Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Operation Brothers at War

Kick-off
Guys, as you would've gathered if you've got this far, I've created a basic subpage for this drive, based on the Normandy special project, and copied the initial discussion on this from the ACW TF talk page. While I'll probably not actively participate in article improvement myself, I'm happy to act for now at least as a moderator and be involved in discussions and administrative stuff. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Ian, thanks so much for your support of the idea and your help in getting it kicked off. Historical Perspective (talk) 15:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Sesquicentenial drive?
With the Civil War sesquicentenial coming up, maybe we could organize a drive similar to the WWI task force's centenary drive. Wild Wolf (talk) 19:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I was just wondering the same thing. Then I found your post here.  I absolutely think something should be organized.  'Course, I'm a new guy, so I haven't the faintest idea what's involved.  But I do think that if our WWI friends are organizing something for their 100th, we really ought to be doing something to recognize and promote the 150th of the American Civil War.  Now...how do we do that? Historical Perspective (talk) 17:24, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * In the last year I got a couple Civil War FAs, Battle of Corydon and Eli Lilly. There is a couple more I am thinking about working on this year. Maybe we should set a goal of getting American Civil War over the last hurdle and to FA status and get it on the main page page on the 150th anniversary date. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 17:43, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that's a great idea. Taking a cue from the WWI project, what if we developed a list of core topics (or maybe just a list of priority articles) to bring to FA?  Perhaps we agree on the 10 most important engagements, get them to FA and run them on their 150th anniversary dates?  That would stagger the process over four years or so.  We might also do something similar with a list of generals/political leaders? Historical Perspective (talk) 15:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That's something I'd be glad to participate in. I have a wealth of reference material available. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 15:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

How to prioritize articles?
Seems to me, our first step in this "Operation" would be to develop a list of articles to promote to FA. The Normandy project has designated 40 articles. Something in that range sounds about right to me. I think the challenge will be selecting which people and places to highlight. With hundreds upon hundreds of notable leaders, battles, political issues swirling around this topic, I think we're going to have to stick to the mainstream, best-known subjects.

So, a suggestion: we develop (and hash it out here) a list of, say, the top 20 battles, the top 10 Confederate leaders, the top 10 Union leaders and the top 10 political/cultural topics pertaining to the war? Just a thought. I realize this exercise, in and of itself, will be difficult to agree upon. But I think we should give it a shot. What would your top battles/leaders be?
 * One thing I'd suggest would be, perhaps, "one battle from each state/territory". Thoughts? - The Bushranger (talk) 15:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * For the overall list, that makes sense. You may want to target those articles you'd like to get to main page on their individual anniversaries first, then build on that.  It'd want to be spread roughly equidistant throughout 2011-2015. Speaking as an Aussie, a sample 'top ten' that comes to mind for that is:
 * American Civil War – April 12, 2011
 * First Battle of Bull Run – July 21, 2011
 * Battle of the Ironclads – March 9, 2012
 * Battle of Antietam – September 17, 2012
 * Battle of Chancellorsville – April 30, 2013
 * Battle of Gettysburg – July 1, 2013
 * Battle of Chickamauga – September 19, 2013
 * Battle of Spotsylvania Court House – May 8, 2014
 * Sherman's March to the Sea – November 16, 2014
 * Battle of Appomattox Court House – April 9, 2015
 * Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 16:12, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I would have to disagree with your proposal concerning one battle from each territory or state as I think that could allow certain events that simply weren't that to acquire a level of attention that is not necessarily commensurate with their importance. For example some the battles that went down in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War. I mean in many ways they are interesting and certainly different than what one would regularly expect to see when discussing the Civil War, but so much of the war's most important parts went down on the eastern seaboard that it seems to me that we should try to qualitatively assess which articles would be the most important. Towards that end I suggest that break potential articles into specific categories such as:
 * Political Aspects of the War
 * The Causes of the War
 * Union Generals
 * Confederate Generals
 * Land Battles
 * Naval Battles
 * Technological Aspects of the War
 * Results of the War
 * Miscellaneous Aspects of the War (id est stuff agreed upon to be fairly interesting)
 * All right I know that sounds like a lot of categories and admittedly it is a sizable bunch of potential categories (I would even say I have suggested a plethora of categories). But I suggest that we also set quotas for what we are shooting for in each specific category. So naturally we would scale political aspects back considerably while emphasizing the military aspects. However if this project proves to be more popular, we can start to raise our aims. Perhaps all this talk is is newbie editor enthusiasm on my part, so please knock some sense into me if you think I am talking all crazy like here. But those are my thoughts on how we could organize the effort.

