Talk:Second Seminole War

	NOTICE, please do not remove from top of page.
	This article is substantially the same as one I contributed to Wikipedia in October, 2006. It consists entirely of my own research and writing. (I originally rewrote almost all of the Seminole Wars article, including all of the section on the Second Seminole War.) Therefore, while a substantially similar version has been released under the GFDL, as the copywrite holder, I am contributing this version to Citizendium.
	Donald Albury 12:11, 12 August 2007 (CDT)

Excellent article!

Apologies for not having noticed it until you put the related articles link under U.S. Army.

Speaking as a Military Workgroup Editor, it may be in striking distance of Approval. I need to see if I can get access to some of your sources from libraries here, or if you can suggest anything online.

It might be able to use some visual tweaking, perhaps with more subheads -- shorter blocks of text might be easier to read. {{TOC|right}} would clear up some of the whitespace at the top.

In my own military history writing, I do like to make references to other times and places, especially how we can learn from the past. There are parts I want to reread, but, for example, there might well be some comparisons, or at least links, from the mosquito fleet to, variously, brown-water riverine operations in Vietnam, as well as to more recent and general littoral concepts. Only recently, I learned about some fairly important river security operations in Iraq. I will have further suggestions after ingesting more coffee. Howard C. Berkowitz 13:57, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I've intended to work more on this for quite a while. I had written most of this before I acquired Mahon's History, which is the most important secondary source on the subject, and would like to rework the article using that source (much of what is cited to other works derives from Mahon). Some of the web sites I cited seem to no longer be available, and one or two of the sites are of unknown reliability.

I wrote this for Wikipedia, which means that I had to avoid synthesis and drawing conclusions, but I did try to lay out the facts that suggest parallels with the Vietnam War. The choice of what to include and what to leave out is somewhat idiosyncratic; it represents what I found interesting, both from my perspective as a Florida native and from my interest in the history of Indians in Florida.

I know that some of the sub-headings are awkward, and the size of sections had as much to do with how much text would fit in the window of my browser as it did with anything else. Another issue is how much to keep in this article and how much to place in articles on related topics, such as the Treaty of Moultrie Creek, the Treaty of Payne's Landing and the Dade Massacre. I was all for creating lots of little articles in Wikipedia; I'm not so sure that is a good idea here.

I was able to find all the print sources I used in my local library and/or book stores, but I live in Florida. As I said, Mahon would be the most comprehensive source to look at. I was able to buy the 1985 Revised Edition (1992 paperback printing) in a book store a couple of years ago. I would hope that any decent U.S. university library would have a copy. -- Donald Albury 21:07, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

It's fair to say that there are several Editors that think that solid synthesis is something we should encourage, as a key difference from WP. As an example — and I welcome feedback — I totally rewrote the earlier article, which, frankly, was more ideological than accurate. Anyway, I backed away and took a broader look; there are now an extensive series of articles Vietnam wars, in which the 1962-1975 period is Vietnam War. It's hard to understand the Battle of Khe Sanh without some background in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and, in turn, DBP needs some context from Battle of Na San and other Viet Minh battles. There should be some flowcharts of the articles on the talk pages.

I took Vietnam wars back to the French colonization (and forward to 1999), and then have some scattered articles such as Nguyen Dynasty and Dai Viet.

You'll see an article, with subarticles, on Vietnamese Communist grand strategy, which I think is legitimate synthesis rather than original research. To give you an idea where I see the line not to cross into original research, see Battle of the Ia Drang, and the stating of the NVA options had they actually managed to break through — or if they ever intended to try. I set out the possibilities but draw no conclusion.

Let me check, then, on the books. I'm on Cape Cod, which doesn't really have university libraries but there are some pretty interesting interlibrary loan systems.Howard C. Berkowitz 21:46, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll have to look at those articles, although not tonight; I had wine with dinner. I have a certain personal interest in the Vietnam War, having spent 8 months there in '68-69. I'm a little leery of injecting too much of my opinion/viewpoint into articles; I have no training or work experience in history (and no interest in working on articles in my areas of academic or work experience).

There are related articles that can be written. There are, of course, the First and Third Seminole Wars, and at a slight remove, the seizure of Fernandina from Spain in 1812 by the "Patriot Army" of volunteers from Georgia, which involved fighting with the Seminoles. In the end, of course, it is one vast web of connections. -- Donald Albury 23:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)