One of the few general fleet actions of the American Civil War. Military technology was greatly changing at the time of the Civil War, and this battle is perhaps an example. The Union was using early forms of the (then-)modern ironclads, while the Confederates had brought back the ancient idea of the naval ram with their cottonclads. The Confederate cottonclads defending Fort Pillow (upriver from Memphis) surprise the Union fleet and sink a couple ironclads, but the battle is in the end largely meaningless as both sunken vessels are repaired and the Confederates were forced to abandon Fort Pillow due to the fall of Corinth, Mississippi. Hog FarmTalk 17:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC
Defending the Arteries of Rebellion: Confederate Naval Operations in the Mississippi River Valley, 1861-1865 needs ndash for year range. Therapyisgood (talk) 02:27, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Therapyisgood: - I have improved the documentation for the NavalBattleOfFortPillow image and have resolved the dash issue
"The battle was one of the very few fleet actions, even rarer Confederate offensive and some historians considered it the first fleet action in the war. As a result of the battle, the Union navy ships were strengthened at the waterline": Shouldn't these facts be included in the lead, which can thereby be expanded to 4 paragraphs? They seem significant to me.
I've added a bit to the lead. I think that a four-paragraph lead would be too long for this article; it's only 15 kb of readable prose including the lead.
That is all from me, cheers Matarisvan (talk) 15:19, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to support. Just one minor comment I forgot to add earlier: do we have any photos of what the site looks like now? If yes, consider adding? Matarisvan (talk) 12:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, I don't think there's any freely licensed images available of the site. Hog FarmTalk 12:59, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are the publication locations needed? Most publishers have the location name in their names (University of North Carolina Press, University Press of Kentucky, etc)
I personally prefer to include that information in the citation style I generally use.
Can links be added to some of these books? Perhaps from internet archiveorgoogle books. Just makes verifiability easier for the reader
I don't like linking to Gbooks as I've found the source previews available there to often be so limited as to not be useful. I've linked Calore, Fowler, and McPherson on Internet Archive. I did not link to the Internet Archive copy of Bearss as I think there's significant differences in parts of the recovery and restoration material between the 1966 edition on there and the 1980 edition I used a print copy of.
Spotcheck below, choosing randomly (AGF for sources I can't find online):
McPherson 2012: uses 5, 29 good
Calore 2002: uses 2, 3, 4, 8, 63, 66, 69 are good
I'm unsure about ref 68: from what I can see there's no mention of the General Earl Van Dorn nor is the First Battle of Memphis named on that page
The loss of all ships except for General Earl Van Dorn is supported by the description of the loss of the various other vessels and then the statement "Only the Van Dorn escaped, fleeing to join two other Confederate gunboats at Liverpool Landing on the Yazoo River". (General Earl Van Dorn and Van Dorn are variant names for the same ship. As to the exact name "First Battle of Memphis", yes, Calore never uses this exact phrasing but I don't think it's original research to be able to link and name a battle where the source text is obviously referring to that engagement. If it helps, I can include p. 143 in the citation range where it says the fighting occurred at Memphis.
Smith 2010: uses 42, 64 good
I am likely missing something, but could you provide the quote that backs ref 61?
"the captains of the Federal flotilla also learned, if they did not already know, that their vessels required additional waterline protection. Capt. Davis immediately ordered that each ironclad be strengthened with additional wood and iron protection".
That makes up a good bit of the refs, and I can't find most other sources in their entirety online anyway. Just some small fixed needed Hog Farm- otherwise, lovely work! MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 12:17, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MyCatIsAChonk: - thanks for the source review! I always appreciate seeing source reviewers doing spotchecks. McCaul and Tomblin are available through Project MUSE on the Wikipedia Library, and I have print copies of all the other book sources if you would like me to provide quotations for further spot-checking. Hog FarmTalk 22:01, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Replies above are good- I'll look into Tomblin just for extra fun, but I trust the rest are good:
Tomblin: uses 13, 23, 33, 48, 51, 62 are good
Ref 37: could you give the quote? Again my eyes are likely deceiving me
@MyCatIsAChonk: - "Stembel, fearing the rebels would board his boat, ordered his men on deck with cutlasses, carbines, and hand grenades" Hog FarmTalk 01:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adding placeholder. Ceoil (talk) 12:46, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Have only made trivial edits re prose. No grammatical issues.
Its not said in the lead that this was an American Civil War battle, nor does the lead give an indication as to its strategic importance in that war.
