Template talk:American Civil War

Rationale and usage guidelines
(Please keep this section at the top of the Talk page and do not archive it.)

This section records the rationale for American Civil War inclusions or omissions. It is obvious that this large menu could become dramatically larger and unusable if new entries are added without discrimination. We would like to establish the precedent that any changes to the menu are discussed in this Talk page prior to implementation.

General Usage: This list is exclusively for active Wikimedia article and category links. Do not include external URLs. Do not include red links (Wikipedia articles that have not been written yet). Links to stubs and multiple redirects to the same article are discouraged.

Rationale for the major headings in the menu:


 * Issues & Combatants
 * The subcategories Prelude and Slavery should be pretty obvious. The Combatants are intended to be only the "countries" and their highest level armies and navies. We cannot afford to include military units smaller than this (e.g., regional armies, corps, regiments).


 * Theaters & Campaigns
 * The Theaters are those named by the five articles plus the Union naval blockade. The Campaigns are those that have articles written about them. Since there are no campaign articles describing, say, the Battle of Chancellorsville or the Battle of Fredericksburg, these battles are covered only in the following section. If new campaign articles are written (and they are not simply redirects), they will be legitimate additions to this subcategory.


 * Major Battles
 * In our judgment, the current list represents the most important battles of the war, with unique strategic or political consequences. Please discuss any proposed changes to this list here in the Talk page, citing your justification, before editing the menu.


 * Key CSA Leaders
 * The Confederate leaders are listed before the United States leaders because of alphabetical order and to give them a gray background. The Military leaders selected commanded major armies or corps, were cavalry leaders with strategic significance, or in a few cases (Gorgas, Cooper) had important positions in CSA headquarters. There is also the single most important naval captain. This list will quickly become useless if people add their favorite commanders, ancestors, or movie characters at lower levels in the hierarchy.


 * Key USA Leaders
 * The United States leaders come second so that they can have a blue background. The Military leaders are those with the highest positions in the Army and Navy, with only a few exceptions. Hunt had unique significance as an artillery leader. Meigs is included for the same reason as Gorgas. The same warning about adding favorite commanders applies.


 * Aftermath
 * This row is limited to significant social and political articles about the postbellum era, with demonstrable links to the war.


 * Other Topics
 * This row is difficult to characterize. New entries or subcategories should not be added without discussion on the Talk page. The State involvement subcategory is intended only for comprehensive articles, such as the current entries.


 * Categories
 * This row is intended to include, indirectly, all of the smaller units and biographies not explicitly named above. Please do not include subcategories of categories that are already in this list without discussion on the Talk page.


 * InterWiki
 * Obvious. Please do not change.

Monuments and memorials
There are many other monuments and memorials to add to this section. Are there criteria for inclusion? I fear expanding this section to its fullest potential would make the section way too large. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 14:38, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your interest and our shared concern. Some us who've been involved with this template early on were very worried about building a runaway tool resembling Template:Gettysburg figures, and in some ways this template has been enlarged far beyond our expectations. I would have zero objection to establishing a working criteria for the M&M section. It is perhaps time to revisit all section criteria, but a good idea would be to establish something for those sections without guidance. BusterD (talk) 19:30, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Baltimore riot of 1861
I have added Baltimore riot of 1861 to "Other topics". It was a major event and arguably, as the article on it notes, produced the first deaths by hostile action of the Civil War. As the New York City riots of 1863 are in this section of the template this seemed the best place to put it. Dunarc (talk) 21:48, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

John C. Breckinridge
In the reference footer, he is listed as a key "civilian" leader. I propose moving him to the "military" section because he served as a senior Confederate general in a LOT of significant battles. - Kingmaker