This article is within the scope of theMilitary history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see alist of open tasks. To use this banner, please see thefull instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history
This article has been checked against the followingcriteria for B-class status:
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to theUnited States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions.
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofpolitics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject African diaspora, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofAfrican diaspora on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.African diasporaWikipedia:WikiProject African diasporaTemplate:WikiProject African diasporaAfrican diaspora
There is no reference cited for the starting "active" date of the Union Army of February 28, 1861 in the infobox. The date of formation or beginning active date is not mentioned in the text of the article. I have found no support for this date in some quick research. I plan to research this a little further but I don't see how the "Union Army" could possibly have existed or been referred to any earlier than Lincoln's call for volunteers on April 15, 1861, or perhaps a little later with the formal formation of the first volunteer regiments or some general order of organization. Before that, only the United States Army, which is to say the small Regular Army, was in existence. I propose to remove this infobox item if no support for it can be found and cited because it seems to me to be unsupportable.@GELongstreet,BusterD,Djmaschek, andHog Farm: Thoughts?Donner60 (talk)09:35, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm awake from my books this week so I can't do the sort of research I'd like to do right now but I can't think of a good rationale for that date so I agree with removal for now. And trimming the command dates for Scott and Grant to only include the years the Union Army was active. A secondary question - I can't think of anything I've read that indicated that Battle Hymn was an official marching song, and there were other popular marching songs. I'm not entirely convinced that it should be in the infobox.Hog FarmTalk12:40, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Hog Farm: I agree. I was looking at the article for a particular fact and did not read the whole article. I would not be surprise if there are other questionable entries, problems or mistakes in this article.Donner60 (talk)22:47, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is my opinion but if pressed I can probably find sources for it: the Union Army only happens in retrospect, when written about AFTER the war. The Official Record will back me up on this point. There was no Union Army during the Civil War, not as a set of units called the "Union Army". I know several here have seen me write this: the north had the U.S. Army, which consisted of regular army units AND included volunteer state or militia units. I can't imagine where the February 28 date comes from. On 28 Feb, Buchanan was still president. If I were to pick a date as most likely, I would choose the May 17 commission roster of U.S. Army generals which lists general officers in seniority order as of that date, and for the first time separates the generals U.S.A. from the generals U.S.V. Some of the men listed, Banks, for instance, were technically civilians until that list was published. To my knowledge this is the first time in the conflict where volunteer commands were led by commissioned general officers. Boatner's CW Dictionary uses this date relentlessly as the beginning of virtually every Federal general commission. Scott, Wool and Harney were already generals, Twiggs was dismissed, Sumner was raised to brigadier to date from March 13. Everybody else got rank on May 17, after the Senate confirmed the nominees of May 13.BusterD (talk)03:08, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The more I look at this, the more I see issues ... I can't getThis means that about 1,600,000 enlistments were made by men who were born in the United States to square well with the table, and I'm a bit concerned that the Canadian and French Canadian inclusions in that table may be at least partially duplicating each other, although that information has been there (in a somewhat different form) since 2004. The administration and issues section seems quite bloated, with some information probably being better off in the subarticles. I also think that the motivations section can be improved, with a better discussion of how it shifted from being an army to preserve the Union to an army for freedom. (I rememberDonald L. Miller's work on Vicksburg hitting on this a bit, as well as several other books I've read). I don't have much of the sourcing used here, and I'm not sure that much of what I have would be all that useful, as my personal library is pretty skewed towards Trans-Mississippi/Western theater.Hog FarmTalk03:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Boatner (under "Union Army") gave a date of 22 July 1861 when Congress authorized a volunteer army of 500,000 soldiers. Note, however, that is one day after theFirst Battle of Bull Run. On 15 April, Lincoln asked for 75,000 3-month militia, followed by a 3 May call for 42,000 3-year volunteers and 22,700 regulars. So 15 April 1861 may be a more accurate date. There is really no definitive date.Djmaschek (talk)04:13, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is a list in the article about the alleged ethnic composition of Union enlistments, some of the numbers are supported by sources, but the percentage doesn't seem to be, in particular, the claim that only 45,4% of the Union Army were American-born whites seems dubious, is there any source to support it? I think the list should be removed until good sources are provided.2804:248:FB83:F400:D4CB:241F:B845:3FA8 (talk)19:24, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
--- jfm's responseI've researched this subject extensively. 1. The sources aren't accurate. They appear to be based on the primary source for the subject, The Sanitary Commission Report of 1869: Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics of the American Soldiers. Since place of birth was only recorded for about 60% of the soldiers, the San Comm report estimated the remainder of the nativities. 2 While it is safe to say 72% of the soldiers were born in the USA, the San Comm estimates for immigrant soldiers and those published here are inaccurate. Using modern analytic techniques and the large U of Chicago soldier sample here are accurate nativity percentages: Irish 9.2%, German 8.7%, British Empire other than Ireland (primarily England, Scotland and Canada) 7.5%, other 2.6%, and US 72%3. The current table should be deleted. Feel free to use mine if you like. I intend to publish sometime in the future.4. Whoever added the section on Italians must be Italian. While they were part of the Army, they were not present in great numbers.— Precedingunsigned comment added by2600:8800:470A:F500:11C4:66B2:F059:4A51 (talk)22:31, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following is a closed discussion of arequested move.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider amove review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Seethis ngram search. Contexturalising this by searchingthe Union A|army gives a near identical result. A search of Google bookshere, confirms the context - ie the term is not to any significant extent referring to anything other than the subject of this article.Cinderella157 (talk)10:22, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support perMOS:CAPS,WP:NCCAPS,MOS:MIL. Clearly not a consistently capitalized proper name (i.e. aproper noun phrase). "Union army" is one of several descriptive shorthand appellations, while actual the proper name, always capitalized, of the army in question was the "United States Army". Similarly, the proper name of the opposing force wasConfederate States Army, and various descriptive terms for it like "Confederate army", "Southern army" ("Southern" is usually capitalized in this sense), "rebel army", etc.) are not consistently capitalized as [if] proper names. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 17:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
"Among memorable field leaders of the army were Nathaniel Lyon (first Union general to be killed in battle during the war), William Rosecrans, George Henry Thomas, William Tecumseh Sherman, Phil Sheridan, and Benjamin F. Butler".
