Talk:Battle of Staten Island

GA Review

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

Reviewer: —focus 03:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'll be doing this review. Looks like a nice article; I'll have comments up in a day or two. —focus 03:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Intro

• Can't find a good image? Have you considered putting pictures of some of the commanders side by side in the infobox? Just an idea.

• As far as I can tell (I've spent some time looking...), there are no images of either Campbell or Skinner, and the image of Sullivan is small, and of poor quality. If I ever find a decent map of Staten Island that names most of the relevant points, I'll probably adopt that as a lead image; alternatively I may just make an SVG schematic. Magic♪piano 16:05, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

• "...against British positions on Staten Island" – that's an interesting use of the word 'positions'. It might be better off with 'forces' or 'troops', or something to that effect. You also use 'position' later in the paragraph, so it's redundant.

• changed to "forces". Magic♪piano 19:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Background

• I don't quite like the way you link to events in the first sentence of this section — it can get confusing to a reader who knows nothing about this topic. I'd consider writing out the event names, or clarifying it in a different way.

• I've rewritten this; let me know if it still needs work. Magic♪piano 19:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

• "The two armies then settled into winter quarters" – what do you mean by 'quarters'? Living quarters? This is unclear (at least to me).

• I'll link cantonment, which provides the best explanation. It was then not regular practice to engage in large-scale military action during the winter. Magic♪piano 16:05, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

• "As a result, he was preparing his army..." – I find this sentence rather awkward. It's very long, so you might want to split it. Also, was he preparing his army to move north as a result of the fleet's destination, or was he going to do that anyway and it just confirmed his plans? That might need rewording.

• Done. Magic♪piano 19:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

• Since you've already linked John Sullivan in the intro, there's probably no need to link in the background section as well.

• Done. Magic♪piano 19:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Prelude

• Could 'regulars' be linked to regular army?

• Done. Magic♪piano 19:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

• Why do you say "so-called Hessians"? Weren't they just called Hessians?

• They were generically called Hessians, but not all of them (in this case, the Waldeckers and Ansbachers) were in fact from Hesse-Kassel or Hesse-Hanau, the two states with "Hesse" in their name that provided troops to the British. In this case, it is a misnomer to call them "Hessian", hence "so-called". Magic♪piano 00:17, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• Perhaps this should be clarified in a footnote? —focus 00:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• Done. Magic♪piano 01:14, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Battle

• Why does 'minutes' have an apostrophe?
• A 'mortal wound' implies that Dongan was killed — can you state this directly instead of just saying he got a wound?
• For the officers who who hadn't introduce previously, (e.g. Dongan and Barton), is there anything else you can say about them?
• Link battalion
• What do you mean by 'Richmond'? Isn't that the county Staten Island is in?
• What is Gaine's Mercury? This needs to be clarified.

• I've addressed these, but one. Dongan died the next day, which is not quite the same as saying he was killed during the engagement. Magic♪piano 20:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Notes & Refs

• The 'Continental Army Lines' note should have more information. Apparently that's an online version of [this], so you might want to use Cite Book instead of Cite Web.

• Done. Magic♪piano 20:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to review this; let me know if there's anything else! Magic♪piano 19:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry this review hasn't been going anywhere for a few days; I've been really busy. I'll try to get the rest of my comments when I have some time. —focus 03:52, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I am now satisfied that this meets the GA criteria; good job. —focus 00:07, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Hessians not from Hesse?

A respected editor had inserted a textual footnote saying that the Hessians weren't really from "Hesse". But the linked article claims just the opposite, that they were from Hesse-Kassel in northern Hesse. Anyway, we should not have to qualify linked articles, whatever the truth. It should be in the linked article itself. Qualifying every mention of "Hessians", not only in American Revolutionary articles, but in all other articles in which they appear, seems a bit much IMO. Student7 (talk) 13:19, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Need a new map

I just want to point at that the map used in this article looks absolutely nothing like Staten Island. It's impossible to actually see what actually happened because the map is so inaccurate. Are there no better maps that exist? And even if not, I propose this map be removed either way, because it is not accurate nor helpful. Thank you. Bobharris1989 (talk) 22:37, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Strategic importance

Normally the result of the battle in the info-box just shows the result, not wether this was important or not. I think the page would like to move the “strategically unimportant” to the aftermath section in the actual article to make it conform to the norm. To me placing it in the info-box were it is normally not mentioned instead of the aftermath section were it fits perfectly seems a bit biased, downplaying the British success by naming its unimportance as a part of the result of the battle which was a British victory, even though it isn’t really all that harmful to the article overall. Dorromikhal (talk) 22:08, 10 July 2019 (UTC)