Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Fort Pulaski

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Not promoted (no supports and quite a few outstanding reviewer comments after more than 28 days) Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:37, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Fort Pulaski[edit]

Nominator(s): TheVirginiaHistorian (talk)


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because...I’ve taken it from a stub describing an overnight bombardment to a narrative including the defensive preparation under R.E.Lee personal direction, Union approaches, amphibious operation and siege, and counter operations by Confederate fire and naval sorties. The Union victory made masonry forts obsolete. Article has a fair amount of page views now, including what looks to be quarterly seminar use? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:29, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: G'day. I'm not sure if you've been involved with Milhist ACR before or not; if not, welcome. I can see you've put in a lot of effort on this one, which is great to see. I have listed a few issues below, but there are more than just these. If you can fix these, and then look for similar issues, I will be happy to take another look. I also think it might be a good idea to ask someone over at the WP:GOCE to perform a copy edit on the article. Anyway, these are my comments/suggestions:AustralianRupert (talk) 11:05, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • really, really helpful. please read through my nested responses. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:31, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • in the lead, "Hilton Head Island SC" --> please spell out "SC" for non US readers; AustralianRupert (talk) 11:05, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • in the lead, "The Fort commanded" --> "The fort commanded";
  • caption: "Effect of Union's innovative Parrott Rifle cannon and percussion shells". This is not a sentence.
  • the Background section appears to have a few paragraphs that are uncited. Can you please add references to the end of the first three paragraphs?
    • Will comply.
  • "A young LT Robert E. Lee" --> its probably best to spell out "LT" for lay readers;
  • please add a citation to this: "On November 5, General Robert E. Lee assumed command of the newly created "Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida"."
    • Will comply.
  • watch out for overlink. I removed a few, but the duplicate link checker tool reports more such as: Robert E. Lee; Fort James Jackson; gunboat; CSS Savannah (gunboat); Thomas W. Sherman; Josiah Tattnall; Parrott Rifle;
    • For editorial direction, max of two if they are separated by at least two section headings?
  • "30-Pounder" --> "30-pounder";
  • caption: "30-pdr Parrott Rifle battery penetrated walls in three places at SE corner (center)" (this sentence appears to be missing something);
    • will comply: in other projects sentence fragments, noun clauses are permitted. mea culpa, I'm new.
  • the first two paragraphs of the Siege section (before Approaches) should have citations at the end of the paragraphs, as some of the information appears uncited;
  • this needs a citation: "Under periodic harassing bombardment throughout the hours of darkness, Olmstead's garrison put several guns back into service."
    • Will comply.
  • this needs a citation: "Given shortages in marine engines, the Navy built floating battery CSS Georgia (1863). The new railroad allowed timely movement of troops and supplies to besieged Charleston throughout 1861–1864."
    • This is from two sources, I'll either sort it out or delete it what I cannot directly cite.
  • the paragraph ending: "Thomas Sherman was transferred to the western theater and replaced by General David Hunter" needs a citation;
  • the paragraph starting "Operationally, General Robert E. Lee headquartered..." needs a citation;
  • this needs a citation: "The fort had been provisioned on January 28 with a six-month supply of food."
    • Will comply.
  • the Access today section is completely uncited;
    • This is a links problem, I will fix it, giving open sources to the parks and foundations web page links.
  • quotations should be attributed in text. For instance here: "“It looks now as if he would take the Savannah River” and “If he attempts to advance by batteries on the marshes or islands, he must be driven back, if possible.” Scouts were ordered out “so as to discover his first lodgment, when they can be broken up." Who said this and why is it important?
    • I am afraid I got too literary. Text reads On Lee’s transfer to Richmond, he [Lee] detailed urgent defense construction, then he [Lee] called on Lawton’s “earnest and close attention” to the Federal’s probable approach to the city. “It looks now as if he would take the Savannah River” [wrote Lee to Lawton as referenced in the Record]. I'll work on it. yes, I'm new. This is important because Lee anticipated exactly what the Federal advance would be; the failure was not a lack of foresight on the Confederate commanders' part, but failure came due to lack of Confederate resources military and naval, and the national policy dictated out of Richmond (Jefferson Davis) to defend against offensives against Richmond first.