-LeonidasSpartan (talk) 18:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * To Leonidas: No, I don't think you're talking crazy at all. Ideally, we probably should have arranged the project categorically as you suggest.  And, to some extent, perhaps we still might.  But we are facing the constraints of a short time frame.  So we have to be a bit more narrow in our focus, I think.  I would place priority on your categories 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6.  I like your list of battles as well.  I'm reserving any suggestions at this point.  I'm interested to see what other battle people might rank as higher priority.Historical Perspective (talk) 20:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * To Bushranger: It's a good idea. But I do agree with Leonidas that it would give disproportionate attention certain small actions.  *Shrug*  I wouldn't rule out anything yet, though.  Historical Perspective (talk) 20:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Suggested battle
Hope you don't mind, Bushranger, but I'm moving your suggestion from the project page to this discussion page. I think we should reserve the project page for articles that have definitely been agreed upon. On April 28, The Bushranger suggested we include the Battle of Natural Bridge as a priority article. Historical Perspective (talk) 20:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Not a problem! :) Olustee is the battle most people think of when they think of the Civil War in Florida, but Natural Bridge could arguably be considered more important - as the Confederate victory there allowed Tallahassee to be the only Confederate capital not captured by the Union during the war (as I recall). - The Bushranger (talk) 23:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

HP's suggested battles
I suggest the following battles be included in our scope. I've tried to give roughly equal attention to the years (although '61 and '65 are difficult) and also eastern and western theaters. I'd be interested to hear additional suggestions/thoughts.
 * First Battle of Bull Run. July 21, 1861.  Both sides realize this will be a long war.
 * Battle of Wilson's Creek. August 10, 1861.  First major battle in the western theatre.
 * Battle of Hampton Roads. March 8-9, 1862.  First battle of the ironclads.
 * Battle of Shiloh. April 6-7, 1862.  Largest battle up to that time, western Tennessee and northern Mississippi opened up.
 * Battle of Antietam. September 17, 1862.  The bloodiest day in American history, end of the Maryland Campaign.
 * Battle of Fredericksburg. December 13, 1862.  One of the largest Confederate victories, deadlocked the opposing armies in northern Virginia for months.
 * Battle of Chancellorsville. May 2, 1863. Lee’s most brilliant victory, led to the Gettysburg Campaign.
 * Battle of Gettysburg. July 1-3, 1863.  The high water mark of the Confederacy)
 * Battle of Chickamauga. September 19, 1863. The largest battle in the western theatre, major victory for the CSA
 * Battle of Missionary Ridge. November 25, 1863.  Grant ends the Siege of Chattanooga, opens Georgia for invasion
 * Battle of the Wilderness. May 5, 1864.  Opening of the Overland Campaign, Grant demonstrates his intention to fight a war of attrition)
 * Battle of Cold Harbor. June 3, 1864.  Failed Union assault ends the Overland Campaign, Siege of Petersburg begins.
 * Battle of Atlanta. July 22, 1864.  Turning point of the Atlanta Campaign, would lead to Sherman’s March to the Sea.
 * Battle of Franklin. November 30, 1864.  Effectively ended Confederate offensive in the western theatre.
 * Battle of Appomattox Court House. April 9, 1865.  Lee’s surrender.

