Talk:John Pelham (officer)

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[edit] Refs/Notes

I made an edit that was reverted, so we should discuss it here. When you use footnotes that cite a book, you need to include the page numbers. That is the reason I generally use the References section for listing the authors, titles, ISBN's, etc. (like a printed bibliography) and use the Notes section to refer to the author and page number range for each citation (such as "Hassler, pp. 122-23.") I understand that some editors prefer to use a common References section to include both reference/bibliography and citations, particularly when most of the citations are to websites or have only one instance in the article, and you are welcome to do so, but I suggest that it becomes cumbersome when you have multiple citations from an individual book, as you do here. Hal Jespersen (talk) 01:39, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I have one minor qualm with this line: "Pelham was involved in every military engagement of Stuart's cavalry from the First Battle of Bull Run to Kelly's Ford, more than 60 encounters." On its face, this statement is incorrect, because Pelham's horse artillery was not present during three of the four fall/winter raids of Stuart's cavalry in 1862. Specifically, his artillery was not present during Hampton's first raid beginning November 27, 1862; Hampton's second raid beginning December 10, 1862; or Hampton's third raid beginning December 17, 1862. Pelham and four guns were present with the larger raid beginning December 26, 1862 and he was mentioned in dispatches for successfully crossing Selectman's Ford over the Occoquan River, which was considered impassable for vehicles. It is possible that Pelham was present during Hampton's raids without his artillery, as he was a de facto member of Stuart's staff, but if he was I find no mention of it in D. S. Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants vol. 2 pp. 397-405 from which the above references are given. Perhaps changing the sentence to read "every major military engagement" would allow some room for the doubt I have, and I will do that now. Sofa King (talk) 17:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)