Talk:Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008
Article reassessed and graded as start class. Needs a start section as well as images. --dashiellx (talk) 20:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Reassessment
Article reassessed and graded as B class --dashiellx (talk) 11:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Concerns
It looks like there's either reference placement issues or source-text integrity concerns. For instance:
 * "Lieutenant Colonel Rawlings was commanding the regiment during the battle because Colonel Stephenson had died of illness in August or September" - cited source just mentions that Stephenson died, no mention of when, a cause, or Rawlings
 * "A few enlisted men of the regiment who escaped from their captors within the short chaotic period following the battle augmented this remaining active force" - not a good idea to cite when people served with the regiment to testimonies of people trying to get pensions for military service
 * "at the end of the 1777 campaign season" - this is an odd thing to cite to a 1778 muster roll
 * "On December 1, the first day of the army's next regular reporting period following the fall of Fort Washington, Washington provisionally grouped these remnants of the diminished regiment into two composite rifle companies commanded by the unit's highest ranking officers still free—Capts. Alexander Lawson Smith and Gabriel Long" - not a great citation here either, as the primary source muster rolls will only obliquely support some of these details.

Hog Farm Talk 17:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * On the first point about Rawlings being in command, this seems uncontroversial, for example this muster roll guide refers to Rawlings later becoming colonel. On the other points I would reserve judgement as we don't know how much detail the muster rolls have until we actually see them, since not all muster rolls are equally sparse in details. Kges1901 (talk) 13:45, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

To further address the Concerns:
 * The pension claims that are cited are each witnessed and validated (with inscription and signature) as accurate by former officers in the regiment and/or state officials personally familiar with the pensioner's service record. Such claims are commonly cited in published historical treatises, especially where they are corroborated by accounts from other sources, as in the case of this unit history.
 * The title (header) of this muster roll documents that Smith's composite company was attached to the 4th Maryland Regiment. The last rolls of the company in 1777 show that it was part of the 11th Virginia Regt.; thus, the change occurred late in the 1777 campaign season.
 * The titles (headers) of the May 1777 rolls of Smith's and Long's companies (in the expanded text common in unit rolls of the period) indicate that Captains Smith and Long were each in command of a composite company consisting of the remnants of the surviving elements of the other Maryland and Virginia rifle companies in the diminished regiment. Smith's Co. pay roll of May 1, 1777, documents that the composite-company arrangement was initiated on December 1, 1776. Muster rolls and pay rolls are sources of more data than just a mere accounting of the company members. The "Casualties" or "Remarks" (i.e., additional notes) column on all rolls, for instance, contains notes/dates of official army duty away from the regiment, prisoner status, and other absences, to list a few. Tfhentz (talk) 18:44, 8 May 2023 (UTC)