Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Attack on Harper's Ferrypass5.jpg

Harper's Ferry, 1862[edit]

Reason: An original Union Army manuscript map of the army positions for the Battle of Harper's Ferry, September 14-15, 1862. Restored version of Image:Attack on Harper's Ferry.jpg.
Articles this image appears in: Battle of Harpers Ferry, Robert Knox Sneden
Creator: Robert Knox Sneden

Support as nominator --Durova^Charge! 18:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I think this image should be either more cropped or less. The map was pasted into a diary, and the same handwriting as the purple caption is present in the borders that were cropped out. Was Robert Knox Sneden the creator of the map, or did he just collect and annotate it? If the latter, it might be better to crop to the black lines. If the former (which it looks like from the hand), I think more the page should be kept, including the different top caption, the page number, and the cross-reference. There should also be a link to whatever is on page 1072, if at all possible.--ragesoss (talk) 19:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Sigh, I was a little concerned that someone might head in that direction, but expected I'd have time to create Robert Knox Sneden and didn't anticipate a comment so soon that went so far. Private Sneden organized his diary after the war. It is over 5000 pages long, more than 4500 of which are text. I have located digitizations for most of the illustrations but for none of text pages, and to the best of my knowledge the principal text has never been published. He was a mapmaker for the Union Army. There are several ways an image such as this one could be restored and my intention is to get as close as possible to the appearance of the document when it was newly created. My hope is that for a moment the viewer of this image can imagine himself or herself in the uniform of a Union colonel, holding the field map in hand, and comparing it to the campfires from the enemy army on the other hill. That is why I cropped its proportions very close to the original paper dimensions and discarded the later diary notes that added very little direct value to the image (just a page reference and a rephrasing of the caption). Your suggestions would be very appropriate if this FPC called Diary of an American Civil War soldier, but that image would appear at different articles and I would probably select a different page for that. Durova^Charge! 19:33, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - The cross references makes it seem like page 1072 is another image, but if it's just text then that's that. A bit more context would be helpful on the description page. I think the bottom caption should be cropped or cloned out if you want it to be close to the original map, since it looks like that caption was added after the map was originally created (but maybe before it went into the diary). This is just my suggestion, but if you feel strongly about that I don't think it's a huge problem.--ragesoss (talk) 20:02, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - Thanks. I got a little tiny start into the page. Will expand it in a few hours. Durova^Charge! 20:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. We seem to have scared everyone off. When I look at it again, the map itself is just too good an image not to support, regardless of the context issues discussed above.--ragesoss (talk) 19:50, 27 July 2008 (UTC)--ragesoss (talk) 19:50, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Very encyclopaedic, good job. --Meldshal (§peak to me) 21:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Too good not to pass. =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support per ragesoss. Mostlyharmless (talk) 12:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:Attack on Harper's Ferrypass5.jpg MER-C 06:28, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]