Talk:First Battle of Newtonia/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Zawed (talk · contribs) 01:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I will take this one, comments to follow. Zawed (talk) 01:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC) I don't believe I have reviewed an American Civil War article before, please bear this in mind if some of my comments seem a bit obvious or misguided!

Lead

• The second sentence has the word "commanded" in close succession; suggest replacing the first instance with "led"
  • Replaced second use with led
• Actually commanded is used a few times in the lead; consider rephrasing in light of this.
  • Replaced the second and fourth instances with led

Background

• What is Price's rank? At a glance, all the other ranks are explicitly stated, e.g. brigadier general, major general.
  • Added
• ...official Confederate officer...; a colonel is an officer, so the use of officer is redundant. Fom the context, I don't understand the usage of official here. Could just say Colonel or Confederate Colonel
  • I'll get rid of the officer, but the official is in there to contrast with Quantrill's guerrillas, who weren't really exactly sanctioned by anyone
  • UPDATE - Rephrased the whole thing
• ..led Union Department of the Missouri commander Brigadier General John M. Schofield to be replaced by Major General Samuel R. Curtis.: suggest "led the Union's commander of the Department of the Missouri, Brigadier General John M. Schofield, being replaced by Major General Samuel R. Curtis."
  • Rephrased as suggested, but I added a to between led and the
• Cooper's force: This phrase is used to start two successive sentences, suggest rephrasing one of them.
  • Done
• town of Newtonia, Missouri: Already established that we are in Missouri, so just hide the Missouri part of the link
  • Done

Battle

• Blunt's advance force Are you able to advise an approximate breakdown of the composition of this force (cavalry, artillery, infantry)? It may help to expand this section of the article.
  • I was able to determine that all three arms were present in the fight, and I found a definite number of cannons. However, I was unable to get a numerical breakdown between infantry and cavalry.
• Use of "force" twice in the first sentence. Perhaps the second usage could be scouting party or similar (bear in mind that the following reference to advance guard may need to be amended for consistency)
  • Amended the first usage
• Salomon's advance guard encountered a portion of Shelby's cavalry.: So was there a skirmish or was the advance guard undetected?
  • Clarified
• ..., and sent an artillery battery commanded by Hiram Bledsoe to support them. to avoid the repeated usage of sent in the same sentence, suggest "..., with an artillery battery, commanded by Hiram Bledsoe, in support." Do we know the rank of Bledsoe?
  • Rephrased. Bledsoe's rank is variously given in sources as either Colonel or Captain. My personal guess is that Captain is correct, and Colonel is an honorary or postwar title, but I can't include my WP:OR for that. This area was essentially the backwater of the conflict, so not all information has been preserved. A lot of official reports and records weren't written or no longer exist. For instance, Shelby's battle reports exist but are essentially unusable because the staff officer who wrote them had a Walter Scott complex.
• Suggesting breaking the paragraph at note 10; helps reinforce to the reader that this is a different phase of action.
  • There was already a break there

Aftermath

• Suggest moving the casualty information to the end of the Battle section
  • Done
• It is stated that the Native Americans played a significant role on both sides - there is no mention of their presence in the Union forces.
  • Mentioned the Union's Cherokee warriors, and rephrased the statement to indicate that it was the first time Native Americans had fought on both sides in an organized manner, which is also true (I couldn't find much specifying exactly what the Union Cherokees did in the fight, and didn't want to say a significant role and then not give one).

Other stuff

• The image with the caption that starts "Map of Newtonia I Battlefield..." lacks context to me because of the usage of Newtonia I. Perhaps it should be "Map of the location of the First Battle of Newtonia"? Is there anything to be added regarding the work of the American Battlefield Protection Program in Newtonia? It could go into the Historic District section.
  • Added, though there's not a whole lot it determined for this site.
• Image tags look OK
• Earwig tool reports low probability of copyvio
• No dupe or dab links
• External links check suggests that note 14 may be dead but I was able to access it. There is some info in that link that could beef up the article - eg Ritchey's house being used as a hospital (justifies its mention in the Historic District section), the nature of the first contact on 29 Sept.
  • Done

That's it for me, hope the comments/feedback is useful. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 02:33, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I've responded to all points, anything else you see that needs work or where I didn't quite get what you had in mind? Hog Farm (talk) 20:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

This looks good, passing as GA now. Good work! Cheers, Zawed (talk) 04:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)