Talk:Ambush of Geary

Merge?

I've suggested Francis Geary (British Army officer) be merged in here - the man doesn't seem to have any real historical significance outside of this event, and it would seem better to give a quick one-paragraph biography of him in context here rather than sat out on its own. Shimgray | talk | 19:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

If that's all that is really known about him, seems like a reasonable step. Magic♪piano 20:21, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly :-) - without this incident, I can't really see any reason we'd attach much significance to Geary without his having had a later career - he was 24, the son of a minor aristocrat, and had spent all his adult life doing very little at Oxford and then at the Army...

I'll give it a week and then merge if there's been no other feedback. Shimgray | talk | 00:26, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I did the merge. Feel free to add back some of the few details I didn't copy. Magic♪piano 18:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Notable?

Is this action honestly notable? This sort of thing happens in every war all the time and I see nothing here exceptional enough to deserve an article as opposed to an ambush somewhere else.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:29, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

While I'm not the originator of the article, I see it as more like a piece of local history than anything grandiose, given the minor controversy over what happened to the body. Wikipedia is full of pieces of local color (not just milhist, people write articles about public transit stops and such), and this one is (to me anyway) surprisingly well-documented for an incident of its size. (On the other hand, there seems to be some sort of mystique about the revolution that Americans feel they have to document every little event that happened. Me, I'm just working through articles in a campaignbox, trying to improve them. I probably would not have created the article, but I'm also not a deletionist.) Magic♪piano 18:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm certainly not going to put up for AfD as I was surprised on the amount of information available.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:48, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ambush of Geary/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mm40 (talk) 13:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm Mm40 (talk · contribs) and I'll be reviewing this nomination against the good article criteria. I'll be watching this page, and I'll be very active over the next few days, so you should just leave any comments or questions here. Thanks, Mm40 (talk) 13:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

My first impression is that the article is very short, as most of it is background. However, after looking for more sources (using JSTOR and EBSCOhost and such) and looking at the talk page, I realize the article is actually longer than one would think it could be. Thus, length isn't a problem.

• The lead should be expanded; a good idea would be summarizing all four sections. For example, it doesn't even mention that it was part of the NY/NJ campaign Expanded Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• The sentence beginning "These were vulnerable to attack" needs clarification: did Rall command the militias or the reconnaissance/foraging, and which of the two were made up of Hessians? Basically, the confusion comes from the reader not being sure if "local Patriot militia companies" is the subject or the object Rephrased although I'm not quite sure how this was misreadable. Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• The article uses both "Month day" (December 14) and "day Month" (14 December) Fixed (Note that the citation that includes a date was left in its original form.) Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• What is a "pension declaration"? Clarified Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• "and pork in Flemington was ready" – it's clear the supplies were in Flemington Removed Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• In the last sentence of Aftermath, was this important because, if Geary's troops were to go further, they would have seen the ships?
  • Comment It's indicative of the range of these patrols, not because this particular outing would have seen anything. Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• Is "bas-relief" a typo? Linked to suitable page Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• Fischer's Washington's Crossing needs a date of publication Added Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• The date for the Riddle reference has a date when you scroll to the bottom (11/03/07, or November 3, 2007) Added Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

That's all I can find for this otherwise very nice article. I'll happily pass this after these issues are resolved. Cheers, Mm40 (talk) 13:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your useful feedback; I'll get to this in the next few days. (Some things I will clarify in the text: bas-relief is not a typo, and a pension declaration is a statement made by someone seeking a military pension; it often contains a summary of their military activity, and may include affidavits of other people. They form a portion of the historical archives for wars of the period.) Magic♪piano 16:57, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I think I've taken care of these. Let me know if there's anything more to do. Magic♪piano 01:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

OK then, I'll pass the article now. Thanks for your contributions, and please consider reviewing a nomination or two at WP:GAN. Thanks, Mm40 (talk) 12:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I do occasionally do reviews (although not nearly as many as I've put in). Magic♪piano 13:14, 6 April 2010 (UTC)