Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Big Black River Bridge/archive1

Battle of Big Black River Bridge

Featured article candidates/Battle of Big Black River Bridge/archive1

Nominator(s): Hog Farm _Talk 19:03, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

After Raymond, Grand Gulf, and Lake Providence, here comes the next article in my Vicksburg series. Loring's division of Pemberton's Confederate army had been cut off after the disastrous Battle of Champion Hill. Pemberton, not knowing that Loring had found himself unable to rejoin Pemberton, held the crossing of the Big Black River with John Bowen's elite but decimated division and John Vaughn's brigade of inexperienced conscripts of dubious loyalty. Michael Lawler's men used a dried-up river channel to draw closer to the Confederate lines, and when Lawler's men charge, they hit the part of the line held by Vaughn's conscripts. Vaughn's men don't put up much of a fight, Bowen's troops on the flanks are forced to retreat to avoid being cut off from the river crossing, and it takes about three minutes for the entire Confederate line to collapse. Over 1,700 Confederates are captured, and the Confederate lose their artillery because the horse teams needed to move the guns were left on the wrong side of the river. Pemberton falls back into the Vicksburg campaign and surrenders about a month and a half later. Hog Farm _Talk 19:03, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Don't use fixed px size
- Removed px size hardcoding. Hog Farm _Talk 14:34, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some images are missing alt text
- Have attempted to add alt text. Hog Farm _Talk 14:34, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
File:The_Battle_of_Big_Black_River_Bridge,_Harper's_Weekly,_June_20,_1863.jpg: source link is dead
- This is a known (temporary) issue with the Internet Archive; I think the expectation is that this will be back online soon. Hog Farm _Talk 14:34, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
File:Big_Black_River_Bridge_Battlefield_Mississippi.jpg: see MOS:COLOUR. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:45, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Removed image as I don't think this can be easily made compliant. Hog Farm _Talk 14:34, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Matarisvan

Hi Hog Farm, my comments:

Why do we not have the casualties and losses in the infobox when we do have them in the lead and body? Also, are the strengths of the units before the battle known?
- I haven't seen a good estimate of Union strength at the battle in any of the sources I have consulted for this. I don't know how relevant it is to post casualties when there's no strengths listed in the infobox for proportionality comparisons and the Confederate loss records are so incomplete. Hog Farm _Talk 13:25, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Fewer than 300 Union soldiers became casualties": Sounds a little odd, consider rephrasing to "The Union army suffered less than 300 casualties"?
- Done Hog Farm _Talk 18:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"capture" of New Orleans, Louisiana: Link "capture" to "Capture of New Orleans"?
- Linked Hog Farm _Talk 18:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Consider linking to field of fire?
- Linked Hog Farm _Talk 18:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Osterhaus replaced by": "Osterhaus was replaced by"?
- Corrected Hog Farm _Talk 18:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Might we consider adding the DOI and JSTOR ID for Smith 2024?
- I haven't in the past done this for books, only for journal articles. Is this is a standard practice? Hog Farm _Talk 13:25, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In Smith 2013, is the first editor Stephen Woodworth or Steven Woodworth? Google Books lists the latter. Guess this is a passing error.
- This is the same author as Woodworth 2005. Corrected & linked. Hog Farm _Talk 13:25, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That is all from my end. Cheers Matarisvan (talk) 07:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Matarisvan: - Thanks for the review! I have one question above. Hog Farm _Talk 18:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by (for now) from UC

A small protest on the use of men as an equivalent for troops, soldiers, forces etc -- we know that at least a small, but very much real, slice of the fighting forces were not covered by that label, before we even start to think about the ones we haven't been able to spot. Per MOS:GNL, gender-neutral language should be used when doing so does not sacrifice precision, and I think there are enough good synonyms here that the guideline should be applied. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:48, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]