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Riot and civil disorder generally isn't seen, entirely, as warfare, although something more specific than "history" would probably be a better characterization. Anmccaff (talk) 15:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Not... totally sure what this is referring to. TimothyJosephWood 16:00, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Ah. Hmm. Well there was definitely a particular discussion at some point over at MilHist about whether these topics fell under the purview of that particular project, and the feeling was pretty well in favor. Whether that counts as "warfare" is probably debatable. The whole 1877 chain of events was definitely important for warfare at least in regard to the structure of the US military, since it was pretty much the turning point in the transition from maintaining essentially militias toward having a proper "national guard" in today's sense of having semi-professional soldiers rather than outright amateurs. TimothyJosephWood 16:24, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
All valid points, or at least arguable ones, but this is still in the grey area between policing -keeping public order- and warfare -armed conflicts between states, or would-be states.
Regarding the xformation of the militias, I agree that idea is respectable and easily citable (especially for Pennsylvania), but I'm not sure if it is true. Many states with seacoasts maintained quite respectable artillery militia units, and Boston, New York, and Charleston, for a few examples, had a tradition of patrician cadet units which were generally competent infantry. Anmccaff (talk) 16:39, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Well, it's definitely not a state v. state issue... not really, although I'm sure you know as well as I do there were certainly communists/other radicals in the mix who would have liked it to be, but they weren't really necessarily the driving force, at least not in the style of something like the February Revolution. But I'm fine with categorizing it as history, probably the best way to summarize the odd mix of labor, economics, unrest, and politics that was 1877. TimothyJosephWood 16:46, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
