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Battle of Big Black River Bridge

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Nominator(s): Hog Farm (talk)

Battle of Big Black River Bridge (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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A brief, and rather lopside, battle during the Vicksburg campaign. The Confederate commander, Pemberton, was concerned about Loring's divison, which had been isolated from the rest of the army during the retreat from the Battle of Champion Hill the day before. To hold a bridgehead east of the Big Black River, Pemberton positioned Bowen's division, which had been mauled the day before, and then Vaughn's brigade of inexperienced conscripts from a region hostile to the Confederacy. McClernand's Union corps appears and deploys in front of the Confederate line. One Union brigade commander on the far right, Lawler, moves his troops into an old river meander, and then unleashes a 3-minute charge that routs Vaughn. The remainder of the Confederates fled to avoid being cut off, and roughly 1,750 Confederates and 18 cannon are captured. Hog Farm Talk 01:46, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Harrias

Nice to see you around and submitting articles for review again!

  • Ref #57 should have a "p" rather than "pp".
    • Fixed
  • Ref #64 should have a "pp" rather than "p".
    • Fixed
  • Ref #83 should have a "pp" rather than "p".
    • Fixed
  • Consider archiving online sources.
    • Done
  • "..important city of Vicksburg, Mississippi was still.." While I know you think MOS:GEOCOMMA is a "load of crock", it remains part of the MOS :P
    • Added
  • "A Union attack on December 29, was defeated decisively.."}} No need for that comma.
    • Removed; I find myself guessing a lot as to if a comma is needed or not
  • Conversely, I think "On April 29, the Union Navy's Mississippi Squadron commanded by David Dixon Porter attempted to bombard.." would benefit from commas around "commanded by David Dixon Porter".
    • commas added
  • "..on May 14, with the Union taking the city.." Consider rephrasing to avoid the noun plus -ing construction.
    • Repheased
  • "..to prevent Loring from being cut off of from the main.."}} To many words. Remove the of?
    • Removed "of"
  • Wl "enfilade" to Enfilade and defilade
    • Done
  • "This position was manned by.." This sentence feels weird for two reasons; first starting a paragraph like this makes it feel like a run-on from the previous paragraph, so maybe the paragraph structure needs adjusting. Secondly, the final sentence of the previous paragraph also started "This position.."
    • Rephrased
  • "..considered this unit to be his best troops.." Maybe switch "to be" to "to contain" or "to comprise".
    • This has been rephrased already by Nick-D to remove "troops" - is it better now
  • "Vaughn's men and the 4th Mississippi were position in an area.." Should be "positioned".
    • Fixed
  • "..with Benton's men taking up.." Again, consider rephrasing to avoid the noun plus -ing construction.
    • Rephrased
  • "One of Green's regiments, the 1st Missouri Cavalry Regiment (dismounted) had remained.."}} Needs a comma after "(dismounted)".
    • Added
  • "Lindsey advanced his brigade ahead along the railroad.." "ahead" feels redundant to "advanced" (particularly as it goes on to say "placing his men ahead of the rest of the Union line."
    • Removed "ahead"
  • "..and had three regiments |}the.." Stray code, should it be an endash to match the one later?
    • Fixed; that's what happens when you type {{end}} instead of {{snd}}
  • Wikilink "swale"; I had no idea what it meant.
    • I've rephrased to avoid the word - I wasn't using it as a technical term and instead in a sense of a generic depression in the ground. The link for it uses it as more of a technical term, so I don't really want to link it. I guess maybe it's an Americanism?
  • "This advance was accomplished without significant numbers of casualties." You could probably get rid of "numbers of" if you wanted.
    • Done
  • "..with men either running away or surrendering." Again, consider rephrasing to avoid the noun plus -ing construction.
    • Done
  • "..which has been positioned.." Should be "had", not "has".
    • Fixed
  • Switched back up to the lead: "After defeating Confederate forces in several battles intermediate battles.." Too many words.
    • Removed a stray word

A nice piece of work. Nothing major identified, just copy edits really. Harrias (he/him) • talk 09:46, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Harrias: - Thanks for the review! Replies are above - everything should be addressed now. As is probably obvious, grammar/syntax/spelling is not my strong suit. Hog Farm Talk 05:03, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support by Nick-D

This article is in good shape, and I have only minor comments:

  • "Bowen's men had been roughly handled at Champion Hill" - I'd suggest using more specific language here
    • I've clarified this
  • "Pemberton decided that Johnston's orders were not compatible with previous directives that Pemberton had received" - I'd suggest replacing the second 'Pemberton' with 'he' or similar. More broadly, 'Pemberton' probably appears too many times in this para.
    • I've edited out three of the uses of Pemberton in this paragraph
  • "from a region disloyal to the Confederacy" - perhaps say where
    • Clarified - East Tennessee
  • "Two cannons positioned themselves " - I'd suggest tweaking this to note that the guns 'were positioned'
  • "Union casualties were 279 men" - was this the total killed, wounded and prisoners?
    • Yes, I have noted this
  • The article notes the poor state of the Confederate force, and it would be helpful to note somewhere that the Union force was of a much higher quality to help explain the very lopsided result of this battle. Nick-D (talk) 04:31, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Nick-D: - I haven't seen much in the literature discussing the state of the Union forces at Big Black River bridge (and none of the sources seem to know at all what Union numerical strength was, as none of the sources I've used and a few others I didn't provide a figure). I've clarified this a bit - Bowen's men were Pemberton's elite troops, but were badly exhausted. The ensuing rout seems to be simply due to the attack striking Vaughn's men, who really shouldn't have been put in a key rear guard situation anyway. Hog Farm Talk 20:41, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments are now addressed. Sorry for the slow response here - I thought I'd responded last week. Nick-D (talk) 02:46, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

JJE

Didn't notice anything particularly problematic (are books the only sources available?) but "Grant's 12-year old son Fred was wounded in the leg while following the pursuit of the routed Confederates" makes me kind of wonder what a child was doing in this war zone. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:17, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: - Yes, books seem to be the only sources (I've checked JSTOR and Project MUSE for journal articles and didn't see anything useful), which is fairly common for coverage of the Vicksburg campaign - the best stuff is all in books. As to Fred - I've added a brief bit explaining that he followed his dad through the whole campaign. The 1860s certainly were a different time - John Clem was a non-commissioned officer at age 12. Charles Edwin King was mortally wounded at Antietam at age 13. The Confederates had an organized unit of high schoolers charge a battery at the Battle of New Market. Hog Farm Talk 20:18, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: For your infomation: Child soldiers in the American Civil War Pendright (talk) 05:09, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review - pass

All okay Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:05, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

  • Further reading uses a different style from Sources
    • Switched over to match
  • "Campbell, CA" Can we write the name of the state in full? American state abbreviations can be very confusing.
    • I've actually removed this one; a review of the table of contents suggests that none of the essays in this work deal directly with this battle
  • Link Jay Luvaas
    • Done
  • Sources are of good quality.
  • Spot checks not done.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:05, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7: - thanks for the review! I've addressed the various concerns. Hog Farm Talk 19:45, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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