Who, What, Why: How many soldiers died in the US Civil War?
About 26,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing after the Battle of Antietam, making 17 September 1862 one of the bloodiest days in US history
A study suggests a previously widely accepted death toll of the US Civil War may actually be way under the mark. How many did perish in this conflict, fought before the era of modern record-keeping and DNA identification?
The US Civil War was incontrovertibly the bloodiest, most devastating conflict in American history, and it remains unknown - and unknowable - exactly how many men died in Union and Confederate uniform.
Now, it appears a long-held estimate of the war's death toll could have undercounted the dead by as many as 130,000. That is 21% of the earlier estimate - and more than twice the total US dead in Vietnam.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17604991
modrepub
(3,500 posts)It was my understanding that the North stopped counting casualties as the 1864 election approached. Large death tolls had a negative effect on Union moral. Lincoln wasn't really assured victory until Sherman won the Atlanta Campaign mainly thanks to Davis' promotion of Gen Bragg. Figure the South never really kept solid records.
provis99
(13,062 posts)modrepub
(3,500 posts)UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Most people from the west, mid west, north, new england don't call themselves northerners, mid westerners nor new englanders however
Southerners still have that regional self identification.
The new york times article on the war had the mortality raised 20 percent with agreement with most scholars.
NY Times
New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll
But new research shows that the numbers were far too low.
By combing through newly digitized census data from the 19th century, J. David Hacker, a demographic historian from Binghamton University in New York, has recalculated the death toll and increased it by more than 20 percent to 750,000.
The new figure is already winning acceptance from scholars. Civil War History, the journal that published Dr. Hackers paper, called it among the most consequential pieces ever to appear in its pages. And a pre-eminent authority on the era, Eric Foner, a historian at Columbia University, said:
The old figure dates back well over a century, the work of two Union Army veterans who were passionate amateur historians: William F. Fox and Thomas Leonard Livermore.
Fox, who had fought at Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, knew well the horrors of the Civil War. He did his research the hard way, reading every muster list, battlefield report and pension record he could find.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html?_r=2
libinnyandia
(1,374 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,588 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,386 posts)Thanks for the thread, dipsydoodle.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)and there were so many non-regulars fighting, especially towards the end
Judi Lynn
(160,588 posts)Jerry Frey
(32 posts)Please visit my photo essay honoring the Blue and Gray.
http://napoleonlive.info/see-the-evidence/sesquicentennial-of-the-civil-war-2/