Talk:Battle of Bentonville

Disposition of Sherman's Army

My understanding of the situation was that Johnston decided to attack only one of Sherman's three columns marching north, the one farthest west. Does anyone know if this is the case?L Hamm 03:43, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

You're correct. Johnson's plan was to strike the Army of Georgia (under Henry W. Slocum) at Bentonville, hoping to destroy it before Sherman could bring reinforcements to the scene. If you are interested in participating in the editing process, the Carolinas campaign needs a lot of work and is way back on my to-do list. Hal Jespersen 15:25, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Reference improvement / possible plagiarism

Very similar phrasing in article vs. in text of NHL nomination from 1996 for the site, available as link in new Bentonville Battlefield article. Or, the plagiarizer could have copied from a source that the NHL nomination uses. I tagged article with "refimprove", as I don't know of a more severe tag to use. I downrate article to Stub for possible/probable plagiarism and general lack of sources. doncram (talk) 00:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I scanned around for a while and couldn't see obvious copying. Could you cite some specific passages? Is the URL of the external link correct? Hal Jespersen (talk) 01:55, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Battle of Bentonville/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:02, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Review

Hello, I will be reviewing your good article nominee. I am glad to see another worthy civil war article being developed. :)

General comments

• There are citations in the lead. Generally, it is not necessary to cite items in the lead, but to instead cite them in the body, since what is in the lead is a summary of the body. There should be no items that appear only in the lead, thus making citations in the lead unnecessary except in cases of controversy. See WP:Lead
• A American Civil War navigation box should be added to the foot of the article, and a link to the ACW portal would be appropriate.

Prose

• "The next day, the other Federal wing arrived and for the next two days, the armies skirmished with each other before Johnston retreated.", how about this instead, try to avoid using unneeded words, it will make the article read better and help with concision: "The next day, the other Federal wing arrived and for two days, the armies skirmished with each other before Johnston retreated."
• I've made quite a few attempts to clean up the prose myself, feel free to revert if you feel I've changed the meaning.

• Coverage
• "During the late winter and early spring of 1865, Sherman's..." - you should introduce Sherman, who is he, what is his role, before jumping right into the action.
• "Therefore, Slocum initially notified Sherman that he was facing only cursory resistance near Bentonville and did not require aid." - why did he notify Sherman of anything, so far no interaction between the forces has been noted. Did scouts detect the presence, or was skirmishing occuring, etc?
• "Other units under the command of Hardee attacked the Union positions near the Harper house but were repulsed after multiple assaults." - what is the Harper House? Is there an article?
• It would be best if in the battle section if the units were refereed to more explicit by using division and corps names and numbers. These are usually available in most detailed sources. Shelby Foote's Civil War Narratives will line them out quite well if needed.
• "Sherman took little notice and did not pursue the Confederates, but continued his march to Goldsboro, where he joined the Union forces under Terry and Schofield." - why didn't Sherman pursue them, or even send detachments to pursue them?
• "Sherman was criticized after the war for not attacking and capturing most, if not all, of Johnston's army when he had the chance." - criticized by who? The names should be attributed in the sentence.
• "This might have shortened the war by several weeks." - according to whose speculation?
• "Others suggest that he knew that the war was rapidly drawing to a close, and that any further bloodshed at that point was pointless." - which others?
• There is no mention of casualties on either side in the text, except for Hardee's son. You should summarize all casualties, and where they were sent for care, buried, etc, in the aftermath section.

Sources

• Per WP:Quote, a citation should following this sentance, "

On March 21, Union Maj. Gen. Joseph A. Mower, commanding the division on the Union right flank, requested permission from his corps commander to launch a "little reconnaissance" to his front, which was granted."

• Your footnotes and references should be separated into two sections, see Battle of Corydon for an example. I can help you do this if you need assistance.
• Reference #30 is not formatted properly, I suggest using a cite web template.
• "# National Park Service battle description and # Civil War Preservation Trust are not properly formatting, I suggest using cite templates

Images

• The Harper House caption violates WP:Caption, it should not discuss things that are not also discussed in the body of the article.
• The article is missing one very important image: a map of the battlefield showing troop movements. Any battle article to qualify for GA status must have some type of map demonstrating the layout of the battlefield and the units movements.

This is the majority of the issues, however there are some others. I suggest giving the article a thorough copy edit. I see you've put alot of work and research into this article. Keep up the good work, and you will soon have a GA! Please note you have only seven days to address these issues before the review be closed. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:02, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

With most than a week past without response and little work done to the article, I must fail this nominee. Keep up the good work though, try to work on my suggestions, and bring the article back at a later time for review. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:20, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

"Before Johnston"

This sentence made me do a double take: "The next day, the other Federal flank arrived and for the next two days, the armies skirmished with each other before Johnston's army."

Before Johnston's army what? Or were there three armies (so two of them could skirmish in front of Johnston's one)?

Dredging through the history reveals that a revision as of 23:46, 12 December 2011 made by a Gorman McPhail changed the following:

The next day, the other Federal wing arrived and for the next two days, the armies skirmished with each other before Johnston retreated. --> The next day, the other Federal flank arrived and for the next two days, the armies skirmished with each other before Johnston's army.

Was this an innocent mistake? Why otherwise replace "retreated" with "army"? Should we change it to end with "... before Johnston's army retreated"? What was wrong with saying Johnston retreated - when a commander is said to retreat, his forces is understood to have retreated with him. CapnZapp (talk) 09:06, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Fixed with a more general rewrite. Hal Jespersen (talk) 18:25, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

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