Historical Perspective (talk) 11:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Id've chucked in Sumter, as that was the kikckoff. Buggie111 (talk) 14:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * And you can see my case for Natural Bridge above. :P Otherwise looks good to me. - The Bushranger (talk) 03:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Its a good List, but I think it is important to throw the Battle of Vicksburg in there too since Union victory there gave them control of the Mississipi.
 * This list includes pretty well all I suggested in my 'top ten' above, or variations thereof (e.g. Atlanta instead of Sherman's March), so works for me. I agree Vicksburg should be in there; my ten potential TFAs didn't include it because it'd have to compete with the almost simultaneous Battle of Gettysburg as a main page article (though it could still make OTD). Are there any objections to transferring everything in this list (incl. Vicksburg) to the project page? Does Natural Bridge have consensus? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:20, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I would agree that we should add Vicksburg. I left it out for just the reasons that you mentioned, i.e. that it would compete with Gettysburg for the main page.  But we should probably add it anyway.  I see no reason why we shouldn't transfer the above battles to the project page.  I would probably remove the Battle of Pea Ridge from the project page.  And, with a respectful tip of the hat to Bushranger, I think I probably would not include the Battle of Natural Bridge.  But them's just my thoughts. Historical Perspective (talk) 03:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Drive logistics and naming
On a slightly tangential note, I'm assuming that—given that this drive will last several years—the plan here is to turn this into a MILHIST special project, similar to the WWI centenary drive? If that's the case, we ought to come up with an operational codename for it, so that we can keep a consistent naming with the other special projects. Any suggestions for one would be appreciated. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, Kirill, I'd like to see this become a special project similar to Great War, Normandy, and OMT. My thought for the name would simply be Operation American Civil War Sesquicentennial or an abbreviation thereof, for consistency with those other projects. Anyone else?! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:02, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Ian, I think your title would work, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue nor it is the most most marketable phrase. Perhaps a more marketable name would be helpful to the project? My suggestion for the title would be Operation American Divide. Perhaps with some manner of subtitle. Thoughts? Comments? LeonidasSpartan (talk) 05:05, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I think Operation Civil War would be enough. AirplanePro 23:51, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't be too bothered by American Civil War Sesquicentennial, but you're right, Leonidas, it is a little clunky. If we were to come up with something more "catchy," I think it would be nice to use an actual quote from one of the leaders.  Something like Operation Last Full Measure.  Alright, perhaps that's a little too dramatic.  But something like that.  Or maybe a phrase from one of the period songs.  Still thinking about this, but I think it would be nice if we could use words from the era. Historical Perspective (talk) 11:30, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Operation War Between The States? - The Bushranger (talk) 14:52, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I can think of two at the moment: The former refers to a nickname for the confederate flag, while the later refers to the departure of the states in the south, symbolized by the stars on the American flag, to create a new country. Both are just suggestions at this point, but I submit them for consideration. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Operation Southern Cross, and
 * Operation Star's Exodus
 * I though of one name that would be completely inappropriate, but I felt compelled to share it regardless: Operation Infinite Walrus. Yeah, how about that? Anyone? Anyone? Thought so. But on a serious note here are some reasonable suggestions:

Are any of those decent ideas? LeonidasSpartan (talk) 20:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Operation American Divide
 * Operation Great Divide
 * Operation Brothers at War
 * Operation E Pluribus Bellum
 * Operation States Asunder
 * Operation They Took Their Stand
 * Heh, so far, Operation Brothers at War or Operation States Asunder grab me the most "catchiness-wise"; Operation American Civil War Sesquicentennial (or simply Operation Civil War Sesquicentennial, since I think even non-Americans generally associate the phrase "Civil War" with ACW) appealed because there's no confusion about it. Pretty all the others are kinda esoteric... I certainly wouldn't go for Operation Southern Cross, as your average antipodean will probably feel cheated that it's not something to do with them... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:06, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I like Operation Brothers at War. Quite catchy and sums up the conflict nicely.  My second choice would be the practical Operation Civil War Sesquicentennial. Historical Perspective (talk) 03:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * So, shall we go with "Operation Brothers at War", or does anyone have another suggestion? Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:58, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As above, I'd be happy with Operation Brothers at War. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:06, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah Operation Brothers at War is fine by me too. Lets go with it.LeonidasSpartan (talk) 22:42, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Congratulations guys, this is now an official MilHist Special Project with a link on the main project talk page, as per Great War, Normandy, and Majestic Titan, following a move by Coordinator Emeritus Kirill Lokshin -- tks Kirill! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Wonderful! Was away this weekend and glad to find this news.  Thanks Kirill and Ian! Historical Perspective (talk) 15:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I feel that the appropriate thing to say at this juncture is: Booyah!LeonidasSpartan (talk) 05:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

