Talk:United States Secretary of War

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Update?[edit]

Well, who's the current one?

There isn't one... Travis Cleveland 03:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sherman[edit]

Sherman was only acting Secretary of War. We usually don't list acting secretaries in our lists - we certainly don't keep them for numbering purposes. john k 00:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why not list him between 29 & 30 without a number (maybe just an *) with a footnote that says that he was the only acting Secretary of War? Otherwise, there is no way that anyone could get from this list to his page, and it leaves a hole in the list. RSStockdale 11:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I Think We're Forgetting Something[edit]

Was the Secretary of War split into the Secretary of the Amy, Secretary of the Air force, AND the Secretary of the Navy? There is no mention of the Navy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.164.20.119 (talk) 16:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Secretary of the Navy already existed. I've tried to clarify the sentence. Station1 (talk) 20:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Grant (and Sherman above)[edit]

Should we add Ulysses S. Grant (who served briefly as Secretary of War "ad-interim) and Acting Secretary of War Sherman to the list, albeit unnumbered? I don't see why not, and it would make the list more complete and matching modern Cabinet Secretary lists.--Tim Thomason 06:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

File:SecretaryWarPatterson.jpg Nominated for Deletion[edit]

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Stanton was secretary under Lincoln as well[edit]

Stanton served for many years under Lincoln, and famously so. The article currently says he just served under Johnson.

I'm a newbie to wikipedia so couldn't figure out how to make the table look pretty :).

Sources: Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005) on Lincoln's cabinet. Probably any source cited on Edwin Stanton

Cjrieds (talk) 19:38, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edwin Stanton[edit]

Anybody know how to fix the table, to show that Stanton was also Secretary under Andrew Johnson? GoodDay (talk) 11:23, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it was "fixed" to show Stanton was secretary under Johnson, but no longer shows he was under Lincoln (which was far more important). Cactusframe (talk) 01:24, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Treasury 3rd, not War[edit]

Secretary of the Treasury is before Secretary of Defense in succession today. Was it changed or was this an oversight? 74.69.9.224 (talk) 01:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Corresponding presidents[edit]

McHenry was originally appointed by Washington, and Stimson by FDR, but this page shows them only as serving under Adams and Truman, respectively. In Stimson's case, this is in spite of the fact that he took office five years before Truman became president. Is there any way to show that these men served under multiple presidents.?Nathaniel Greene (talk) 03:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Nathaniel Greene, GoodDay, and Cactusframe: It's an HTML bug (sort of); see Help talk:Table/Archive 8#Is rowspan broken?. The rowspans are all set correctly, but you wind up with rows that don't have a height. Forcing the height fixes the issue immediately, but there isn't a sustainable way to do that. I think the better approach is to recast the table to be like the one in United States Secretary of Defense. It's going to be more accessible that way as well. Mackensen (talk) 05:56, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's a mess up, for sure. Not certain how to fix it, accept look for another US appointed officer article, that has the problem solved & copy their solution. The way it's done at the US Secretary of Defence article, seems to be that solution. GoodDay (talk) 06:05, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The modern approach uses tables, here's an example:

No.	Portrait	Secretary of War	Took office	Left office	Time in office	Party	State of residence	President serving under	Ref.
1		Knox, HenryHenry Knox (1750–1806)	September 12, 1789	December 31, 1794	5 years, 110 days	Federalist	Massachusetts	Washington, GeorgeGeorge Washington

It's some work up front to convert the existing list, but it's done once and then you're in much better shape. The current format is unusable. Mackensen (talk) 13:09, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think I can dial up a regular expression to simplify the conversion. Mackensen (talk) 13:28, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And done. Mackensen (talk) 17:45, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]