  • "op cit": I suggest not using this in your referencing, as the nature of Wikipedia means that if the original citation is removed, it will no longer make sense to the reader;
    • Will do. thanks. This was an early effort at becoming a writer on wikipedia.
  • something seems wrong/broken with Reference # 50 "[[date=August 2013|"
    • Query: I've read style calls for open sourcing so that when links are broken by the page, readers can access the published document. I can try to find all current links, but --- is it better to leave links out for an A rating? --- I thought working links were the best Wikipedia help to a student, giving online reliable sources that might not be reflected in the possibly vandalized textual narrative at their viewing -- but verifiable by their own independent search and reading.
  • something seems wrong/broken with Reference # 53 "name=“FPHH”
  • something seems wrong/broken with Reference # 55 ">CSS Georgia"
  • Reference 69, the url should be embedded like the other links
    • Will comply.
  • in the Further reading section, why are some of the words in bold, for instance "Navies", "Armies" and "Atlas"?
    • I hoped to allow for clarification of sources. The wikipedia civil war pages seem not so unbalanced North v. South, but Armies v. Navies, biased to the Army sources. Another issue is relying on scholars who relied on newspapers, one reason for misrepresenting Olmstead's competence and valor in the literature, when military accounts of his service, both Union and Confederate sources, show him to be a good officer.
  • "File:RifledGunsatFortPulaski1862.jpg": on the image description page, it lists "Berean Hunter" as the author of this image. I'm not sure that this is correct, "Berean Hunter" was the uploader, but the author would have been the person who actually took the photograph in 1862. If the author is unknown, please simply change "Author Berean Hunter" to "Author Unknown" or "Author Not stated at source"
    • I agree if BH did not take the photo. Not sure how to fix all the image description page errors I find. The Blood Stained Banner is described as the Confederate flag "since 1865" when Jefferson Davis in his "Short History of the CSA" said the historical Confederacy "disappeared" in 1865. Does this commons image problem bear on the article A rating? Yes, I am new, your assistance is already appreciated. Thanks in advance. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:31, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "File:Samuel francis dupont photo.gif": the image description page lists the source as "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_francis_dupont_photo.gif" but this is problematic because that is a self reference. This source should be replaced with the original source (for instance the book it came from). Additionally the file requires a US licence as well;
    • Sorry, I do not understand -- what is the Samuel francis dupont photo? Illustration is clearly a weakness I need to strengthen.
      • this is the image: [4], it is currently being used in the Federal adance/Blockade section. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:26, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "File:USS Unadill lithograph.jpg": needs a US licence as well;
    • Is the image not from a public or copyright-lapsed source in wikicommons?
      • the issue was that the image was currently not correctly licenced on Wikicommons. It was using a "pd-art" template, but needed to also demonstrate why that applied. I have changed this, with this edit: [5] (but I'm not an expert, so I hope I got it right); AustralianRupert (talk) 10:26, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "File:FortPulaskiMap.jpg": needs a US licence as well;
    • Is the image not from a public or copyright-lapsed source in wikicommons?
  • this is not a sentence: "Though omitting primary and secondary sources (scan is truncated), generally meets requirements of the US Department of Education “Teaching American History” grant and teacher’s National Board Certification."
    • Will comply.
  • per WP:LAYOUT, I think the Further reading section should be above the External links section. AustralianRupert (talk) 11:05, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Will comply.
    • really, really helpful. please read through my nested responses. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:31, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • G'day, again, I've made a few changes to cover some of my points above. Are you in a position to cover off on the others? If you are able to address these concerns, it might encourage other reviewers to take a look at the article. This is important, as you need at least three editors to support your article if it is going to be promoted to A class, otherwise the review will probably be closed as unsuccessful. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:01, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again for your collaboration. I have been distracted from WP and away for a several days. I appreciate your patience. Hope to get to a couple items this week. If the time fuse runs out for this cycle of review, I still have material and direction to purposefully work on article improvement, thanks to your assistance. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:12, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - Dank (push to talk)

