Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Lochry's Defeat

Lochry's defeat edit

Welcome to my Obscure Battles of the Western American Revolution^TM, part two. ;-) The obscurity of the battle is in some ways a blesssing—it's possible to read every major secondary account, if one can track it down. A higher resolution map is forthcoming. Let me know if you see any areas needing improvement. —Kevin 15:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PocklingtonDan edit

"Lochry's defeat" - would probably be capitalised surely since it is effectively becoming a proper noun.
"near present-day Aurora, Indiana" to "near present-day Aurora, Indiana, in the United States". Your audience is not America but the world
" part of the western theater of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)." to " part of the western theater of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) between Britain and the American colonies" or similar
"and American Indians with their British allies" - why were the native americans supporting the British? It says "Indians of the Ohio Country hoped to drive American settlers out of Kentucky and reclaim their hunting grounds" - were they made promises of being returned these lands on a british victory?
"taking the British commander at Detroit, lieutenant governor Henry Hamilton, prisoner in the process" messy, to "taking prisoner in the process the British commander at Detroit, lieutenant governor Henry Hamilton."
"Joining the Detroit conference was an Iroquois delegation headed by Mohawk leader Joseph Brant" - Several questions about Brant:

Why did he have an anglic name?
Is it just me or is he more white than Indian looking? Was he mixed heritage?
Why on earth were Iroquois willing to fight under a mohawk leader?
Why were the Iroquois unable to provide a leader of their own?

"Brant had won a lopsided victory" - horrible wording. He won a clear victory, the outcome was lopsided in his favour. But "lopsided" is horrible here.
I notice you mix "cite" footnotes and "literary aside" footnotes together. See Roman-Spartan War for a better system that I prefer

All in all a great article on a (very) obscure battle, just some minor nitpicking as above. - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments! It's clear from your questions that I need to do some more exposition on American Indians in general and Brant in particular. A Mohawk is an Iroquois, by the way—the Iroquois are a confederation of 6 tribes, including the Mohawk. Although there were rumors otherwise, Brant had no known white ancestors, although it's possible he did have some European ancestry. He did, however, have white portraitists. ;-) He looks more "Native" in some later portraits.

Your footnotes for Roman-Spartan War are an interesting innovation, but being stylistically conservative I'll stick with the present system, which is standard in published academic history. —Kevin 22:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've reworded the lead per your helpful suggestions. More background on Brant to be added soon.

I've kept "lopsided victory", by the way. It's actually a common phrase in military writing. A Google book search of the phrase gives hits like "The second battle of the Liman was a lopsided victory for Russia..." or "Hannibal had won his lopsided victory by deliberately weakening his center...." One online dictionary even gives a definition of "lopsided victory" as when "one side has many more casualties than the other." Perhaps it's an Americanism you're unfamiliar with. —Kevin 05:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kirill Lokshin edit

Overall, a thoroughly excellent article. A few minor points I'll comment on:

As PocklingtonDan mentions, shouldn't it be Lochry's Defeat? Or is the general usage lowercase?
The exact structure of the footnotes is, of course, a matter of various preferences on the part of different editors; I'll merely note that I happen to prefer the combined format here to the two-section one on Roman-Spartan War, particularly given that a number of the discursive notes contain commentary regarding the citations themselves.
A larger map—ideally, with Lochry's route marked—would be a very useful addition.

Broadly speaking, though, this should be ready for FAC shortly. Kirill Lokshin 18:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments. "Lochry's Defeat" vs. "Lochry's defeat" is a good question. I orginally began the article under "Lochry's Defeat", which was the title of the article when it appeared on the Main Page in DYK. But given Wikipedia's idiosyncratic approach to article titles—idiosyncratic because identifying when a common description has emerged as a proper noun can be quite ambiguous—I had second thoughts. I probably shouldn't have, since military history on Wikipedia seems to give wide latitude to assigning proper noun status to military operations. (Especially American Civil War buffs—if Grant fell off of his horse we'd probably call it "Grant's Fall".) ;-) For this particular battle, I've seen both "Lochry's Defeat" (which I prefer) and "Lochry's defeat" (more a description rather than a proper noun). Hard to say which is standard, since the obscurity of the battle means that there are not many references to the battle with which to identify a standard. For the sake of Wikiconsistency, at least in the realm of military history, "Lochry's Defeat" is indeed probably better, and so I've moved it back to that title. —Kevin 23:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cla68 edit

I think you could add the "parent" campaignbox (American Revolution) under the "Western theater" campaignbox to make it easier for readers to reference the "parent" conflict.
If you ensure that there is an inline citation at the end of every paragraph, it makes it difficult for anyone to claim that you have unsourced material in the article.

Excellent work. Cla68 00:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! —Kevin 05:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]