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

battle_id integer battle_id
event_type string Event type
state string State
year integer Year
battle_name string Battle Name
start_date date Start Date
end_date date End date
text string Text
casualties integer Casualties
killed integer Killed
wounded integer Wounded
killed_wounded number Killed or Wounded
missing_captured number Missing Captured

battle_id

title:battle_id
type:integer
format:default

event_type

title:Event type
type:string
format:default

Event type: action, skirmish, siege, etc

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

year

title:

Year
type:

integer
format:

default
constraints:
minimum:1860
maximum:1865

Year of the event.

battle_name

title:Battle Name
type:string
format:default

start_date

title:Start Date
type:date
format:default

end_date

title:End date
type:date
format:default

text

title:Text
type:string
format:default

Original text of the engagement, including the Union forces involved.

casualties

title:

Casualties
type:

integer
format:

default
constraints:
minimum:0

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

killed

title:

Killed
type:

integer
format:

default
constraints:
minimum:0

Union killed

wounded

title:

Wounded
type:

integer
format:

default
constraints:
minimum:0

Union wounded

killed_wounded

title:

Killed or Wounded
type:

number
format:

default
constraints:
minimum:0

Union killed or wounded

missing_captured

title:

Missing Captured
type:

number
format:

default
constraints:
minimum:0

Union missing or captured