  • "army-navy defense": per the logic at WP:SLASH, it would probably be better to say "army and navy" or whatever.
  • "it was commercially": It ...
  • "Southern secessionists threatened civil war, were their opponent to be elected President.": Southern secessionists were threatening civil war. [I don't recommend that form of the subjunctive here, and readers will understand that no one planned to secede if they won.]
  • "The policy was continued until April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, just north along the Atlantic Coast from Fort Pulaski.": Say something about what happened at Fort Sumter; it's not very clear to say that a policy stopped in a certain place.
  • "the commander, Department of Georgia, General Alexander Robert Lawton": Many American readers won't understand "commander, Department of Georgia" as the name of an office. If you want to keep it anyway, then capitalize the first word, but I recommend "the commander of the Department of Georgia".
  • See MOS:QUOTEMARKS. Use straight quotes (") rather than curly quotes (because being able to search for things is important in an online encyclopedia, and readers aren't going to be searching for curly quotes). Also, you use quotemarks for too many different purposes; readers won't in general know what you mean by them. Search for them throughout, and see if it's possible to make the meaning plain without them. - Dank (push to talk) 17:09, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – Cdtew (talk) Overall, this looks like a very thorough article; given my relatively high familiarity with the subject, I will try to focus on content questions and less on style. I may have some style points, though, so bear with me:

