User talk:BruceR

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Hi Bruce. Edits from your IP have now been reattributed to your username. Regards — Kate Turner | Talk 04:41, 2004 Sep 5 (UTC)

1 Fenian Raids
2 Naming conventions
3 White phosphorous
4 Lum the Mad
5 Image:Schoolofcontinuingstudies.jpg
6 Wikimania 2009
7 In Remembrance...

[edit] Fenian Raids

Thank you for your contributions to the much-neglected Fenian Raids articles. Your correction concerning the position of the ridge at Ridgeway was entirely correct; a careless mistake on my part. Other amendments are also welcome.

I feel I should remind you that precise casualty figures in the battlebox are usually preferable to casualty ranges or written estimates, even when these are understood to be an approximation (a fuller account of casualties and their sources can, of course, be placed in the article's text). In the case of Fenian Raids battles, it may also be advisable to cite strength and casualty figures provided by military historians (I've consulted Chartrand and Zuehlke on this subject) rather than those suggested by any specific Fenian account. A published historian will have gathered, analyzed, and determined the reliability of a variety of sources. There's no reason to assume that a "Canadian" historiographical interpretation is any less accurate than contemporary documentation.

Since you obviously boast some knowledge beyond my own on this subject, I encourage you to create or expand the articles as you see fit. The Fenian Raids article could obviously use some work, and you would probably be ideally suited to craft an account of the convoluted Campobello Island fiasco. John O'Neill, also, is sadly lacking an article. Albrecht 02:22, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

It's not just "ANY specific Fenian account"... it's THE Fenian account... by the commander, written the same day as the battle. It obviously has significantly more weight than any work by Canadian writers today. Question: not having those two books you've mentioned in front of me... do they cite it? Have they read it? It's a keystone document in understanding that day of history (available in a volume in Robarts Library in Toronto, and no doubt many other places)... I'd be curious to hear if they provide a reference.

I know Chartrand and Zuehlke both relied heavily on the George T. Denison account, written by a Canadian non-participant months after the fact (and itself reliant in large part on the Booker court-martial testimony, which is also in the public domain). You're saying above that those secondary accounts (tertiary, really) should be trusted in place of the publicly available battlefield despatch, dated July 2, 1866, to the Fenian Adjutant-General, C.C. Tevis, by John O'Neill, the Fenian commander. O'Neill was a professional soldier, who would have reflexively penned as full an account of the battle as he could write and after a day's continuous fighting he certainly knew how many men he had with him. And he says he crossed with 800 men, but 300 had deserted him during or shortly after the landing, before any contact had been made with the Canadians. Fenian rifle accounting tends to corroborate him on this. Still, Canadian historians, starting with Denison, have tended to assume larger numbers, and assume that most desertions came on the 2nd, after the Ridgeway battle, as opposed to before it.

If it was something O'Neill had written even a week later I would agree there was some doubt, but in military history it's generally best to trust evidence written as close to the event as possible. Also, most conscientious historians tend to favour an army's account of its OWN side's numbers (which is generally fairly accurate) over their estimate of how many men they were facing. The Canadian estimates from the court martial, lifted by Denison, and repeated by Chartrand and Zuehkle, are based were estimates from the other side of the battlefield, several months after the fighting.

Look at it this way: all the pro-Fenian later accounts would concur with O'Neill's estimate that he was facing 1,400 British and Canadians at Ridgeway, when we know from all documentary evidence that he was in fact facing 840 Canadian militia. If you're going to trust Canadian writers on how many men O'Neill had, why not trust the Fenian writers on how many men the Canadians had? I think the answer's pretty obvious why you wouldn't.

On casualties, again O'Neill says right in his "Official Report", written the day of, how many men he had lost; I couldn't understand why the Wikipedia entry would give significantly lower numbers than he did himself. If he says he left six wounded on the field, and carried some others off in carts, then saying he had "3-10" wounded is obviously understating the lower limit. (The casualties were stated as a range by a previous contributor, not me, btw. The Fort Erie sidebar, on the other hand, obviously was overcounting, putting Fenian casualties from both the day's battles together... again O'Neill is quite clear on how many men he had lost there.)

The point is, Canadian historians reflexively trust Denison, and most of the accounts of the battle can be traced back to his 1866 book. (And ignoring even other contemporaneous accounts, like the 1866 book by Alexander Somerville, who unlike Denison had actually seen some fighting at that point.) Your multiple sources are really just multiple writers who appear to be making the same error. I suggest you need to watch any tendency to trust just what happens to be on your bookshelf at home, over the full body of archival documentation on military topics. Either that, or let some more doubt into the narratives, in cases where genuine doubt exists. But so long as the point is made clear in the narrative, I won't quibble about the Fenian number in the box. --BruceR 13:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

- PS: Re the Fenian articles in general, the problem is the Fenian Raids, Fenian Brotherhood, and Battle of Ridgeway articles first need to be disentangled a little. I'm taking little hacks at it now and then, but trying to be conservative about it.--BruceR 14:28, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions

No problem, check out Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Cheers, Fawcett5 14:43, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] White phosphorous

I just wanted to tell you good job and keep up the good work fixing the White phosphorus article. I wasn't looking forward to wading in, and the changes you have made have been great so far. Here is a WikiThanks for your effots. Smmurphy 07:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree; You've done some remarkably even-handed work in a difficult environment. Tom Harrison ^(talk) 14:57, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lum the Mad

I removed the refs to User: on that page. Fplay 06:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Schoolofcontinuingstudies.jpg

Nice photo. Can you get more of the engineering buildings or other campus buildings listed at Category:University of Toronto buildings ? Cafe Nervosa | talk 00:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)