User Box Proposal
I believe that we should adopt an official Userbox for the project as that seems to be one the staples of many well established, active Wikiprojects. Though I must confess whether that is the is a cause or more likely just a symptom of said status is up for debate. That aside having something such as a userbox would go towards convincing potential editors that the project is a serious endeavor in which they would not be laboring alone. Towards that end I went ahead and designed a placeholder userbox for the time being. Alright, yeah I know its painfully rudimentary, I too have eyeballs. This is just for illustrative purposes at the momement. I figure that if others agree with me that this is a worthwhile thing to pursue, we might go on over the WikiProject Userboxes and see if someone over there is willing to design one that isn't as ...bad. What do you others think?LeonidasSpartan (talk) 06:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. It would be great to have a userbox.Historical Perspective (talk) 11:32, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * UPDATE:I posted a request for assistance over at the Userbox Wikiproject. I have not heard anything back yet. I also asked a member of that project if she would be willing to help us out today, so we'll see if that pans out at all. If we get no progress within a month, I'll just sit down at figure how to design one correctly myself. (I think no small amount of banging my head against a wall in frustration will be involved in that process however.LeonidasSpartan (talk) 23:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Here's your userbox - hope you guys like it! Tell me if you have any problems with it and I'll be happy to fix them. I have also made a much more bland version here - if you prefer it, just tell me and I'll switch it over. F orenti talk 09:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC) User:Forenti/Userboxes/ACWSProject

Article Proposal
Here are my suggestions for articles to cover: LeonidasSpartan (talk) 21:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Great list. I'm not sure we're going to have the manpower to cover all that, however.  I think we've got a good list of battles to start with.  Let's add some generals to the project page.  I'm thinking we should do a fairly exclusive list...maybe 5 Union and 5 Confederate.  Any suggestions from anyone else as to the top 5 generals on both sides? Historical Perspective (talk) 11:25, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Concerning naval battles: It would be a shame to overlook the capture of New Orleans, which was as important as any on the list. Also, while considering the important generals, is there room for David G. Farragut? PKKloeppel (talk) 16:01, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree, naval engagements and leaders should have some representation. So far we have Hampton Roads, Mobile Bay and New Orleans suggested.  Leonidas also suggested some good examples of amphibious actions above (Sabine Pass, Second Fort Wagner, etc.) but I'm not sure if they're up there on the same level of importance as Mobile Bay or the capture of New Orleans.  For naval leaders we have Farragut.  Who would be a good choice from the Confederate navy?  I'm thinking Raphael Semmes.  Other ideas? Historical Perspective (talk) 17:32, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the input on the naval issue, Amigo. For the Confederacy I would back you the Semmes suggestion and most certainly on the Capture of New Orleans. But I should also suggest that we should cover the Confederate States Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory since throughout the war he really fulfilled a function that today would have been performed by the Navy Chief of Staff. Also James D. Bulloch would be a great person to cover as well. LeonidasSpartan (talk) 22:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Catesby ap Roger Jones? Which reminds me, the local library has a copy of Navy Gray, so I call dibs on improving CSS Chattahoochee. - The Bushranger Return fire Flank speed 00:38, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Female leaders
I think we would be remiss is we didn't include a few female leaders. It would provide a better picture of the war as a whole. On the Union side, I'm thinking Dorothea Dix or Clara Barton. I confess I'm not as up to speed regarding women in the Confederacy. Any suggestions? Historical Perspective (talk) 11:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Another woman who might merit attention was Mother Bickerdyke. PKKloeppel (talk) 15:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

