Talk:Battle of Lake Providence

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Djmaschek (talk · contribs) 21:33, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Initial review

I plan to perform the GA review for this article. Djmaschek (talk) 21:33, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

• The first question that jumped out at me was, "What regiment does Frank Bartlett command?" I looked up this up and it turns out that Frank A. Bartlett was colonel of the Beauregard Regiment of Louisiana Volunteer State Troops (Bergeron, p. 182). These state militia units disbanded when Farragut captured New Orleans. Nevertheless, Bartlett's rank must have been recognized by the local Confederate authorities, so that he could be put in command of the expedition. Bartlett led the 13th Battalion Partisan Rangers attack on Lake Providence but there are no other details (Bergeron, p. 61). Reference: Bergeron, Arthur Jr. (1989). Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units 1861-1865. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0-8071-2102-9.
  • Are we sure that Bartlett didn't just enter the CS Army like most of the Missouri State Guard troops did? None of the sources I've seen have any sort of caveat about Bartlett being a militia officer. The sources on this battle also generally refer to Bartlett's partisan rangers unit as the 13th Louisiana Cavalry Battalion
    • So this is quite confusing - Bergeron doesn't show Bartlett as actually being an official commander of the 13th La. Battalion, and someone claiming to be Bergeron on an ancient web forum states that Bartlett was just a militia officer. But Union leadership evidently considered him an officer of the Confederate forces. Both Winters and Bearss refer to the 13th La. Battalion as Bartlett's unit, and Bearss p. 1205 outright says that Bartlett commanded the 13th La. Battalion. Lowe's recent unit history on Walker's Greyhounds says that Bartlett was in charge of the Confederate troops in the Lake Providence area, so I'm going with that for now. Hog Farm _Talk 00:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
• When using an author's name, it seems natural to state, "John D. Winters believes..." and "Winters blames Taylor". However, authors get old and die, so that it may be better to use the past tense ("Winters blamed Taylor"), since once a book is published, the author's words are in the past. There is really nothing wrong with using present tense, so I will not insist that you make this change. I just wanted to point this out.
  • I was recommend to use the present tense for these quotes at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Raymond.

Review 1

I have only a few comments. Please fix, or argue your case if you disagree. Djmaschek (talk) 04:43, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• See Initial review: Frank A. Bartlett should be identified as colonel of the Beauregard Regiment of Louisiana state militia (or Louisiana Volunteer State Troops). See above for citation information.
  • I'll check my print copy of Bergeron after I get off work, but as I noted above, the sources I consulted for this give no indication that Bartlett was still a militia officer as of the time of this battle.
    • • And ... it's quite muddled
• Background, paragraph 1: "USCT ... received basic military training" > Suggest replacing "basic" with "rudimentary". "Basic training" sounds to the reader like standard training, but on this occasion the USCT were barely able to fire their weapons. See this source for an account of Milliken's Bend: https://history.army.mil/html/books/030/30-24/CMH_Pub_30-24.pdf. (See Dobak, pages 181 and 183.)
  • Done
• Background, paragraph 2: "Walker's troops reached Richmond" > There needs to be a link to Major General John George Walker.
  • I've linked Walker and given his rank
• Battle, paragraph 3: "The Union commander deployed men from the 1st Kansas and the 16th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment." > Regiments, since there are two.
  • Done
• Aftermath: "but were drive off the next day" > driven off.
  • Oops, fixed
• This is just FYI. Here is another account of Milliken's Bend. Unfortunately, I don't see anything about Lake Providence. https://archive.org/details/05296883.3325.emory.edu/page/n101/mode/2up
  • Yeah, there's a lot more about Milliken's Bend than the other battles (Young's Point was merged awhile back). I worked on Milliken's Bend back in early 2021 and have been intending to get back to it for awhile now.

• @Djmaschek: - I've taken a crack at addressing everything so far. I'm finding the nature of Bartlett's rank and authority being a hard ball of yarn to unravel. Hog Farm _Talk 00:06, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
  • @Hog Farm: GA class. I am willing to drop the business about Barlett. Djmaschek (talk) 00:24, 29 October 2022 (UTC)