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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Helena

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article promoted by Vami IV (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 02:20, 9 December 2022 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Battle of Helena edit

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Nominator(s): Hog Farm (talk)

Battle of Helena (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Pretty much everything in Arkansas ended badly for the Confederate except for the Camden Expedition, but this was even worse than normal. Despite having a substantial numerical advantage, the Confederate both pretty much everything and lose roughly 7 times as many men as the Union. Hog Farm Talk 00:02, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild edit

Some of harrias's comments come to mind.

  • "In late May, with Union troops heavily pressuring Vicksburg, Confederate authorities suggested to General Joseph E. Johnston, who was tasked with relieving the Confederate forces under siege at Vicksburg, that forces from the Trans-Mississippi Department also be used to relieve the pressure on Vicksburg, suggesting an attack on Helena." A long sentence, which also has "suggested ... suggesting".
    • I've removed some of the background to Johnston's role, split off the very end section, and have gotten it down to one suggest
  • "On June 9, Holmes learned that the strength of the Union forces in Helena was about 3,000 or 4,000 men, and Holmes decided against an attack.[8] Holmes thought the attack ..." Perhaps one, or even two, mentions of "Holmes" could be replaced with 'he'?
    • edited out two of them
  • "Holmes began moving towards Jacksonport to meet with Major General Sterling Price and Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke; the three generals met on June 18." Perhaps 'Holmes began moving towards Jacksonport met with Major General Sterling Price and Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke on June 18.' would suffice?
    • Done
  • "and made an agreement with the more popular Price that would support the propriety of the attack in the case of failure." I don't understand what this means.
    • Rephrased to make this clearer. Essentially Holmes was an unpopular incompetent, while Price was barely more competent but was well-liked. Holmes wanted Price to back him up in case of failure
  • "Once formed the plans" → 'The plan'?
    • Fixed
  • "Prentiss' men had superior firepower over the Confederates." Any chance of some elaboration as to how or why this was?
    • Elaborated a bit
  • "he would accept any blame from the assault himself". i am not sure this works. Do you mean something like 'he would take personal responsibility for the results of the assault if they were later criticised'?
    • Went with something similar
  • "The Confederate plans ..." Maybe 'Their plans ...'?
    • Done
  • "McRae was then given the order to attack. McRae sent about 200 men to attack the battery, but they were unsuccessful. Price then ordered Parsons to attack Battery D, but was then informed that McRae". Could we reduce the use of "then"?
    • Removed two of the uses
  • I could live with one use of the rather flamboyant "shredded", but two?
    • Reduced to one usage

And that is all I have. Another nicely told tale. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:40, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Gog the Mild: - I've replied to all above. I'm hoping my view that this was one of the great military malpractices of the war isn't bleeding through into the article. Hog Farm Talk 02:56, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nah. You have stayed admirably neutral. Although I wouldn't have minded a bit of editorialising leaking through!

Support by simongraham edit

Please be kind; this is my first attempt at an A-Class review.

  • Is "but carried on with the attack anyway" encyclopaedic language? Would it be better as "but nonetheless decided to carry on the attack"?
    • I think it's fine in AmEng
      • I am happy with that.
  • I believe "ordered Tilden's Missouri Battery and Marshall's Arkansas Battery begin to come up." should be "ordered Tilden's Missouri Battery and Marshall's Arkansas Battery to begin to come up".
    • Corrected. I may attempt to write an article on Tilden's battery sometime. I'm currently working on a draft for the 9th Mo. Sharpshooters.
      • I think that would be of interest.
  • There are a number of references to large numbers of Confederate soldiers being taken prisoner and desserting but I cannot see any figures. Is there any information on the actual numbers?
    • There don't seem to be numbers for deserting, which I guess makes sense given the sorry state of the Confederate forces after the fight. Don't have great overall prisoner counts, but have noted that 350 were taken on Graveyard Hill when Price withdrew and a further 250 were captured during Fagan's withdrawal.
      • That seems reasonable. The fog of war seems a perpetual problem for the historian.