  • "The Battle of Fort Pulaski was fought April 10–11, 1862, during the American Civil War" - I think it's crucial to give your reader an idea of where the battle was fought in the first 1-2 sentences of the lede. For instance, the Battle of Gettysburg starts with "The Battle of Gettysburg...was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania between Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War." This sentence I've placed here is (in my opinion) a great place to put it. For instance, "The Battle of Fort Pulaski was a en engagement during the American Civil War fought April 10-11, 1862 on the Georgia coast." or something to that effect. You give a good geographic description later in the lede, i just like to see it laid out explicitly in the beginning.
  • "Union forces on Tybee Island and naval operations conducted a 112-day siege" - "Union forces...and naval operations conducted" doesn't make too much sense, because naval operations aren't a unit, person, commander, ship, etc. Perhaps "Union land and naval forces conducted"?
  • "Fort Pulaski was built as a "Third System" fort in the United States system of coastal defense on land ceded to the United States by the State of Georgia" - this is a very dense sentence, and expresses several ideas that all should get a part of the spotlight, namely: (a) There was a system of coastal defense in the U.S., (b) that system had several "generations" of structures (first, second, third system); (c) Fort Pulaski belonged to the third system, which means (in a nutshell), and (d) the State of Georgia gave the land to the U.S. I would suggest breaking this up and explaining these points very quickly; sure, a reader could click on "Third System" to find out what it means, but if you give a quick explanation it will make the section more readable, so that a lay reader doesn't have to interrupt his/her reading to find out what the term means.
  • "A British colonial fort was torn down in the American Revolution" -- Do you have the name of that fort? I'm at work, so I don't have my reference on Colonial forts at hand.
  • "A young Lieutenant Robert E. Lee served as an engineer during the construction of the fort, at which time he resided in Savannah, Georgia." - You may want to clarify, again, for the uninformed, that at the time Lee was an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
  • "In the campaigns for national elections in 1860" - I would consider wikilinking a phrase in this sentence to either the United States presidential election, 1860 or Origins of the American Civil War#Elections of 1860 articles for clarity.
  • " volunteer militia" - my first question is, naturally, who were these militiamen? Who was their commander? Etc.
  • "with Confederate forces" - This terminology is slightly ahistorical, or at least muddled. The Confederate Army wasn't provisionally established until February 1861, so if you're talking about work done in January 1861, I assume you're talking about Georgia state militia. If you're talking about something later, break this sentence apart and make it clear the time period you're talking about.
  • "General Robert E. Lee assumed command of the newly created "Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida" - this paragraph needs a cite.
  • "First Georgia Regulars had been assigned to Tybee Island" - Is this referring to 1st Georgia Infantry? Or is it referring to another unit? You may want to double-check the unit name in sources, because that could be confusing.
  • "Olmstead’s 'First Volunteer Regiment of Georgia'" - Since this is his first mention in the text, you may want to say who Olmstead was.
  • "was considered invincible" - by whom? The confederates may have thought so, but presumably the Union did not.
  • "Fort garrison duty with untrained troops made up for lost time" - this needs some clarification to make sense. What about it made up for lost time? Garrison duty encompasses everything from building defenses to sitting around playing cards; I presume you mean the former - ie: improvement of the defenses, but if so, clarify that in this sentence.
  • "heavy labor such as mounting heavy guns" - overuse of heavy here.
  • "Troops were tested on gunnery skills, then dinner at one. The rotating fatigue parties returned to work Officers reviewed infantry tactics, then instructed the men for an hour. Fatigue parties had “recall” at six. Then at “Dress Parade” retreat, the garrison performed infantry drill including combat formation evolutions. Supper followed and afterwards an hour’s recitation of army regulations, taps at nine" - This is laid out too much like a list. Add more verbs, pronouns, and narrative to this to make it more readable.
  • The paragraph ending " He knew the lay of the land and the tides of the sea there" needs citation.
  • "lodgment" - you might want to clarify. Was this a beachhead based on a coastal assault? A bridgehead? or something else?
  • "When Federal forces first made a lodgment" - this pops up sort of by surprise. What units made the lodgment? When was it made? How? What, if anything, did the Confederates do to try and prevent it?
  • "Union monitors" - slightly irrelevant, but I only recall one Monitor-class ship being involved in Virginia in 1862 (that being the eponymous ship of that class).
  • "Union moves to establish batteries above the Fort" - having been to the area, I don't recall much in the way of "high ground", so if you mean "upriver" from the fort, you might want to say so. Or, if there was an elevation differential, say that instead.
  • "In January, following Tattnall’s three-gunboat attack on seven Federal gunboats on the river" - you may want to expand on this engagement, and also clarify its the Savannah River you're talking about.
  • "On Lee’s transfer to Richmond" - Clarify exactly when Lee was transferred to be Davis' military advisor; also, since he wasn't present for the Battle, he shouldn't be in the infobox as a commander during it.
  • "Secretary of War Cameron" - explain who this is (ie: Simon Cameron, and that he was U.S. Secretary of War
  • "an experienced US Navy commander" - since he didn't hold a CSN and USN commission simultaneously, you want to indicate this was in his former life
  • "Flag Officer Du Pont" - put a wikilink here, and check throughout; where someone or something is linked in a picture caption, they should still be linked in their first mention in the body of the article.
  • "They withdrew overnight into Skull Creek, Georgia" - who withdrew?
  • "Warsaw Sound, south of Wilmington Island, and Ossabaw Sound at Skidaway Island" - several, if not all of these have articles that can and should be linked.
  • "Of the two senior military commanders leading up to the engagement, neither Union General Thomas Sherman, nor Confederate General Robert E. Lee" - Again, Lee didn't really do much during the engagement, so you may want to clarify this.
  • "General Lee personally interceded" - how did he intercede? This is where the timeline of this article gets a little wonky. Up above, you talk about Lee's early March appointment to Richmond; now, below, you're going back to a time when Lee is still in Savannah (I believe). Perhaps the timeline of the body of this article should be reworked in a more linear fashion? If not, and you intend to do it conceptually, then you need to be crystal clear about when each event that you're describing happened.
  • I am personally not a fan of the bullet-point list of the Aftermath section; while I don't suppose it's a requirement that things like that be done in prose-paragraph format, I just think it improves readability if it's given in narrative rather than summary form. Consider putting this into a traditional encyclopedic structure.
  • The Aftermath section is probably a good place to put a comparison to other combined-arms assaults that the Union undertook in the March-May 1862 timeframe along the southern coast. Battles like the Siege of Fort Macon and the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip would be good comparisons to this one, given that they occurred at the same time and in generally the same theater.
  • I would split apart the "Access today" section, and describe how the site is laid out today, and what the National Monument includes to help visitors understand the battle (ie: walking trails, a movie, exhibits, etc.). Also, has any archaeology been done on any portion of the battlefield? If so, that might be worth mentioning too.