American Civil War‎ Main Article
Here's a test for the group. A major obstacle to ever having this article reach Featured status is the section on "Causes of secession". Besides the contoversial nature of the issue itself, the article is long and probably needs to be cut someplace. Since this is subject at the moment to a serious debate, why don't y'all weigh in and see what you can do. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 00:59, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * We'll be sure to do that, Tom. Hopefully we may help sort out the quagmire surrounding the causes of the war. I will be sure to throw my hat into the ring within the next week.LeonidasSpartan (talk) 19:10, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Operation Brother at War Service Medal
Perhaps it is premature at this moment to act upon this suggestion, but I believe that is not too early to at least get this idea out their and stir up some discussion on the issue. But I think that we as a project should instate some manner of service award along the lines of Wikipedia's Service Awards. I think that if we were able to slap a offer up on the Reward board we would get some more traffic on the project page and potentially some more participation in the project.Any thoughts from others?LeonidasSpartan (talk) 22:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Toward that end I suggest that if we create a service medal, it should be very similiar to the Service Awards in that they are self-awarded (Unless someone wants to run some sort of authentication program, however I feel that would not be quite the best use of a project member's efforts at this time considering our low membership at the moment, but perhaps in the future that will not be the case). I feel the award should consist of an image of a typical American style military award (id est, a metal emblem suspended by a ribbon). On that ribbon there could be up to six campaign clasps which would be for the six years for which this project should run. One campaign clasp would exist for this year up until April 21, 2011, after For each year, the campaign clasp could be awarded in different grades for varying levels of participation. Let us say for example that a participant contributes 100 major edits or creates 5 new articles which pass B-class muster, then that user would have earned a Bronze Clasp. Then for the next 100 major edits or 5 articles, the user would jump up to a silver clasp and so on. As far as what the emblem would look like, at this time off the top of my head I would suggest some combination of the obverse faces of the Confederate and American governmental seals. What do others think? Both the award structure and the emblem suggestion LeonidasSpartan (talk) 23:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Ulysses S. Grant Page
Alright I threw some more Generals and such up on the main page. I know that we should typically try to come to a consensus about targeting an article for efforts, but I also think that some of these are givens. (I mean if we could not come to a consensus as to whether Ulysses S. Grant was important enough to target, then we shouldn't be working on these articles as we would be grossly underqualified.) But with the Grant article, he is important enough that we have to work on him. But with his political career and his early life thrown in the mix that would take up some effort that might be better spent elsewhere. So what does everyone think about undertaking a second page exclusively on Grant's military career or in Civil War service?LeonidasSpartan (talk) 05:28, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * We should contact Cmguy777 and see if we can get him involved on this. He's done a tremendous amount of work on several U.S. Grant pages.  I believe he was considering, here, writing a separate page for Grant's Civil War career.  I'll flag him on this.  Historical Perspective (talk) 11:35, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Right on, HP. Good work.LeonidasSpartan (talk) 21:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Concerning the Inclusion of Generals in Operation Brothers at War
I think that the inclusion of Generals, while now a problematic issue as we have no clear policy as to when those articles are to be targeted for Featured Article, actually gives this project a needed degree of flexibility. If an article on a specific battle is not ready in time for its 150th Aniversary, we as project could put an article on a General who was prominent in the course of a given battle. Say for instance, if the article of the Battle of Fredericksburg was not a Featured article by December 13, 2012, but the article on Ambrose Burnside was Featured article class by that date, it could be called a victory as long an editor involved in the project was responsible for raising the quality of the article in question.LeonidasSpartan (talk) 00:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Towards that end I propose Operation Brothers at War adopt the following as policy: When an editor undertakes the task of improving a biographical article of a prominent person from the Civil War-era, the editor may at their discretion select up to three dates on which the article's subject played an important role in the American Civil War. What are everyone's thoughts on this proposal?LeonidasSpartan (talk) 00:53, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this sounds reasonable. And I think the generals you've added to the main page are perfectly sensible.  Looks manageable so far.  Just my two cents, but I think we should be very careful going forward about keeping the scope from getting too big.  I'm sure it will be tempting to add many generals.  But I think we'll need to be very picky if we are to accomplish our goals.  We should also think about recruiting.  There are editors who have already put in a lot of work on these articles and I hope they might become part of this effort.  Historical Perspective (talk) 11:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You are right, I should slow down with throwing new articles in the mix. Recruiting is a good idea. If only we could issue conscript editors, huh? Though if we developed some sort of invitation or welcome template, that might be a sort of fun way to word the message. I mean as a draft notice. It would have to be sort of playfully words so that, it was fairly clear it was meant in good humor (I have learned not to underestimate the people's ability to lack a sense of humor about stuff). What do others think?21:03, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Additional battles
I was wondering about adding the following battles to the project: Bios: Also, for the general topics, the Eastern Theater and Western Theater articles could be added. Wild Wolf (talk) 19:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Action of 17 February 1864 - first sinking of a warship by a submarine
 * Atlanta Campaign
 * Battle of Bentonville
 * Battle of Nashville
 * Battle of Pea Ridge
 * Siege of Petersburg
 * Siege of Port Hudson
 * Franklin Buchanan
 * Braxton Bragg
 * Nathan Bedford Forrest
 * George Henry Thomas
 * These are good suggestions so I am going to slap them up there barring any objection. LeonidasSpartan (talk) 16:22, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Second Bull Run and Civil War Time Line
I just added my name to help contribute and noticed that the Second Battle of Bull Run wasan't on the list. I'm just curious as to why that is.--Samurai262 (talk) 00:21, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Also I can Create a Civil War Time Line if you guys want.--Samurai262 (talk) 00:31, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Fort Sumter
Well, folks, I gave Fort Sumter the old college try. But too little too late, I'm afraid. There was no interest in my peer review request and only one reviewer commented on it at FAC. Too bad. I do think the article is worth promotion to FA (I can say this unabashedly because I did not write it). If there had been constructive criticism to work with, that would have been one thing...but, given the lack of interest and the lack of time, I think I'm going to throw in the towel on this one. Perhaps we might have more success with other articles with a longer lead time. Sorry for the fail, folks. It was worth a shot. Historical Perspective (talk) 23:07, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

