User talk:Yksin/BWR

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This is a user talk page devoted solely to discussion of improvements of the draft article at User:Yksin/BWR, which is an attempt to create an NPOV version of the Battle of Washita River article for later presentation to other involved editors. Any user may comment on this page, within the normal bounds of civil discussion on Wikipedia. For comments unrelated to this draft article, see my talk page.--Yksin 21:20, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Changes

I added some notes in the text, hope that's cool. And then I removed that horrible paragraph from the intro about where the accounts come from. Totally unneccessary. I added the "fact" tag to the infobox, but I'll just cite it. The computer is kinda acting funny, so I had to hurry. Murderbike 21:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw you'd been editing. Yeehaw. I'm doing a bunch of reading; yesterday my main thing was just doing those italic notes about the things that seemed necessary to say in each section, to be filled in by "real" writing later. Doing that really made it clear what a truly poor article this is at the moment, whether talking about this one or the version currently enshrined under full protection. It misses most of what even makes the event interesting or significant. I will be working a lot on it tonight, I think, mainly using Hoig & Greene as sources for now. --Yksin 21:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm gonna try to get at least one of those (probably Greene) from the library, if the Seattle library will give me a card. I'll be in and out all weekend, though the computer's acting a little funky. Hopefully we can get Felix c to hang around, and Phaedriel to deal with those other copyvios. erg. Murderbike 22:01, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Seattle is where I was on my trip at the beginning of the month. Hope you can can that card! Yes, it'd be good to have Felix c, just that the source he was using isn't a reliable one -- but those newspaper accoutns are probably okay, may need to be verified. --Yksin 22:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Cites in the enshrined article

I have the firm impression the CW takes lousy notes in which he doesn't bother to write down accurate page numbers, & then when it comes time to work on an article he just makes up page numbers on the fly rather than trying to the reference down to be sure. This is at least the fourth or fifth page number he's gotten wrong. And he called me "amateur"?

I take it you've found a copy of Hoig's book? It's a good book, though missing some of the stuff that Greene or Hardorff have found. Hoig's discussion of Clara Blinn, for instance, completely misses the info from both Gen. Hazen & the scout Ben Clark that say she was held in an Arapaho camp. But all the same a damn good account -- which just as with Greene's account has all kinds of info that CW neglected because it didn't fit his POV. A couple of nights ago BTW I looked really carefully at accounts of the return of Custer, along with Sheridan & the Nineteenth Kansas, two weeks after the battle, when they looked over the battleground & also found the bodies of Elliott & his men, as well as those of Clara & Willie Blinn. On that trip they camped on Dec. 10 "along the north side of the Washita River, a scant five or so miles below the ashes of Black Kettle's destroyed village" according to Greene, p. 171; according to Hoig, p. 153, "going into camp on its [the Washita's] north bank at the top of the oxbow some eight miles below the battle site." This is important because the route of travel they took the next day, & what they found where along the way, is further evidence that the Blinns were not found in Black Kettle's camp. On the morning of December 11, the party (1) followed the Washita along its north bank westward for about one & a half hours before approaching the burnt-out village, from about the same direction/route Elliott's column had taken during the initial attack; (2) spent some time in the village & its vicinity on the south side of the river; (3) moved eastward over a ridge, where they found the bodies of Elliott & his men; (4) moved eastward back to their own camp. Per Hoig, p. 160, "Sheridan and Custer continued on back along the south side of the river to camp. A detachment of the 19th Kansas followed more closely to the river's bank, and Doctor Bailey of that unit made another discovery. The bodies of a white woman and a small child of about two years were found." That being Clara & Willie Blinn. But it's clear from the direction they were going -- heading east from where Major Elliott & men had been found -- that the Blinns' bodies were found quite a ways downstream (east) of Black Kettle's camp. And if you look at the map of which tribes were camped where along the Washita, the most likely camp for them to have been found in was that of the Arapahos, just as Hazen & Clark claimed.

Of course, we can't say that about the map, unless we find a source that says it. But we can say that their bodies were found downstream of where Elliott's command was found. Which amounts to further substantiation that they weren't in Black Kettle's camp.

