Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Trenton/archive3

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 03:14, 21 December 2008 [1].

Battle of Trenton[edit]

Nominator(s): User:Kieran4
previous FAC (21:55, 25 August 2008)

I saw this had been nominated in the past, and it appears as though it had made improvements since, so I would like to nominate it.-Kieran4 (talk) 14:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you informed the primary editors of the article of this nomination? Skinny87 (talk) 17:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Past contributors are no longer active; the question becomes whether past issues have been resolved. See the Dashboard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image review: Please include the reference you used (including page numbers) to illustrate Image:Battle of Trenton.jpg and Image:Battleoftrenton2.jpg. All other images appear to be fine, though I wonder if you can find a better version of Image:Trenton Surrender.jpg. --Moni3 (talk) 17:35, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't make those maps, so I can't do much about that. As for the painting, I'll look around, but most of them thus far appear to be about the same.-Kieran4 (talk) 23:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
User:Red4tribe has email enabled; perhaps you can contact him and request information about those maps? –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 00:03, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll see what I can do.-Kieran4 (talk) 21:13, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Would like to see more background and legacy but other than that, seems to have everything a battle article should have. No serious prose or cite issues. Meets FA criteria, IMO. --mav (talk) 02:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Badly written.
    • In the time before the battle, American morale was very low.
    • The Americans had been ousted from New York by the British and Hessian allies,
      • Describing the Hessians as allies is at least misleading; Hesse was not at war.
    • three Hessien regiments
    • The American plan relied on launching coordinated attacks from three directions. (Try "consisted of").
      and so on.
  • Badly sourced.
    • The standard source on this subject is still William S. Stryker: Battles of Trenton and Princeton which was reprinted in 2001. Any survey of this battle which does not consult it, especially for this mishmosh of tertiary sources, is not comprehensive; this one does not mention it.
  • Last FA noted that Hessian casualties varied from source to source, yet the article stated one set, the editor's choice, contrary to WP:NPOV. This was fixed then; but now we have one one set of figures again.
  • The hours before the battle served as the inspiration for the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by German American artist Emanuel Leutze. The image in the painting, in which Washington stands majestic in his boat as it is crossing the Delaware River, is believed by some to be more symbolic than historically accurate By some? Why mealy-mouth the consensus on the obvious? Does anyone in his right mind think otherwise? Leutze came to America in 1825, at the age of nine; are we to suppose that he interviewed witnesses to Washington being so dumb? Which of the sources suggest Leutze was historically accurate?

Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have some legitimate points, but badly sourced? Just because it is lacking one book, granted it may have been the standard source, does not make it badly sourced. Did you look at which books are cited? Fischer? Ketchum? Lengel? McCullough? Those are almost the only sources cited. Fischer is the Pulitzer Prize winning book which should be the definitive source, not Stryker.-Kieran4 (talk) 23:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I've read Fischer; a depressing experience. The Pulitzer Committee is not what they were. (Using only Stryker might well be worse - but he is fuller and more reliable than the moderns.) Please read Stryker, and include his version as a POV. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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