I will leave the rest to more capable people than me. simongraham (talk) 00:03, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport by CPA edit

  • The lead doesn't include the "Background" section.
    • I've added a little to the lead
  • "Lieutenant General Theophilus Holmes, the Confederate commander of the District of Arkansas" Is there an article for the District of Arkansas?
  • " when Confederate cavalry reported on June 14" --> " when Confederate cavalry reported on June 14,"?
    • A comma there just feels really unnatural to me - it would break the clause of what the cavalry was reported
  • "Holmes began moving towards Jacksonport" --> "He began moving towards Jacksonport" due the name Holmes was mentioned the sentence before?
    • Done
  • "still nervous about the proposed attack" Why exactly?
    • He was afraid it would fail - clarified
  • "gathered together and on July 3 began" --> "gathered together and on July 3, began"
    • Done. Doesn't quite feel right to have a comma there to me, but I'm not very good with comma placement
  • "but four new batteries, named with the letters A, B, C, and D" This is a really long link. Maybe make it a bit shorter?
    • The piped link only covers "four new batteries" now
  • "also cancelled a planned celebration of the Fourth of July" Why en was there some resistance against his cancellation? Something like the Christmas truce in WWI?
    • I've noted this was cancelled as a precaution, but I'm not seeing anything that goes into much detail on this subject.
  • "Holmes ordered the 8th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Burns') to attack Fort Curtis" Maybe change it to "he"? Also is there an article about Fort Curtis?
  • "who took 32% of their attacking forces as casualties" --> "who took 32 percent of their attacking forces as casualties"
    • Done
  • As with my comments in 9th Missouri Sharpshooter Battalion. Bearss's and Shalhope's sources are older than 50 years and might need a recent source. Of course, that doesn't make them not reliable, but, after so many years there are probably recent sources who might agree or disagree with these sources.
    • @CPA-5: - I think Shalhope is probably fine. Aside from an attributed opinion and a couple non-controversial statements that Shalhope makes more plainly that other authors, I'm really only citing Shalhope for details about the specific movements of Price's command. Shalhope and Castel (the cited Castel source is a reprint of an older work) are the only "modern" full-length bios of Price. I've got a somewhat newer work by Bearss (who has an excellent reputation) that includes a chapter on Helena, so I'll try to work in some newer cites this weekend. There isn't really any change in the historiography from the 60s and 70s sources to the newer stuff like Christ and Cutrer that I've noticed. Hog Farm Talk 22:46, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Great work here are some comments from me. I hopefully they will improve the article. :) Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 16:14, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately due to some RL stuff for me this is probably gonna be slow-going for awhile. Bearss 1961 is basically identical to Bearss's 1986 work, so I think that's fine (unless someone thinks its necessary to switch all the cites over to the newer one for appearance's sake). I'm beginning the slow work of working in Schlieffer's 2017 PhD thesis, and have gotten through the prelude section with it. (it's several hundred pages long but the first 200 pages aren't relevant to this article). Hog Farm Talk 04:07, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Update - I'm going to be AWOL for about a week, but these are mostly addressed and I should be able to finish soon once I return. Hog Farm Talk 05:47, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@CPA-5: - Sorry for such a long delay - I've finally gone through Schlieffer and I think it's in a good enough spot for this to be revisited.

  • Looks good one comment can you change the date of Sesser? Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 15:49, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • @CPA-5: - I'm assuming you are referring to the date formatting discrepancy? I've fixed all of the dates in the article should be month-day-year now. Hog Farm Talk 16:41, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yep correct looks ready to me. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 16:43, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging prior reviewers @Gog the Mild and Simongraham: as the article content has changed somewhat since their reviews. Hog Farm Talk 04:52, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Image review - pass edit

Only three images.

All images are appropriately licensed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:38, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - pass edit

  • All sources are of high quality
  • Mixture of ISBN-10s and ISBN-13s - I have reformatted the ISBN-10s as ISBN-13s
  • Schieffler (2018) was lacking ISSN and JSTOR - added.
  • Spot checks: 14, 68, 77, 85, 89 -all okay

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:38, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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