I've expended the lead a bit
For the layman, in the first instances (lead and body) make the visible pipe Ironclad warship rather than Ironclad
Done
Similar for "drafts" as in The Union ironclads had lighter drafts...laymen won't know, and a brief explainer in parenthesis would help...same with cottonclad rams
I've added a sentence to describe what the cottonclads were, as well as a note to indicate the definition of draft. As draft is a basic definition that I'm struggling to easily find a source that defines, I'm going to claim the WP:BLUE exemption unless somebody challenges the definition. Hog FarmTalk 02:57, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A few Union ships ran past the Island No. 10 defenses on the nights of April 4/5 and April 6/7, what is the 'Island No. 10?
Island No. 10 is stated to be a Confederate stronghold in the previous paragraph - is something else needed? There's not really much to say about Island No. 10 other than that it was a Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River
Fort Pillow, which was 50 miles (80 km) north of Memphis, Tennessee, on the river - this a reoccurring minor 'is/was' tense issue...surely it is still 50 miles (80 km) north of Memphis?
I guess so. The river has changed course somewhat but its still probably fairly similar. Have switched to "is"
Redundancy: Union naval ships
Resolved
Enjoying reading, brutal stuff, more shortly. Ceoil (talk) 23:51, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Resuming:
Lead: Each day, a single mortar boat guarded by an ironclad took a position further downriver to bombard the fort, while the rest of the fleet remained upriver. - What's with "each day", better mention "tactic was to use an Ironclad..."
Lead: did not have steam pressure built up and were not prepared to move - thus unprepared Ceoil (talk) 23:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some blue linked terms could do with explanations in parenthesis eg Ironclad (a warship protected by steel or iron armor), holystoning
many of the links are to dab or redirect pages. Ceoil (talk) 23:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article is really well written, was difficult to find faults...support on prose. Ceoil (talk) 23:37, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have a look soon. FunkMonk (talk) 22:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Link more names and terms at first mentions in captions?
Maybe just a pet peeve of mine, but it's a bit unfortunate that the map interferes with the "aftermath" title. Perhaps rejig some image layout in that area?
I have addressed this. Hog FarmTalk 14:37, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"were located off of Fort Pillow" is the "of" really needed?
"and that the attack could drive as far upriver at Cairo" Is "as" meant instead of "at Cairo"? "as far up river as Cairo"?
"but the latter vessel had to be intentionally run aground onto a shoal, where she sank." Why did it have to?
"The Confederates lost about a dozen men, of whom three were killed" This is a bit confusing, I'd read "lost" as if they all died, but then you say only three were killed?
What happened to Mortar Boat 16? It is stated the mortar boat was hit twice, but was it damaged?
I'm a bit curious at the classification of the battle as a Confederate victory and interested in your thoughts on this. I see two sources call it a Confederate victory, and the Union lost two ironclads (though both were back in service by June), but the Confederate ships failed to stop the bombardment of their fort, which was their strategic goal. It certainly appears to have been a Confederate tactical victory, but strategically it seems to have been indecisive.
I've removed the result field from the infobox, as I agree some amount of nuance is necessary. WP:MILMOS#INFOBOX actually discourages the use of anything other than a plain "Foo victory" or "Indecisive" in the results field. I think it's appropriate to retain this in the Confederate victories category, though, as the weight of the scholarship considers this to be a Confederate victory. Hog FarmTalk 19:22, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
General Sterling Price, General Bragg, and General Sumter are all mentioned to have been damaged by Union gunfire, the latter "badly", but I don't see this mentioned in the infobox under Confederate casualties and losses. The lead section neglects to mention that the Union ironclads were both refloated and returned to service, making the Union losses seem somewhat worse than they were really. There's no mention of the damaged Confederate ships in the prose here either.
I've added mention of the ships being refloated and the damaged Confederate vessels to the lead; I want to revisit the sources again before putting something about the damaged ships into the infobox. Hog FarmTalk 19:22, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A couple more things came to mind right after I hit save on the initial comments:
I think it's worth mentioning most of the Union ironclads were members of the City-class, in contrast to the Confederate ships being converted civilian vessels.
An order of battle section might be helpful to make it easier to keep track of which ships were on which side.
Could you expand a bit on the differences in armaments between the Union and Confederate ships? This seems to have been an important factor in why three Confederate ships were forced to withdraw from the battle.
Were there any repercussions for the captains and crews of the Union ships that failed to follow their orders to keep steam? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:58, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
