Template talk:American Civil War

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the American Civil War template.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

Archives: 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 3 months

This template does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Military history: North America / United States / American Civil War This template is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions. Associated task forces: /  North American military history task force United States military history task force American Civil War task force United States: Civil War / Military history This template is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts This template is supported by WikiProject Military history - American Civil War task force. This template is supported by WikiProject Military history - U.S. military history task force.

Archives

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Rationale and usage guidelines

__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-Rationale_and_usage_guidelines","replies":[]}}-->

(Please keep this section at the top of the Talk page and do not archive it.)

This section records the rationale for American Civil War inclusions or omissions. It is obvious that this large menu could become dramatically larger and unusable if new entries are added without discrimination. We would like to establish the precedent that any changes to the menu are discussed in this Talk page prior to implementation.

General Usage: This list is exclusively for active Wikimedia article and category links. Do not include external URLs. Do not include red links (Wikipedia articles that have not been written yet). Links to stubs and multiple redirects to the same article are discouraged.

Rationale for the major headings in the menu:

Issues & Combatants

The subcategories Prelude and Slavery should be pretty obvious. The Combatants are intended to be only the "countries" and their highest level armies and navies. We cannot afford to include military units smaller than this (e.g., regional armies, corps, regiments).

Theaters & Campaigns

The Theaters are those named by the five articles plus the Union naval blockade. The Campaigns are those that have articles written about them. Since there are no campaign articles describing, say, the Battle of Chancellorsville or the Battle of Fredericksburg, these battles are covered only in the following section. If new campaign articles are written (and they are not simply redirects), they will be legitimate additions to this subcategory.

Major Battles

In our judgment, the current list represents the most important battles of the war, with unique strategic or political consequences. Please discuss any proposed changes to this list here in the Talk page, citing your justification, before editing the menu.

Key CSA Leaders

The Confederate leaders are listed before the United States leaders because of alphabetical order and to give them a gray background. The Military leaders selected commanded major armies or corps, were cavalry leaders with strategic significance, or in a few cases (Gorgas, Cooper) had important positions in CSA headquarters. There is also the single most important naval captain. This list will quickly become useless if people add their favorite commanders, ancestors, or movie characters at lower levels in the hierarchy.

Key USA Leaders

The United States leaders come second so that they can have a blue background. The Military leaders are those with the highest positions in the Army and Navy, with only a few exceptions. Hunt had unique significance as an artillery leader. Meigs is included for the same reason as Gorgas. The same warning about adding favorite commanders applies.

Aftermath

This row is limited to significant social and political articles about the postbellum era, with demonstrable links to the war.

Other Topics

This row is difficult to characterize. New entries or subcategories should not be added without discussion on the Talk page. The State involvement subcategory is intended only for comprehensive articles, such as the current entries.

Categories

This row is intended to include, indirectly, all of the smaller units and biographies not explicitly named above. Please do not include subcategories of categories that are already in this list without discussion on the Talk page.

InterWiki

Obvious. Please do not change.

__DTSUBSCRIBEBUTTONDESKTOP__{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-Monuments_and_memorials-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z","replies":["c-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z-Monuments_and_memorials"],"text":"Monuments and memorials","linkableTitle":"Monuments and memorials"}-->

Monuments and memorials

__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-Monuments_and_memorials-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z","replies":["c-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z-Monuments_and_memorials"]}}-->

__DTLATESTCOMMENTTHREAD__{"id":"c-BusterD-2018-09-07T19:30:00.000Z-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z","timestamp":"2018-09-07T19:30:00.000Z"}__-->__DTCOMMENTCOUNT__2__-->__DTAUTHORCOUNT__2__-->

__DTSUBSCRIBEBUTTONMOBILE__{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-Monuments_and_memorials-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z","replies":["c-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z-Monuments_and_memorials"],"text":"Monuments and memorials","linkableTitle":"Monuments and memorials"}-->

There are many other monuments and memorials to add to this section. Are there criteria for inclusion? I fear expanding this section to its fullest potential would make the section way too large. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:38, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z","author":"Another Believer","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z-Monuments_and_memorials","replies":["c-BusterD-2018-09-07T19:30:00.000Z-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z"]}}-->

Thanks for your interest and our shared concern. Some us who've been involved with this template early on were very worried about building a runaway tool resembling Template:Gettysburg figures, and in some ways this template has been enlarged far beyond our expectations. I would have zero objection to establishing a working criteria for the M&M section. It is perhaps time to revisit all section criteria, but a good idea would be to establish something for those sections without guidance. BusterD (talk) 19:30, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2018-09-07T19:30:00.000Z","author":"BusterD","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-BusterD-2018-09-07T19:30:00.000Z-Another_Believer-2018-09-06T14:38:00.000Z","replies":[]}}-->

__DTSUBSCRIBEBUTTONDESKTOP__{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-Dunarc-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-Baltimore_riot_of_1861-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z","replies":["c-Dunarc-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z-Baltimore_riot_of_1861"],"text":"Baltimore riot of 1861","linkableTitle":"Baltimore riot of 1861"}-->

Baltimore riot of 1861

__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-Dunarc-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-Baltimore_riot_of_1861-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z","replies":["c-Dunarc-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z-Baltimore_riot_of_1861"]}}-->

__DTLATESTCOMMENTTHREAD__{"id":"c-Dunarc-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z-Baltimore_riot_of_1861","timestamp":"2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z"}__-->__DTCOMMENTCOUNT__1__-->__DTAUTHORCOUNT__1__-->

__DTSUBSCRIBEBUTTONMOBILE__{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-Dunarc-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-Baltimore_riot_of_1861-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z","replies":["c-Dunarc-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z-Baltimore_riot_of_1861"],"text":"Baltimore riot of 1861","linkableTitle":"Baltimore riot of 1861"}-->

I have added Baltimore riot of 1861 to "Other topics". It was a major event and arguably, as the article on it notes, produced the first deaths by hostile action of the Civil War. As the New York City riots of 1863 are in this section of the template this seemed the best place to put it. Dunarc (talk) 21:48, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z","author":"Dunarc","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Dunarc-2020-03-13T21:48:00.000Z-Baltimore_riot_of_1861","replies":[]}}-->

John C. Breckinridge

__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-John_C._Breckinridge","replies":[]}}-->

In the reference footer, he is listed as a key "civilian" leader. I propose moving him to the "military" section because he served as a senior Confederate general in a LOT of significant battles. - Kingmaker