Talk:Battle of Glasgow, Missouri/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 13:47, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

I have done a bit of copy editing. Let me know if you don't like anything.


 * "File:NPS CW at a Glance Western 1864.jpg" The source just takes one to a copy of the map. Could it be replaced with a link to the NP page which contains the map?
 * Actually turns out that it's part of a printed pamphlet, but I found a Library of Congress page that shows the full pamphlet and credits the National Park Service as the author, so I've added that
 * "The route of Price's Missouri Expedition." 1. This isn't a sentence, so shouldn't end in a full stop. 2. Perhaps add '- top left, in red'?
 * Fixed. I'm not a fan of either of these maps, but they're the best free ones I can find to work with. The one in the infobox shows the retreat missing Arkansas, which is wrong, while the other one has some wrong dates, including for Glasgow.

Gog the Mild (talk) 13:47, 6 November 2020 (UTC)


 * "to capture them." Picky point - "them" hasn't been mentioned. Rephrase or use 'it'.
 * Went with it
 * "Confederate artillery opened on the Union position". 'fire'?
 * Done
 * "all 14 of the army's cannons were underpowered". In what way? How do you underpower a cannon?
 * Is understrength better?
 * Well, it makes sense . Perhaps 'undermanned', or 'had understrength crews'.
 * I think we're thinking different things. What I'm trying to signify was that the cannons themselves were substandard.  The exact quote in the source is The artillery was composed of all light-caliber guns, and I'm struggling to come up with a way to say this without using "light-caliber".  And on second thought, understrength is not a good word here, so I'm not entirely sure how to phrase this.  Any ideas?
 * 'and all 14 of the army's cannons were smaller than was standard at the time, limiting their range and effectiveness'?
 * Done.


 * "Price's army was accompanied by a sizable wagon train". Is it known why?
 * Oops, missed this one somehow. Yeah, it was used to carry around the stuff they took.  Added
 * Disambiguate "Little Dixie".
 * Fixed. In the body and in the lead
 * "a good proportion of them were unarmed" Is there a more precise word than "good"? Or, failing that, more encyclopedic?
 * Went with "significant"
 * "Once the ships were unstuck". 'refloated'?
 * Went with "freed", since the source is really vague about what all was going on with that
 * Cite 23 should be 'pp.'.
 * Good catch. Fixed
 * "Two days after Price first reached Boonville, Sanborn moved north and skirmished with the Confederates". 1. You only cite p. 62 of Collins, which does not cover the date Price arrived in Boonville. That is on p. 60, which 2. gives the 10th, the day before Sanborn skirmished, not two days prior as Price's arrival date.
 * Oops. I had originally been going to write something else, but forgot to update half of the sentence and the citation. Fixed.
 * "the defenses between the fortifications were rather makeshift." Does "rather" add anything?
 * Removed
 * "the defenses between the fortifications were rather makeshift." Do we need "largely"?
 * - I can't quite tell which sentence you're referring to here Hog Farm Bacon 01:00, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * That's because what I wrote doesn't make sense. I meant Do we need "rather".
 * It's not needed. (see the comment above of yours, this appears to be a duplicate)
 * Third time lucky. I meant consider "This fire was largely ineffective" → 'This fire was ineffective'. (I'm having a bad life.)
 * IMO, "largely" adds a little. Most of the shots didn't do anything, but they scored a couple of effective hits, so it's not entirely accurate to just say it was ineffective. Would you rather me use "mostly" instead of "largely"? Hog Farm Bacon 19:37, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. The original question was "Do we need "largely"?" Your answer is "Yes" and you can support it with your sources, so fine.


 * "Meanwhile, Clark's force arrived later than Shelby expected". I don't think that "Meanwhile" is accurate here.
 * Removed
 * "Union sharpshooters were able to silence some of the Confederate fire". 1. Why is this in a new paragraph? 2. Do you mean the artillery fire? 3. While I know what you mean - ie, how this was done - perhaps explain a little for non-aficionados?
 * 1. Moved into the previous paragraph. 2. Actually was referring to cavalry fire, didn't phrase well. 3. Clarified
 * Optional: give a little detail on what being paroled meant and its implications.
 * I don't have the best sources for that with me at the moment, so that will be if this ever goes anywhere further, which isn't liable to happen anytime particularly soon

Two general points. IMO you overuse semi colons a little. Consider splitting into two sentences more often. Also, there is no need to use "away" when giving distances. I have removed a couple while copy editing. See what you think. A lovely article. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:07, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Dealt with a couple more semicolons


 * That all looks good. You haven't responded to my wagon train query and I have clarified the point I messed up. A non-GAN point: the images are all maps; anything you could swap one of them for? Gog the Mild (talk) 09:50, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * 1. Missed that one, responded to. 2. I think I've responded to the clarified one. 3. There's free images of Price and Shelby, but the one of Clark I'm not sure if its usable: the author's long dead (and known), but there seems to be no indication of when it was first published.  I looked for an image of West Wind, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, there doesn't seem to be one.  I've turned up an image of Harding, but again, I can't specifically prove it's PD.  I've also got a query about the description of the cannons. Hog Farm Bacon 18:07, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * No worries. Two comments above. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:31, 7 November 2020 (UTC)