USS New Ironsides
The article on the USS New Ironsides, an ironclad that saw action at Ft. Fisher and Charleston is a featured article candidate. Feel free to drop by and review the article to see if it meets the FAC criteria.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

List of American Civil War battles now has CWSAC ratings

 * List of American Civil War battles now includes CWSAC ratings that may help you choose an article to improve. &bull; Ling.Nut (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

General discussion of special projects
Posting a brief note here to alert anyone watching this page of the discussion I've started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, regarding the special projects in general. Carcharoth (talk) 19:24, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Portal updates
Portal:American Civil War has been heavily updated, by myself, due to a considerable lack of manual effort to maintain the portal; I have improved the automated rotation of the boxes on the portal, as well as a few tweaks to the appearance and layout - needs a little more work, but for now it should probably be able to retain its "Featured portal" status and keep running okay.  Ma &reg;&copy; usBr iti sh &#91;Chat &bull; RFF] 15:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I've also take the opportunity to update Template:American Civil War with links to the portal, task force and special project, to maximise attention for American Civil War articles on MilHist.  Ma &reg;&copy; usBr iti sh &#91;Chat &bull; RFF] 15:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions of additions to the project
Might I suggest adding the following articles?


 * Generals and Officers: CSA
 * John S. Mosby
 * A.P. Hill
 * Albert Sidney Johnston


 * Generals and Officers: USA
 * William Rosecrans
 * Don Carlos Buell

Battles/Incidents:
 * Battle of Glorieta Pass -- TFA date missed already, though.
 * Price's Raid
 * Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

Naval Battles/Incidents:
 * Battle of Mobile Bay
 * Trent Affair -- TFA date missed already, though.

I'd be willing to contribute to these, particularly Mosby, Spotsylvania Court House, or either Naval battles listed. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 17:41, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * If nobody objects in the next day or so, be WP:BOLD and do it. Mojoworker (talk) 22:52, 9 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I have been working on Jefferson Columbus Davis, mainly because of ties to a Great Grandfather's command structure. Greg (talk) 04:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

An interesting article to expand
So, first off, I will state that this article isn't something that will be 150 years old in the coming years. In fact, the 1913 Gettysburg reunion will only be 100 years old next July. That being said, since the scope of this drive is to include Civil War-related articles, I figured some people might be interested in improving it with the goal of having it as a Featured Article next July. I would be willing to help if anyone wants me to, but I figured I might as well get the ball rolling on this idea. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 19:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Changes to the special project
I noticed that this project seems to have stalled a bit, with very few (if any) articles reaching FA class. I've changed the project page a bit, arranging the engagements in chronological order and seperating the articles into two sections, depending on if they are past their anniversary date. I also hid the inactive users in the contributors sections (similar to what has been done to the task force pages). I'm also wondering if the previous sections on this talk page should be archived.

Looking ahead for the future anniversaries, any ideas on how to get anyone to start improving these articles to FA status? I haven't noticed any GA, A-class, or FA class reviews started for these (or any other ACW) articles other than the ones I've started (and the ones I started have failed). We probably need some way to encourage more active partitipation in this project. LeonidasSpartan suggested some kind of service medal in this section.