Regardless, this has potential to move forward, but aside from my content quibbles, the thing that concerns me the most is that you make sure the article is thoroughly-cited and that the references are good. The citation issues mentioned in the previous reviews absolutely must be addressed at this stage. Particularly, with your footnotes, here are my thoughts:

  • You cite to a number of things as "op. cit.", but then I don't see an original citation - I may be missing it because it' buried in a forest of footnotes (as was the case with "Elliott"), or I can't even find it with ctrl+F, leading me to believe it was omitted (as is the case with "Victor", which only appears in "op. cit." citations).
  • I want to take the time to suggest heavily that you use Template:Sfn or another citation template to help organize your cites. As they are right now, you absolutely cannot locate certain cites without using ctrl+F, which is a little frustrating. Using an sfn template (combined with a "References" section) would allow you to continue using shortened cites, but would allow a reader to click through to find the source. See what I did at Fort Dobbs (North Carolina) as an example of what I mean.
  • Fns 2 & 4, for instance, don't let us know who the publisher of the CSS Georgia article is, or why it should be considered a reliable source. This is just one example. I would encourage you to make frequent use of templates (ie: Cite news, cite journal, cite encyclopedia) to get all the required information in each cite.
  • For your book and journal cites, many of them go "author last name, author first name, title, ISBN, publisher, year, page"; other cites go "title, author name, publisher, year, ISBN, page". These really should each be identical based on the type of work they are. Using the Cite book and Cite journal templates will make this uniform.

Image review:

  • All images appear to have appropriate PD tags, and most have sufficient information to support those tags.
  • I like the use of image galleries, but will need to test how the formatting looks on my iPad, since I think its important to format with mobile devices in mind these days.
  • Agree with AustralianRupert re: his comments on images that may not have been addressed.
  • I am concerned with "File:Plan Fort Pulaski.PNG", because this appears to be a work done by another user, but the image page doesn't clarify the source from which the image creator made the image. In other words, where did the image creator get the general measurements and layout from, and what source informed the creator that, for instance, the portion in front of the sally port was called the Fleche? Or that the "moat" was referred to as a "moat" as opposed to "fosse" or "ditch"?
  • "Fort plan shows outline and features, demilune" - do you mean Ravelin?

This needs slight improvement to make it to A-class. If you can get all of this stuff taken care of (and all of Rupert and Dank's comments as well), and can organize your citations, I don't doubt this would make a good candidate for FAC after ACR. Still some work to go, but good job so far! Cdtew (talk) 15:08, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

  • An interesting read, although I didn't think it was quite there in ACR terms yet. It might be worth taking through Good Article review as an initial step.
  • Some comments:
  • "The fort's surrender strategically closed Savannah as a port" - unclear how being "strategically closed" differs from "tactically closed", or just "closed"
  • "then redeployed most of its 10,000 troops." - unclear which troops these are; the forces used in the battle? All of its troops?
  • "The Confederate army-navy defense blocked Federal advance" - doesn't quite parse: "the Federal advance"? "Federal advances"?
  • "The new construction replaced two earlier forts on Tybee Island..." - so far you haven't mentioned Tybee Island in the main article. Where is it, etc.?
  • The "Background" section is entirely unreferenced.
  • "the commander, Department of Georgia, General Alexander Robert Lawton" - "Department of Georgia" feels unclear here. Was he the commander of the Department of Georgia?
  • You'll need metric equivalents for the imperial lengths - you could use the convert template for this.
  • "Fort garrison duty with untrained troops made up for lost time." - This construct didn't work for me.
  • I'd echo the comments on the bullet points above.
  • Personally, I found the number of images rather high in places - the three images for a two paragraph section, for example, seemed excessive. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:57, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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