Talk:Union army

Name

Maybe I'm in a minority here in thinking this, but the US Army was still the US Army during the civil war and the United States was still the United States. Pages for the Confederate military and Confederate States don't refer to them as the "Rebel Army" or "Rebels (American Civil War)", right? I think it would make more sense as well as better conform by titling the page "United States Army (American Civil War)" and note in the opening paragraph that it was commonly called the Union Army during the war. Same goes for the Union (American Civil War) page. Spartan198 (talk) 11:33, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• Union and Union Army are original era terms used by both sides, also e.g. in their official records of the war; which btw. in the same is termed as War of the Rebellion. And Rebel Army was used, at least by the north, as well. ...GELongstreet (talk) 12:49, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• The Army University Press --the US Army's official multimedia publisher -- agrees with Spartan198 about the inappropriate use of "Union" in this context. See the statement on terminology:

While the historiography has traditionally referred to the “Union” in the American Civil War as “the northern states loyal to the United States government,” the fact is that the term “Union” always referred to all the states together, which clearly was not the situation at all. In light of this, the reader will discover that the word “Union” will be largely replaced by the more accurate “Federal Government” or “U.S. Government.” “Union forces” or “Union army” will largely be replaced by the terms “U.S. Army,” “Federals,” or “Federal Army.”

Recommend changing as Spartan198 has proposed. 170.249.138.130 (talk) 20:18, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

The Army University Press has every right to use the words it wants. However this does change neither the original nor the historiographical use of the term. Meanwhile the AUP continues to use the term itself, in respective quotes, so it doesn´t completely eliminate it either. If the AUPs decision has any clear influence on future historiography remains to be seen. ...GELongstreet (talk) 16:44, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Leaders

This section currently has one citation which only supports the information preceding it. (citation 9, " Eicher, pp. 37–38.")

Besides putting a "citation needed" tag on every following paragraph, is there a better option? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lontano1 (talk • contribs) 19:23, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Question the "Date Active"

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, and Hog Farm: Thoughts? Donner60 (talk) 09:35, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

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 Farm _Talk 12:40, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@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)

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)

The more I look at this, the more I see issues ... I can't get This 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 remember Donald 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 Farm _Talk 03:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

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 the First 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)

Ethnic composition

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)

Requested move 21 October 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested 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 a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Bobby Cohn (talk) 16:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

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Union Army → Union army – Per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS this is not consistently capped in sources. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:16, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

See this ngram search. Contexturalising this by searching the Union A|army gives a near identical result. A search of Google books here, 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)

• Support—ngram says it all. Tony (talk) 10:59, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support per MOS:CAPS, WP:NCCAPS, MOS:MIL. Clearly not a consistently capitalized proper name (i.e. a proper 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 was Confederate 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)

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.