Military history: North America / United States / American Civil War Template‑class | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Here is a list of the data I've compiled:
Prior to 1864, all of the Departments reported independently to the Chief of Staff, although sometimes they were grouped under a subordinate commander. A few of the districts were created, recreated, renamed, and transferred, but all of the ones I've listed here appear on the Abstract of the Returns in "The War of the Rebellion" in at least two distinct years. Also, all of them were in existance at the end of the war, and most of them (except in the Southern states) were in place as early as 1862.
I'll need help with the layout. Below this information comes a list of the Armies/Corps of the Union Army. I think it would be a valuable addition to any existing article on Armies/Corps, plus it will lead to the creation of more articles on the Departments themselves. Mrprada911 ( talk) 23:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
What were the criteria used to select entries for this list? There were 342 Union departments and districts and 25-27 armies (number varies depending on how you count name changes), considerably more than you have here. Rather than having an enormous sea of red pixels accompanying all these articles, wouldn't it make more sense to have a List article that contained a comprehensive list and then just put a link to that article in the See Also? In the other templates that we have created for the American Civil War, we generally eschew lots of unlinked articles. Hal Jespersen ( talk) 17:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
My source is
I counted them quickly on my fingers and I will admit that there are a few subdistricts in the list, although no posts. Some of the number will look like overlap because there are separate entries for organizations of the same name that had different time frames or boundaries, but there still are substantially more than you list. As an example, here are the ones starting with A:
Hal Jespersen ( talk) 01:18, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Mrprada911, my answer to your question/proposal is in the next section...
Leobold1, perhaps a better way to handle issues such as the XXII Corps and all of its DC baggage is to focus on the geographic article, Washington, D.C. in the American Civil War, rather than creating a unit article. The Corps was one of a number of overlapping organizations defending DC. It never really operated in the field as a true corps, did it? All the context you need to cover about departments and districts would be better placed in a geographic article. The Kentucky in the American Civil War article we've been discussing is a good example of mixing geography, departments, military units, and history. (I claim no credit for work on any of the many geo articles.) Hal Jespersen ( talk) 15:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Leo, when I said "really operated in the field as a true corps" I meant that the corps HQ and most of its constituent units deployed to the field as a unit, under the command of the corps commander. I think your second paragraph just above says No. Therefore, I'll renew my recommendation that this geographically assembled group of units be described primarily in the geo article and that the XXII Corps article be relatively brief and point to the geo article. There are a number of instances in the Civil War when multiple names were given to a single entity (the Army of the Cumberland and the XIV Corps spring to mind) and although it can make sense to have multiple articles for these different names, one should be the primary article and contain most of the detail, the other being essentially a pointer and explanation. Or even a redirect. Hal Jespersen ( talk) 23:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
And, by the way, is probably not a good idea to associate districts with a single department because some of them moved around. To select an example at random, the District of Western Kentucky belonged to five different departments in its lifetime: Kentucky, Missouri, the Ohio (1862 and again in 1864), the Tennessee, and the Western. That sort of variability could be explained more easily in a list article than in this template. Hal Jespersen ( talk) 17:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there is any justification for having a fully comprehensive list appear in a list article and in a template. I don't intend to call for the deletion of the template, but would recommend that you refocus it as "Major Union Army formations" or "Notable Union Army formations" (and I would actually prefer that you said 'organizations' because the term 'formation' doesn't really apply to a geographic administrative area such as a department or district--only groups of soldiers who march in formation should be called formations). My primary reason for preferring a list article is that you can explain all of the intricacies of relationships in a way that is infeasible in a template. There are other large templates in the ACW space, for sure, but they are usually pretty unambiguous about their entries and they contain very few red links. If you changed over to Notable organizations, you could automatically delete all the red links because they are not notable if no one has written an article about them. Hal Jespersen ( talk) 01:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Leobold1 ( talk) 01:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
All the working wikilinks in this template links to Category:United States Civil War navigational boxes and I do mean ALL of them. Every Department, Division, Army, and Corps are listed in the category, not as a Template but as just the article. Is there a way to fix this? I've been working on it for about an hour and I'm at the end of my knowledge. Leobold1 ( talk) 14:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking about a new subpage for the portal, and I was wanting to find something exhaustive like this space as a standard reference. BusterD ( talk) 12:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I think the Dpt of the Tennessee is missing (should belong to the Military Division of the Mississippi). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.57.207.214 ( talk) 13:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
This template seems to imply that the Union Army had a single breakdown of districts and departments for the duration of the war, when in reality it changed from year to year and even month to month. Given that Union Army Divisions, Departments and Districts more accurately reflects the history of the Union Army, what good is this navbox? Ibadibam ( talk) 20:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
Military history: North America / United States / American Civil War Template‑class | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Here is a list of the data I've compiled:
Prior to 1864, all of the Departments reported independently to the Chief of Staff, although sometimes they were grouped under a subordinate commander. A few of the districts were created, recreated, renamed, and transferred, but all of the ones I've listed here appear on the Abstract of the Returns in "The War of the Rebellion" in at least two distinct years. Also, all of them were in existance at the end of the war, and most of them (except in the Southern states) were in place as early as 1862.
