Talk:Charles F. Mercer

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A fact from Charles F. Mercer appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 October 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Virginia politician Charles F. Mercer switched between five different political parties during his 22-year service in the United States Congress?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/October.

Wikipedia

Unsourced/POV Edits - September 2008[edit]

Recent edits have asserted these without providing a source, reliable or otherwise: claiming that legislative debates in the wake of Gabriel Prosser's conspiracy were secret, giving specifics on Mercer's political inclinations (beyond or modifying the NPOV text already present in the topic) and commenting on personal attacks on Mercer. The latest edit provides only unveriable/obscure sources. Some of the existing data in the topic is removed, no editing rationale has been provided. Looks like either (a) original research or (b) cut/paste from some third-party unspecified source. Tedickey (talk) 11:00, 25 September 2008 (UTC

The fact that sources appear obscure to Tedickey hardly makes the "obscure." One of those labeled as such by Ted, Mercer's 1845 book, may be purchased on amazon. Or the fact that the Virginia legislature held the post-Gabriel conspiracy behind closed doors and then kept the debates out of most copies of their official record is hardly news and first appeared in P.J. Staudenraus's 1961 book on colonization and Liberia. This is the problem with wikipedia; people who have no clue what they are saying can seize control of an entry. Ted needs to spend more time reading early national history and less vandalizing entries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Egertondr (talk • contribs) 20:59, 26 September 2008

Well, then you could start by sourcing it properly. So far it doesn't look as if you're doing more than making assertions. Tedickey (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For instance, if you are indeed "Douglas R. Egerton", I'd have expected a better presentation than something which appears to have been written by a high school student. Presumably the edits yesterday were not your work, so let's see your edits. Have a nice day. Tedickey (talk) 21:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The book's available (actually not all that good - too much opinion as I recall it). But a more constructive approach would be to add reliably-sourced material. So far, no progress. Tedickey (talk) 22:41, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Confederate generals[edit]

Neither of the first cousins mentioned in this article, Robert S. Garnett (congressman) or James M. Garnett, was a Confederate general. A quick glance at the linked articles will show that both died before the American Civil War.

Apparently, back in 2007, a well-meaning editor confused Robert S. with another Robert S. Garnett, possibly the son of the first, who was in fact in the Confederate Army. He in turn had a cousin and West Point classmate, Richard B. Garnett, who was killed in Pickett's Charge. Once the two Roberts were confused, it was a quick and hasty step to mistake James F. for Richard B.

What this all shows is that the Garnett family articles need more work. Rklear (talk) 21:26, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

more work needed[edit]

I cleaned this up using the standard Leonard directory of Virginia General Assembly as well as the Appleton's Cyclopedia entry on ancestry.com (which didn't list a volume number). I could not locate him in the 1840 and 1850 census, and also could not find any indicia of marriage. Also, I was unable to the consult article or book cited in the bibliography, which I downgraded to "See also" because the article before I started did not make sense chronologically or in terms of topics. Though many in the ACS had what now seems racist attitudes, I cut material attributing such to him without citing any source.Jweaver28 (talk) 21:27, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]