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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lawrence Sullivan Ross/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 4:58, 23 September 2023 (UTC) [1].

Lawrence Sullivan Ross

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Notified: user:BlueAg09, user:Karanacs, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_History, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Texas, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Texas_A&M, Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_governors, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Military, and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Politics_and_government, Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America 2023-07-03

Review section

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I am nominating this featured article for review because it largely relies on a single source, which has been described in multiple academic reviews as heavily biased and unscientific (see the relevant section on the talk page). This article presents a very one-sided and quite possibly ahistorical view of the subject. It was granted featured status about 15 years ago, when standards on Wikipedia were much lower. In short, the article does not meet the FA criteria 1c (well-researched) and 1d (neutral). Dylanvt (talk) 13:10, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can try to help with the Civil War material a little bit, with the note that I don't have sources that cover quite all of that time frame and that focus on Ross or his unit.
My primary concern is that editors have apparently been cramming things into here over the years without regards to source-text integrity. Take for instance, this passage from the 2007 version - "Despite his illness, Ross never missed a day of duty, and in early 1864 he was promoted to brigadier general, becoming the ninth-youngest general officer of the Confederate Army.[Welsh][Benner]". Welsh supports not missing duty and states that his promotion was back-dated to December 1863, but doesn't say when it occurred. I assume Benner must support the ninth-youngest and the January 1864 date as Welsh says nothing on this. We now have "Despite his illness, Ross never missed a day of duty, and on December 21, 1863, he was promoted to brigadier general,[Handbook of Texas][Library file description we probably shouldn't use] becoming the ninth-youngest general officer of the Confederate Army.[Welsh][Benner]" So now Welsh is out of place looking like it's supporting a claim about ninth-youngest that it doesn't, and the not missing duty bit is completely divorced from its citation. Based on Welsh and the Warner source listed in the further reading, it appears that the December 21, 1863 is simply his date of rank for seniority purposes (it was very common for promotions to general officer in the American Civil War to have a "date of rank" that is earlier than when the promotion actually occurred for seniority purposes). Hog Farm Talk 16:35, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Would reverting to the promoted version be a positive first step, and then consider what should be added from the interim? Nikkimaria (talk) 18:36, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria in that aspect, maybe, although the more I look at this the more I think the issues with Benner are fairly significant. Benner relies quite heavily on Ross's accounst of the Pease River incident, which have been debunked in later scholarship. Benner (but not our article) claims that Ross's retreat across the river at Hatchie Bridge was orderly, yet Peter Cozzens' The Darkest Days of the War notes that Ross had 100 men captured during the river crossing (p. 286). Both Benner and the article imply that Ross was unsupported after crossing the river, yet Ross's position was reinforced by a 550-man brigade during the ordeal (Cozzens p. 289). From what I can tell, Benner is a rather one-sided biography. Hog Farm Talk 01:45, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree in that the article is not neutral or well researched. Numerous issues exist, one being the way Pease Ross is mentioned, "Pease was later given the choice to return to his people, he repeatedly declined and was raised by Ross." Benner and History.net, are both cited for this misleading statement. When the article was promoted in 2007, Benner was most frequently cited so reverting the page to that version might not be an improvement. The "Farming and early public service" section over-relies on Benner for much of the content. Most of which is unimportant. Many information included in the battle descriptions should be scrutinized. Some portions of the page should be removed. Benner is cited throughout and in every paragraph in most sections, it is too much. Aquabluetesla (talk) 04:43, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have a few comments from some spot checks:

  • I agree that the tone of the article is inappropriate - it presents this person as a hero, rather than the usual more detached and neutral language we prefer
  • "In March 1864, Ross's brigade fought against African American soldiers for the first time in the Battle of Yazoo City. After bitter fighting, the Confederates were victorious. During the surrender negotiations, the Union officer accused the Texans of murdering several captured African American soldiers. Ross claimed two of his men had likewise been killed after surrendering to Union troops." - the he-says, she-says type narrative here seems undesirable given the importance of this issue. Can something more conclusive be said?
  • "Beginning in May, the brigade endured 112 consecutive days of skirmishes, comprising 86 separate clashes with the Union forces. Though most of the skirmishes were small, by the end of the period, injuries and desertion had cut the regiment's strength " - was it a brigade or a regiment?
  • "Their last major military campaign was the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of November and December 1864. Ross and his men led the Confederate advance into Tennessee. Between the beginning of November and December 27, his men captured 550 prisoners, several hundred horses, and enough overcoats and blankets to survive the winter chill. Only 12 of Ross's men were killed, with 70 wounded and five captured" - this is just bizarre. The Franklin-Nashville Campaign was probably the biggest fiasco of the war for the Confederate forces, but this text presents it as a success. There's also the obvious question of why it's a good thing for this unit to have been reduced to such desperate straits that it needed to capture blankets to "survive" in what is being presented as a grand success.
  • From having reviewed a few articles on Texas A&M, I'd suggest that the material on this topic be closely scrutinised: the university seems to have an unusually elaborate mythology, with several Wikipedia editors over the years helping to perpetuate it here. Nick-D (talk) 22:27, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • We probably ought to just move to FARC here. Pretty much the entire Pease River section needs rewritten with different sources. The Civil War material is also flawed, but to a lesser extent. Use of Benner is probably unavoidable for certain parts of the article, but that specific work has really been passed by the course of scholarship over the last several decades in a few ways. Hog Farm Talk 21:06, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I support this. As it stands the article does not meet our standards for featured status, and I don't see it being improved in the next couple days. Dylanvt (talk) Dylanvt (talk) 23:59, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section

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Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and neutrality. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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