I'll need help with the layout. Below this information comes a list of the Armies/Corps of the Union Army. I think it would be a valuable addition to any existing article on Armies/Corps, plus it will lead to the creation of more articles on the Departments themselves. Mrprada911 ( talk) 23:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
What were the criteria used to select entries for this list? There were 342 Union departments and districts and 25-27 armies (number varies depending on how you count name changes), considerably more than you have here. Rather than having an enormous sea of red pixels accompanying all these articles, wouldn't it make more sense to have a List article that contained a comprehensive list and then just put a link to that article in the See Also? In the other templates that we have created for the American Civil War, we generally eschew lots of unlinked articles. Hal Jespersen ( talk) 17:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
My source is
I counted them quickly on my fingers and I will admit that there are a few subdistricts in the list, although no posts. Some of the number will look like overlap because there are separate entries for organizations of the same name that had different time frames or boundaries, but there still are substantially more than you list. As an example, here are the ones starting with A:
Hal Jespersen ( talk) 01:18, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Mrprada911, my answer to your question/proposal is in the next section...
Leobold1, perhaps a better way to handle issues such as the XXII Corps and all of its DC baggage is to focus on the geographic article, Washington, D.C. in the American Civil War, rather than creating a unit article. The Corps was one of a number of overlapping organizations defending DC. It never really operated in the field as a true corps, did it? All the context you need to cover about departments and districts would be better placed in a geographic article. The Kentucky in the American Civil War article we've been discussing is a good example of mixing geography, departments, military units, and history. (I claim no credit for work on any of the many geo articles.) Hal Jespersen ( talk) 15:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Leo, when I said "really operated in the field as a true corps" I meant that the corps HQ and most of its constituent units deployed to the field as a unit, under the command of the corps commander. I think your second paragraph just above says No. Therefore, I'll renew my recommendation that this geographically assembled group of units be described primarily in the geo article and that the XXII Corps article be relatively brief and point to the geo article. There are a number of instances in the Civil War when multiple names were given to a single entity (the Army of the Cumberland and the XIV Corps spring to mind) and although it can make sense to have multiple articles for these different names, one should be the primary article and contain most of the detail, the other being essentially a pointer and explanation. Or even a redirect. Hal Jespersen ( talk) 23:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
And, by the way, is probably not a good idea to associate districts with a single department because some of them moved around. To select an example at random, the District of Western Kentucky belonged to five different departments in its lifetime: Kentucky, Missouri, the Ohio (1862 and again in 1864), the Tennessee, and the Western. That sort of variability could be explained more easily in a list article than in this template. Hal Jespersen ( talk) 17:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there is any justification for having a fully comprehensive list appear in a list article and in a template. I don't intend to call for the deletion of the template, but would recommend that you refocus it as "Major Union Army formations" or "Notable Union Army formations" (and I would actually prefer that you said 'organizations' because the term 'formation' doesn't really apply to a geographic administrative area such as a department or district--only groups of soldiers who march in formation should be called formations). My primary reason for preferring a list article is that you can explain all of the intricacies of relationships in a way that is infeasible in a template. There are other large templates in the ACW space, for sure, but they are usually pretty unambiguous about their entries and they contain very few red links. If you changed over to Notable organizations, you could automatically delete all the red links because they are not notable if no one has written an article about them. Hal Jespersen ( talk) 01:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Leobold1 ( talk) 01:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
All the working wikilinks in this template links to Category:United States Civil War navigational boxes and I do mean ALL of them. Every Department, Division, Army, and Corps are listed in the category, not as a Template but as just the article. Is there a way to fix this? I've been working on it for about an hour and I'm at the end of my knowledge. Leobold1 ( talk) 14:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking about a new subpage for the portal, and I was wanting to find something exhaustive like this space as a standard reference. BusterD ( talk) 12:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I think the Dpt of the Tennessee is missing (should belong to the Military Division of the Mississippi). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.57.207.214 ( talk) 13:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
This template seems to imply that the Union Army had a single breakdown of districts and departments for the duration of the war, when in reality it changed from year to year and even month to month. Given that Union Army Divisions, Departments and Districts more accurately reflects the history of the Union Army, what good is this navbox? Ibadibam ( talk) 20:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)