Having established some data about Washington's casualty rates in battle, one now needs to put some perspective on those figures by looking at his contemporaries. Let's start with his opponents in his battles.
Long Island (1776) 2 percent
Harlem Heights (1776) 1 percent
Trenton (1776) 8 percent
Princeton (1777) 2 percent
Brandywine (1777) 6 percent
Germantown (1777) 4 percent
Monmouth (1778) 2 percent
Yorktown (1781) 5 percent
Total for 8 battles 3 percent
The total for eight battles is about the same. To be more precise, one could show that Washington is at 3.3 percent, while his opponents are 3.1 percent. Of course, there are all sorts of factors to take into account in analysing these figures, but let's continue to play around with data before we start drawing conclusion.
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
The BBC's Radio 4 has a show called "In Our Time" that is fascinating if you have only a little knowledge about the topic. I missed that a few months ago they covered the Charge of the Light Brigade. I'm not sure if the link works for North American visitors to the blog, but if you have a sketchy knowledge of the Crimean War and want to know more in an easily digestible form, point your browsers here.
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