubs. Any additional information in these articles would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Psdubow 22:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. - Please leave replies on my talkpage.

Harrisburg in the Civil War

New article - feel free to expand... Harrisburg in the Civil War

Scott Mingus 01:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Civil War Defenses of Washington, D.C.

As a first step to expanding a few articles about the defenses of Washington, D.C., I created a little infobox to go at the bottom of the articles. I'm having a problem lining up the information the way I want, however. Is there a way I can force the template to not insert a return in the southeast and northeast quadrant sections? Thanks in advance. JKBrooks85 19:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to user Hlj for the help! JKBrooks85 20:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Fort Kearny (Washington D.C.)

There's a new peer review request for Fort Kearny (Washington D.C.) that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 23:20, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Help with FA nomination of Confederate government of Kentucky

My featured article nomination of Confederate government of Kentucky is off to kind of a rough start. One reviewer has suggested that the lead needs to be reworked and that the prose is "unencyclopedic." Having created the article and done much of the editing on it, I think I'm too close to the prose to see the problems. Could interested editors please help me address the issues? Thanks. Acdixon 16:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Requested articles

In looking through the vast listing of red-linked articles that have been requested, I note that few are really worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia compendium such as Wikipedia. Many are rather trivial, or are better covered as subsets of more general topics. Could this list be pared down to the critical few that folks can really work on, rather than this catch-all list? 8th Ohio Volunteers 18:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Hugh Boyle Ewing

There's a new peer review request for Hugh Boyle Ewing that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 03:45, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for John Watts de Peyster

There's a new peer review request for John Watts de Peyster that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 03:45, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Article request: Confederate partisan

Greetings from Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation! I just disambiguated [[partisan]]. I did not find an article on Confederate partisans (I looked) so the Confederate uses are now linked to [[Partisan (military)]]. That's a generic article, and it's certainly not wrong, but there were so many Confederate references it is clear that "partisan" has a specific meaning in the context of the American Civil War, so there ought to be a specific article. — Randall Bart (talk) 05:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Johnston de Peyster

There's a new peer review request for Johnston de Peyster that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 01:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

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