Template:Did you know nominations/Peter Hansborough Bell

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:22, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Peter Hansborough Bell

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... that from the day of his marriage till his death, Texas Governor Peter Hansborough Bell never set foot in the state?

Reviewed: Gid Gardner

Created/expanded by Allen3 (talk). Self nom at 12:04, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Everything checks out, just have some minor issues:

You cite the 1899 Conyer source for Bell's birthdate of 1810, but every other source and link, as well as his own grave, cites the 1812 birthdate. My suggestion would be to ignore Conyer and go with the preponderance of evidence.

I have gone back and checked by sources. There is basically a shotgun spread of dates between May 11 and May 18 of either 1810 or 1812. I have gone with May 11, 1810 because multiple sources list that date with Hendrickson (Texas A&M University Press) being one of them. An explanatory note has been added to the article mentioning other sources list other dates. --Allen3 ^talk 23:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

There seem to be some contradictions about his Civil War service. Conyer and others say he served as a Colonel, Hooker says he refused to serve, and Guttery says he was "rumored" to have accepted a commission but sat out the war. Since you've read about Bell more thoroughly than I, I wonder what you think about this matter. Gamaliel (talk) 15:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

This is a tough one. My highest quality source, Hendrickson (Texas A&M University Press), makes no mention about Bell's activity during the Civil War. Both Coyner and White say he was a Confederate colonel. Your Gutery listing is published by BookSurge, a self-publishing subsidiary of Amazon.com, so there may be quality issues with the source. This still leaves Hooker as an outlier. It would have been out of character for a southern gentleman of means to avoid military service. As he was roughly 50 years of age at the start of the conflict it is possible he accepted less strenuous duties than those assigned to younger or more ambitious men. Membership in the Confederate Home Guard or some type of garrison duty could also explain the differences between sources. The sources which I have access to however do not provide a clean resolution however. --Allen3 ^talk 23:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It's been a crazy week, so sorry for not dropping the green checkmark sooner. You've addressed the concerns as best you can given the sources, the hook checks out, so this is ready for the front page. Gamaliel (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2011 (UTC)