Billy Mays of Data Sets

When looking at possible data sets for my research I could almost laugh. My research project is incredibly data-heavy and keeps being added to. I could do a data set about how class rank affected military rank in the class, or how far each cadet traveled, there are so many possibilities it is absolutely insane.

I actually have a data set that I am including in my project and it is the battles of the civil war that the cadets were in and how many cadets were in each battle/expedition/arsenal/etc. I believe that this data set can be best displayed through a map which I am working on through StoryMapJS.

I have already made many spreadsheets of this and also a couple of test maps, they have been updated continuously because there is always research and battles that I somehow missed the previous time. I went from 75 locations to 153 in the span of a couple of weeks, and even them some minor skirmishes and battles might be missing.

I like the layout and display of StoryMapJS and how you can add media to locations. There is one great problem however, you can only add slides in order. So say I missed a location on the previous data set, I can’t just go in and add in a location between slides, which is a problem when I have over 150 locations.

And if we really want to talk about data sets, my project is basically a giant mass of data sets. For every cadet I am doing a timeline. My timelines take the data of where each cadet went during the Civil War and what happened to him, including arsenals they stayed at, battles they fought, expeditions they went on, and other events in their lives such as marriages and death. I will also include what other cadets were in shared engagements, adding more data to an already dataful data set. I am doing this for all 38 cadets.

Not only am I doing a map and individual timelines, I am also compiling records from The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. I am not compiling all the records, but good lord it certainly feels like it. I am going through all 83 copies of The War of the Rebellion and finding the records about all my cadets. Every report, order of battle, casualty list, even every mention of each cadet will eventually be put on the page as well. The data set with this has to do with the books themselves and how many mentions each cadet has in companion to the timeline data set of where each cadet has been. 

Now, I have a great deal of data. I could not possibly need or want any more, right?

WRONG.

I could do so much more!

Not only could I do this for the class of June 1861, I could compile one for the May class as well.

I could do this for every West Point class that had cadets that served in the Civil War! It would be around 30 classes, with hundreds upon hundreds of cadets. So I should be lucky that I am starting so small, but it could be worse.

-Julia