Talk:Balfour House

Duchess of Richmond's Ball
This sentence that is currently in the article: In a dramatic scene eerily reminiscent of the 1815 Duchess of Richmond's Ball just before the Battle of Waterloo, the home was the site of a grand Christmas Ball held December 24, 1862."

can not remain there unless there is a source that specifically compares the two. I know that it is easy to find sources that show that the events surrounding the ball mentioned in this article are reminiscent of the ball before Waterloo, but without a specific source to make the comparison it is without a source WP:OR and with non explicit sources WP:SYN. --PBS (talk) 10:29, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Although I thought the reference to DOR's 1815 Ball was so obvious as to not require a source, I'm very happy with your solution to the problem. However, I didn't like the wording left after deletion of the offending phrase.  I've added a few words to the rather sparse and awkward "In a dramatic scene," which I think makes the sentence flow a bit better.


 * During my spare time over the course of a few days, I looked and looked for a source comparing these two events but never found one. Since it is quite easy and quick to find references for each event separately, I was a little surprised that I couldn't find any reference to the numerous similarities between them.  Berberry (talk) 12:11, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

A Google search on: [ Vicksburg Waterloo dance ]

Throws up The final fortress: the campaign for Vicksburg, 1862-1863, Samuel Carter, St. Martin's Press, 1980. Page 178: "at the foreseen capture of Grierson and his raiders [and] tendered a complimentary dance to the officers of the command. ... And, as in Brussels fifty years before, on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, "there was a sound of revelry ..." Searching for specific phrases used in that quote allows for its expansion Je vous montre:

The quote is from the poem Childe Harold by Byron and is from the verse on the ball before the Battle of Waterloo (Waterloo by Lord Byron); So now we have a source I think we can now use this to revet out my change as this sorce clearly makes a link. :-) -- PBS (talk) 23:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Clever search! I wish I'd thought of it. Now I need to do a bit more research, just for my own satisfaction.  I'm from Vicksburg, so I grew up hearing all sorts of stories about the period before and during that war.  I'm sure much of it is inaccurate, but when I go to the trouble to research something I've been told about, I sometimes find that the truth isn't too far astray of the story.  I remember the name Grierson but not much else.  I'm curious to know what I've forgotten.


 * Thanks much for your help. Berberry (talk) 03:13, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Some more sources
Some other references I found when searching Google books [ Vicksburg muddy ball ] (Preview and full view) were: -- PBS (talk) 04:29, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Vicksburg and the war, by Gordon A. Cotton, Jeff T. Giambrone, pp. 42,43
 * Vicksburg: the campaign that opened the Mississippi, by Michael B. Ballard. p. 132
 * General Stephen D. Lee, by Herman Hattaway, p. 68
 * River to victory: the Civil War in the West, 1861-1863 James R. Arnold, Roberta Wiener, p. 57

this is a detailed and clear description of why the message was sent, but it is not a reliable source], so the same info needs to be gleaned from reliable sourcs. A quote from Emma Balfour's diary would be nice to have (but I can not find a copy of it on the internet).

Some more on the raid mentioned in the quote see Grierson's Raid, Benjamin Grierson the raid article says John C. Pemberton commander of the Vicksburg garrison, we also have an article on Martin Luther Smith which according to Gordon A. Cotton source was the commanding officer at the ball, which is probably the correct "Smith" as M.L.Smith is also listed in Wikipedia's Vicksburg Confederate order of battle and this source. All in all that should give anyone plenty of information if they want to expand the article. -- PBS (talk) 05:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Well thank you again, you've been very helpful. I've already expanded the article just a little bit using one of your sources.  You've given me quite a bit to go through, and as I do so I'm thinking of other sources I'd like to seek out.


 * It's quite late just now and I need to get away from this computer. Keep watching the article if you like, though, because I hope to be expanding it some more soon.  Berberry (talk) 07:11, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I tried googling "1862 christmas ball vicksburg" and turned up a first-hand account of the ball by none other than Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee, who offers his own recollection and quotes a letter written by Col. Fall, the telegraph operator who interrupted the ball. It's all part of a tribute Lee wrote for the telegraph operators involved in transmitting that message, and it was published by the Mississippi Historical Society at Oxford, MS in 1904. Take a look if you like: http://www.natchezbelle.org/ahgp-ms/telegraph.html

I'm going to think about for a while before I use it, but I see a lot of information in it that could enhance the section about the ball.

Interesting that the name "Balfour" is never mentioned, but of course that's why this particular search worked so well. Berberry (talk) 06:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Maintenance tags
I have removed two maintenance tags that did nothing for the reader of the article. user:Darkwind if you have concerns It would be better to place the maintenance tags on this page, or better still to discuss any maintenance issues here or best of all fix the problems yourself. -- PBS (talk) 03:16, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Title
Since there are and were many other buildings called Balfour House (among them in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia), some mentioned in WP articles, something should be added to title of this article to indicate which BH it is about. Mcljlm (talk) 15:13, 13 June 2021 (UTC)