I've been working very intensely on one area, namely the visit by Black Kettle & Big Mouth (Arapaho) to Ft. Cobb around Nov. 20 to talk w/ Hazen, & then their return to their camps on the Washita on the evening of Nov. 26. It is so damn incredible, the timing: Black Kettle held council in his lodge into the early hours of the 27th about what to do about the disturbing news he brought back from Ft. Cobb -- that soldiers under Sheridan were going to make war on them, & that they had no choice but to deal directly with him for peace -- & what to do about it. They decided to send runners to seek out Sheridan & to try sending a delegation to him to try to make peace; they decided to move the village the next day to be closer for security purposes to all the other villages. But when the next day dawned, it was to the tune of "Garry Owen." And this was on top of having had at least two indicators that there might be soldiers near -- one from the Kiowa party that returned from raiding on the Utes the night of the 26th, who had seen a big trail around the Antelope Hills, which may have been mentioned at Black Kettle's council, but no one believed that the soldiers would be operating so far south of the Arkansas in such cold wintry conditions. The other (not found in Hoig, but in a note on p. 238 in Greene) was from a young warrior named Crow Neck who had gone on the 26th to retrieve a pony he'd left there to rest, & he thought he saw soldiers up there. He told another Cheyenne about what he'd seen, but the other guy thought maybe he was just being paranoid out of guilt for having been part of the unauthorized raiding in Kansas. & Crow neck didn't tell anyone else apparently in fear he'd be laughed at or that he'd be chastised by Black Kettle for taking part in raiding.

Anyway, hoping to get some of that text placed in our draft article soon. I am not going to worry for now if it's sorta long... for now, I'd rather err in the direction of completeness, & we can edit down later if we feel the article is growing too long.

Hope you're enjoying Seattle. Hope it's not too hot there. I'm an Alaskan -- it was way too hot down there for me a couple weeks ago. --Yksin 04:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Heh, that's funny, just today some Alaskans I encountered were complaining about the heat. I'm loving it, having just returned from Arizona. When I complained about the heat down there, folks kept saying "it's not even a 100 yet". But anyway, I did find Hoig today, but the Seattle library doesn't have Greene unfortunately. Shit, computer's fucked, be right back. Murderbike 06:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, anyway, I found this other book, edited I think by a John Carrol, that was basically a compilation of primary sources on the battle. BUT, it was too big to bring home on my bike. But I'll probably spend some time in the library with it, just kind of double checking stuff with it. Hmmm, I guess that's it for now, i'll try to do some more reading in Hoig, and keep checking on your progress and try to put in some myself. Let me know if there's something specific I can do. Murderbike 17:32, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Whole buncha stuff added on Indian side of things

Hey Murderbike,

I just added a whole lotta new stuff about what was going on in November on Black Kettle's side of things -- the meeting of Black Kettle & three other chiefs with Hazen at Fort Cobb on November 20, as well as what was going on in Black Kettle's camp the night before the attack. It would help if you could go through proofreading & wikifying, & maybe if you have some suggestions for better headers/subheaders.

I think I'm now going to concentrate on what the army was doing in November leading up to the battle. Once that material is finished, maybe the level 2 header for this part should be called "November 1868" with activities of the army & the Indians alternating to make the subsections (with level 3 headers) more-or-less chronological.

I saw last night that HanzoHattori had added a lot of less-than-helpful stuff to the aticle talk page, & now Phaedriel has given one more day for acceptance of mediation. I am soooooo sick & tired of both HH's & CW's endless carping at each other. I guess I carp about both of them myself, but it feels lots better to be doing this. --Yksin 22:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I did a little bit, though mostly just typos and such, I don't think my brain's fresh enough to do much more til tomorrow. Have you mentioned this page to Phaedriel? I couldn't decide if it was a good idea or not to tell her that we were trying to take care of this outside of the talk page madness of HH and CW. Murderbike 06:56, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

No, hadn't mentioned it... should I? Off to bed now.... --Yksin 07:36, 23 July 2007 (UTC)