Talk:7th New York Militia Regiment

Relation to Seventh Regiment of New York

I know the organizational history is tangled and a bit complicated, but for the general reader (like me) there needs to be some explanation of the 7th NY Militia's relationship to the Seventh Regiment of New York, now the Seventh Regiment New York State Militia; or if none exists, then a clear distinction made for those looking for (e.g.) the Seventh Regiment Armory or the Seventh Regiment Band. Perhaps a disambiguation hatnote would be in order (I won't make one myself until I'm clearer on the distinctions). A link to the 7th Reg't of NY is certainly also in order; again, I may put a naked, unannotated link in "See also", but the link might be better embedded in an explanation of the two units' relationship or lack of one. I'm posting a link to this discussion at the Seventh Regiment's talk page. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:46, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

There is absolutely NO relationship between the the 7th New York State Militia (aka 7th New York Militia) and the 7th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment (aka 7th New York Infantry or 7th New York Volunteers). The former -- existing in Manhattan long before the American Civil War -- was a NY militia regiment, which was redesignated a New York State National Guard unit by the middle of the war, and remained as such for many decades thereafter. The latter was created at the very beginning of the Civil War solely to prosecute the war. The two regiments, whose Civil War service overlapped, are frequently confused, even on the tombstones of Civil War veterans, as well as in their obituaries in such esteemed newspapers as The New York Times. The use of the phrase "Seventh Regiment of New York," absent any context, is ambiguous and could refer to either unit. Don Columbia (talk) 19:32, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I should have added to the foregoing comment two things. First, the two terms "Seventh Regiment Armory" and "Seventh Regiment Band" almost always refer to the armory and band, respectively, of the 7th NY Militia or National Guard regiment; however, to my knowledge, the 7th New York Infantry may well have also had an armory and/or band. Nevertheless, it is the 7th NY Militia or National Guard unit that had the noteworthy armory in Manhattan (on Park Avenue as of 1879) and band. So the two terms almost always refer to that unit. Second, as only a casual Wikipedia "editor," I am struck by the general lack of sophistication of Wikipedia's Civil War entries. I have been editing a number of them over the last week or so. It tells me that serious scholars or students of the Civil War are not regularly consulting these pages, or at least bothering to correct them. Don Columbia (talk) 19:53, 8 January 2016 (UTC)