How To

  • This data visualization and its tabular data are best viewed on a laptop/desktop screen
  • Each circle is an American Revolution battle. Circle size represents total troops engaged.
  • Hover over a circle to view details associated with that battle
  • Click the "Highlight American vs. British victories" button to color-code all the circles (blue = American victory, red = British victory). Note that the Battle of Monmouth was a draw, so it does not light up as either blue or red.
  • Select a value from one of the 4 dropdown filters (Battle, Winner, State, Year) to highlight those circles in purple. For example, select "New Jersey" from the State dropdown to highlight those circles which are battles that took place in the state of New Jersey.
  • There is tabular data below the data visualization. Each row in the table corresponds to one battle/circle. If you have applied a filter to the data visualization and a subset of circles are highlighted, then you will only see those rows in the table below.
  • The table columns can be sorted by clicking a column heading
  • The very last row in the table shows totals for each column. This is helpful when trying to answer questions such as how many troops from all battles in the state of New York were killed in the American Revolution.
  • You can further filter the table by entering text in the "Filter table" textbox. An example when the full table is displayed is typing "cornwallis" to see only the battles he was involved with.
  • All dates in table column #1 are in the format YYYY-MM-DD. The table is sorted by default to be chronological from top to bottom (but you can sort the table any way you like). If you want to search on a specific year, just search for 1777. If you want to search on a specific month, enter a search like 1777-09 (for Sept 1777). If you want to see only the battles that occured during the month of December, regardless of year, search for "-12-"

Historical Notes

  • The British won more major engagements than the Americans
  • Early in the war, George Washington actually lost more major battles than he won, yet still achieved the decisive strategic outcome: American independence
  • The crossing of the Delaware River and the surprise attack at the Battle of Trenton (December 26, 1776) is one of the most celebrated actions in the American Revolutionary War. It was a remarkable combination of strategy, timing, and luck, and the fact that the Continental Army suffered zero military casualties makes it an extraordinary achievement. This single event is often credited with saving the Continental Army from collapse in late 1776.
  • French involvement in the American Revolutionary War was crucial to the ultimate success of the Continental Army, and many historians argue that American independence would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, without it. George Washington's Continental Army could not have trapped British General Cornwallis without the French fleet controlling Chesapeake Bay and French ground forces joining the siege at Yorktown.
  • Battle casualties during the American Revolution were significantly less than those during the U.S. Civil War by an order of magnitude

About

  • The data source is largely from The Concise Illustrated History of the American Revolution published by American History Illustrated in 1972
  • The numbers for killed, wounded, and captured in the data source are sometimes combined. For example, "160k & w" is interpreted to be 160 total killed and wounded. Because no separate numbers for killed and wounded are supplied, this site splits the number evenly. In this case, 80 killed and 80 wounded.
  • The data source may be missing some numbers for killed, wounded and captured. These appear as zero.
  • There were other engagements or skirmishes that are not included in the data source
  • The Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) honor our Revolutionary War patriot ancestors by promoting patriotism, serving our communities and educating and inspiring future generations about the founding principles of our country. This site was created by a Son of the American Revolution.