Anyone else have any comments? Wild Wolf (talk) 18:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

WANTED: PROGRESS BAR FOR B CLASS WikiProject Military history/Operation Brothers at War
To whom it may concern,

I have asked Nick-D if a "progress bar" for WikiProject Military history/Operation Brothers at War could be set up in relation to the progress of "B class" articles set at 1,000 articles. It would be appreciated if someone who has the knowledge to do this could set it up. Adamdaley (talk) 06:24, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Since you're usually our go-to guy for tech matters, would you be willing to look into this? TomStar81 (Talk) 09:21, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Simply adding the progress bar itself is as easy as copying one of the existing ones and re-labeling it. However, the problem I see—and this might be what Adam is alluding to—is that the progress bars currently use hard-coded article counts, so updating them requires recounting the articles by hand.  Do we want to have the bars automatically update instead?  In order to do that, we would need to add a tag for this special project to WPMILHIST (as has been done for OMT, for example), to create the corresponding assessment categories, and then to go through all of the listed articles and enable the new tag on their talk pages.  I can take care of the first two items, but someone else would need to update all of the articles; is there someone who has the time to do that? Kirill [talk] 13:33, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I would be willing to do it. I sounds like a daunting job. It is something that would benefit the WikiProject. Adamdaley (talk) 21:10, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Would this bar apply to all of the American Civil War articles? Adamdaley (talk) 21:24, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I was under the assumption that this special project only covered a subset of those articles? Is that not the case?  If the scope is the full set of ACW articles, then we could simply reuse the ACW task force statistics; but, at that point, I'm not sure what the practical difference between this and the task force would be. Kirill [talk] 01:00, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The "Brothers at War" is one of four subcategories that WikiProject Military history is working towards. Then there is the American Civil War that is included in the WikiProject by simply making the ACW and US active in the Banner.
 * What articles are covered by "Brothers at War"? Is it all American Civil War articles, or only a subset? Kirill [talk] 02:38, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The articles that are covered by "Brothers at War" are for the 150 anniversary. They are under the normal ACW and US, just like every other ACW/US article. Instead of where I was originally asking for this progress bar to be placed it could even serve its purpose at the American Civil War section which is the normal place located here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/American Civil War task force. In total there are 627 b class articles. Adamdaley (talk) 05:15, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Okay, maybe I'm being unclear. I'm trying to determine if we need to tag "Brothers at War" articles separately from ACW articles, or if we can use the same tag for both. In other words, are there any ACW articles that are not part of "Brothers at War"? If the answer is yes, then we'll need to create a new tag specific to "Brothers at War" if we want to generate statistics automatically. If the answer is no, then we can use the existing tags/categories for ACW to generate the statistics. Does that make sense? Kirill [talk] 05:34, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I had a quick look just now, and compared a couple FA articles from ACW and that of "Brothers at War" section. There is no Battle of Shiloh (FA), Winfield Scott Hancock (FA. ACW section) and Winfield S. Hancock (FA. Brothers At War). Another one: William T. Sherman (FA. Brothers At War) and William Tecumseh Sherman (FA. ACW). So there is clearly some that are known as one in Brothers at War and something else at ACW. Adamdaley (talk) 05:54, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Are those differences intentional? For example, were some ACW articles left out of the "Brothers at War" list because of importance, or lack of suitable anniversary dates, or some other reason?  Or do we want to have the same set of articles in both? Kirill [talk] 06:01, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * My mistake on the above about the Battle of Shiloh. For a few minutes I was confused between the two sections. Last night I spent about roughly 2 hours in making heads and tails with the Regimental Histories. Again tonight I'll be spending about the same time on expanding the Regimental Histories because it's far from being complete. In the "American Civil War" section, there should be progress bars like "B class or better" (set at 1,000)... "Good Articles" (set at 500)... "Featured Content" (set at 500) ... and "Featured Content" (set at 500) for the American Civil War section. As I was just thinking having "Operation Brothers at War" is basically duplicating the work in another place. Adamdaley (talk) 06:29, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

FPs
My contribution is going to be in image restoration. To start off: Quaker Guns and the Battle of Franklin. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:29, 16 September 2014 (UTC) Work continues. Adam Cuerden (talk) 09:48, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Books and resources
Can a comprehensive list of credible and/or recommended resources be added to the project page at all? As it stands, at my "desk" I have the Illustrated History of the Civil War collection of [three] books by Time-Life Books. -- Vami _IV✠  13:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)