Fox (1898) battle outcomes

name:fox_outcomes path:fox_outcomes.csv format:csv

Battle outcome from William F. Fox Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865: A Treatise on the extent and nature of the mortuary losses in the Union regiments, with full and exhaustive statistics compiled from the official records on file in the state military bureaus and at Washington. Chapter 14 “The Greatest Battles of the War, list of victories and defeats, chronological list of battles with loss in each, Union and Confederate”. Available from Perseus.

Fox categorizes battles by their outcome for a subset of those battles for which casualty figures are provided, in Fox (1898) battle casualties (revised). In some cases, the battle definitions are slightly different.

In Chapter 14, p. 541-543 Fox has several tables classifying battles into victories for each side. Both his categories and classifications are similar to Livermore (1900).

In connection with these matters the question naturally arises,–Which were victories, and which were defeats?

To answer fairly and without prejudice would only invite bitter and senseless criticism from both sides. It is too soon to attempt any discussion of this much vexed topic. Still, there are certain conceded facts relative to this matter which one might venture to recall to mind. They may be premised with the military axioms,–that when an army retains possession of the battle field and buries its enemy’s dead, it certainly cannot be considered as a defeated army; and that when an army abandons the field, either slowly or in rout, and leaves its dead and wounded in the hands of the enemy, it certainly should not claim a victory.

Fox classifies battle outcomes into the following five categories,

In the following named battles the Union armies remained in undisturbed possession of the field, the enemy leaving many of their wounded, and most of their dead unburied

The Union armies were successful, also, in the following assaults. They were the attacking party, and carried the forts, or intrenched positions, by storm.

In the following battles, the Confederates remained in undisturbed possession of the field, the Union armies leaving its unburied dead and many of its wounded in their hands:

In the following assaults the Confederates successfully repulsed the attacks of the enemy

In the following assaults, or sorties, the Confederates were the attacking party, and were repulsed

With regards to battles not considered, Fox writes,

Other instances on each side could be mentioned, but they would invite discussion and are better omitted.

Sources: [fox1898regimental]

Schema

victor	string	Victor
victory_type	string	Victory type
battle_name	string	Battle name
state	string	State
cwsac_id	string	CWSAC Id.

victor

title:

Victor

type:

string

format:

default

constraints:

enum:[‘Union’, ‘Confederate’]

victory_type

title:

Victory type

type:

string

format:

default

constraints:

enum:[‘victory’, ‘assualt’, ‘defense’]

battle_name

title:Battle name type:string format:default

state

title:

State

type:

string

format:

default

constraints:

minLength:2 maxLength:2 pattern:[A-Z]{2}

cwsac_id

title:

CWSAC Id.

type:

string

format:

default

constraints:

pattern:[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{3}[A-Z]?

Battle identifier in CWSAC (CWSAC Report battle data: battles).

Sources: [fox1898regimental]