Dyer (1908) list of battles

name:dyer_engagements
path:dyer_engagements.csv
format:csv

Engagements and casualties in Frederick Dyer Compendium of the War of the Rebellion (1908)

This contains the engagements listed in Dyer’s Compendium, “Part II: Chronological Arrangement of the Campaigns, Battles, Engagements, Actions, Combats, Sieges, Skirmishes, Etc., in the United States, Connected with the War of the Rebellion, 1861 to 1865.” Dyer’s list is a tabular version of the engagements reported in the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. For each engagment it notes the location, type of engagement (action, skirmish, etc.), Union units engaged in the action, and Union casualties. It does not provide any information

Dyer’s description of the engagements was as follows (p. 581),

Campagains, Battles, Engagements, Skirmishes, etc. showing Union troops engaged in each event.

This list shows loss of only such campaigns, battles, skirmishes, etc., as were, in this particular, officially reported. The losses of many actions, skirmishes, erc. occuring in the various campaigns were included in the final statement of the campaign, making it impossible to give accurately the loss in each event. Many of the skirmishes and other events show no loss whatever, or report none. All important campaigns, battles, raids, etc., will be found on this list, however, showing losses as officially reported.

The data for events 1-9570 were extracted from the digitalized version of the battles in Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library. This corresponds to pages 662-991 of Dyer’s Compendium, ignoring indexes.

Events 9570+ were entered by hand from the original copy of Dyer’s Compendium since the Perseus digitalized version of Dyer’s Compendium did not include entries for events in “The Territories” and “Miscellaneous” (p. 984–991).

Sources: [DyerBattles], [dyer1908_war_rebel]

Schema

slug string slug
state string State
start_date date Start Date
end_date date End date
nature_location string nature_location
troops_engaged string troops_engaged
event_type string Event type
casualties integer Casualties
killed_wounded number Killed or Wounded
killed integer Killed
wounded integer Wounded
missing_captured number Missing Captured

slug

title:slug
type:string
format:default

state

title:

State

type:

string

format:

default

constraints:
pattern:[A-Z]{2}

State in which the event occurred. This uses the standard two letter abbreviations with the following exceptions.

  • “DT”: Dakota Territory
  • “OK”: anachronistically used for the Indian Territory
  • “FR”: France
  • “MX”: Mexico

start_date

title:Start Date
type:date
format:default

end_date

title:End date
type:date
format:default

nature_location

title:nature_location
type:string
format:default

troops_engaged

title:troops_engaged
type:string
format:default

event_type

title:Event type
type:string
format:default

Event type: action, skirmish, siege, etc

casualties

title:

Casualties

type:

integer

format:

default

constraints:
minimum:0

Union casualties (killed, wounded, and missing or captured).

killed_wounded

title:

Killed or Wounded

type:

number

format:

default

constraints:
minimum:0

Union killed or wounded

killed

title:

Killed

type:

integer

format:

default

constraints:
minimum:0

Union killed

wounded

title:

Wounded

type:

integer

format:

default

constraints:
minimum:0

Union wounded

missing_captured

title:

Missing Captured

type:

number

format:

default

constraints:
minimum:0

Union missing or captured