Talk:Battle of Antietam

Usage of the word 'men' in place for soldiers

I saw (this) comment on the featured article nomination for the Battle of Big Black River Bridge which I found convincing in regards to the usage of "men" as a stand in for a group of soldiers to not meet the criteria of MOS:GNL. I figured that since Antietam was especially notable for its female soldiers that this would be a good place to mention it. In particular:

1. There are 46 instances on the page where the term "men" is used. Only a handful of these are cases referring exclusively to men. Is there any objection to changing these instances to gender neutral language?
2. The article does not currently mention the women involved in the battle, or mention the incident of Clara Barton discovering Mary Galloway (Soldier)'s sex while treating her wounds. Would there be any objection to adding this incident to the casualties section after the mention of Clara Barton?

First source from 1993 lists 'at least four women' as participating in the battle. The second source is corroborating the first. The most recent source I found is the third from 2013 listing the number at 'at least eight women'. I am unsure where it would be best to insert this information. [1] [2] Relm (talk) 12:00, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I have no objection to making the change over to soldiers/troops/forces from "men" as need be. (Full disclosure: I am the FAC nominator at the Big Black River Bridge article). I'd have to consult the sources though about the Barton/Galloway incident to make sure that this is WP:DUEWEIGHT. I don't recall reading about that in the sources I consulted for Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Battle of Antietam/1. There were over 80,000 common soldiers on the battlefield, and in an encyclopedic summary article, we can't really just pick and choose certain of the many heartbreaking stories to provide in it. We don't, for instance, mention Charles Edwin King in this article. Hog Farm _Talk 13:23, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the response! Fair point in regards to due weight. On memory alone I think there might be enough from sources already on the page to expand the post battle casualty collection process as a place for expanding the article slightly - the one that comes to mind immediately is Sears (It's chapter 9, the section ~303-307) who is cited in that section from the chapter he also spends a number of pages discussing Clara Barton - in addition to the big picture details of casualty collection that more aptly fit the main article on the battle rather than a biographical page. Whether the room to expand is due that weight however I would need to dive into the sources later.

In favor of it being due I would argue that the battle has the legacy as 'the bloodiest day', with that being covered extensively in sources. Thus more details about the casualties would feel warranted.

Despite that, against this point is that similar Civil War battles with the reputation for 'bloodiness' do not feature such treatments such as Battle of Chickamauga and Battle of Gettysburg. Battle of Stones River also does not have this treatment, yet it does contain an (albeit uncited) mention of Frances Elizabeth Quinn having been injured in the battle. This seems to have been lifted almost word for word from (this) article on the battle from American Battlefield Trust, so I'll go and amend that real quick for the time being. I understand that Wikipedia's doesn't quite work off of reference to other pages as 'precedent' in this manner, but thought that this would be helpful to the discussion nonetheless! Relm (talk) 14:23, 21 October 2024 (UTC)