Southern Civilian Deaths in the Civil War

unionblue

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Member of the Year
Joined
Feb 20, 2005
Location
Ocala, FL (as of December, 2015).
To All,

I recently returned from vacation and one of the stops I made was at the new Visitor's Center at Gettysburg.

There, while touring the many exhibits, I saw the figure that 50,000 Southern civilians lost their lives during the Civil War.

Anyone else have information on this figure? Right? Wrong? In the ball park?

Any additional information and views would be appreciated.

Sincerely,
Unionblue
 
Yes its the Uni of Hawai democide figure, from Hummles research ito death by governents. I think ive given you alink to it in the past when i used the number myself.http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/ but you will have to hunt around the site for the data sets and cites where he corrolated the figures from.
 
That's certainly Not a combat figure

Fifty thousand is probably a little low for civilian deaths due to starvation and a combination of malnutrition/disease.

The Southern states were not prepared for war and basically could not sustain such a war, without death in the civilian ranks.
By 1862, the Confederate government had drawn so many eligible soldiers to its ranks, there were few left to help feed the civilians.

The battle book historians would ignore this cost of the war; a cost never really calculated by the Confederate founding fathers, when seceding. Of course, starvation would never sell any battle book.

One need only see the mention of General Lee's army running out of rations or trying to survive on short rations.
One need only read the Confederate War Clerk's diary on the cost of food in Richmond, to note the Confederacy had a serious food problem.

One need only read of the Richmond food riot, to know people were not properly feed in many areas of the Confederacy.

I haven't done an extensive study, but the shortage of food is only one of the reasons the Confederacy should never have seceded. Plus the logistical inability to move food around from surplus areas to areas in need.

I saved this letter sent to Jefferson Davis in 1862. What an abysmal way of running a war.



RALEIGH, N. C., December 11, 1862.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President of the Confederate States of America:

DEAR SIR: The undersigned, senators and representatives from the Tenth Congressional District of North Carolina, now attending the General Assembly, desire to call your attention to the following statement of facts:

The people living in the counties composing the Tenth Congressional District own comparatively but few slaves, and have, therefore, to rely mainly upon white labor for the cultivation of their lands and their supplies of provisions. In nearly all the counties we represent the number of volunteers and conscripts furnished to the Confederate Army is almost equal to our entire voting population. This district is composed of fifteen counties. These counties do not [contain] as many slaves, all told, as some single counties in the middle and eastern divisions of the State. It is manifest, then, that the levies made by the conscript law upon our section have well-night stripped us of our laboring population. We further state that with aid of the conscripts during the last summer we have been unable to produce sufficient supplies for the present winter and coming spring. We hope, however, by the strictest economy and the abandonment of a portion of our live stock to prevent actual starvation. It must be borne in mind, nevertheless, that great privation and suffering are inevitable. We could cite hundreds of instances where three or four families of women, numbering from ten to fifteen children, have been thrown together into one house, not having so much as a boy large enough to go to mill. These noble women or now aided by the few scattering men who remain at home. But if the remaining conscripts, from thirty-five to forty or forty-five, are enrolled and ordered into camp, it can result in nothing short of actual starvation among some of these helpless women and children. Moreover, it will be impossible for the few old men and boys remaining at home to cultivate one half the amount of land that was cultivated last summer in that section, and hence the danger of a general famine through that entire district. This section of the State which we represent is very mountainous and remote from railroad facilities, and cannot, therefore, procure provisions from abroad.

We are free, thought the task is an unpleasant one, to state another fact. Most of the cases of desertion among the soldiers from that section have been produced by the sufferings of their families and parents at home. We challenge the Confederacy to produce a more loyal and brave people than ours, and instance as an example the glorious Sixteenth North Carolina Regiment. Yet with all their loyalty, if the law be enforced and the remaining conscripts be taken, it will produce the deepest discontent and dissatisfaction among the soldiers already in the field form that section. We had reason to expect that you would have exempted that section from any further call.

In view of the foregoing facts we respectfully ask that you will suspend the enforcement of the conscript law in the Tenth Congressional District of North Carolina. We now appeal with confidence to you in behalf of these helpless women and children, believing that you cannot consent to see any one section of our beloved Confederacy reduced to actual starvation while some of our sister States are behind us in furnishing men for the field. So far we have done our duty and leave results to you; and for our official position we refer you to Governor Vance and to our Representative in Congress, A. T. Davidson, and hope that the facts set forth may receive at your hands due consideration.

We are, sir, yours, respectfully,

C. D. SMITH, Senator;

W. M. SHIPP O. DICKERSON, Senator;

S. J. NEAL, Senator;

[AND TWELVE REPRESENTATIVES.]
 
Great post whitworth! You've anticpated and weakened the argument that civilian deaths were a direct result of Yankee depredation.

ole
 
Letters from two governors -Internal Confederate Shortages

Condition of Georgia


ATLANTA, May 1, 1862.
Hon. GEORGE W. RANDOLPH:
The State has placed all her means of defense in the hands of the
President. The enemy are near Chattanooga. If it is taken, the rail-
road bridges on both sides of it burned, we are cut off from the coal
mines, and all our iron mills are stopped. We are soon to be driven
out of Tennessee, it seems, and both armies fed on what little provision
is left in the cotton regions. It cannot last long. Our wheat crop is
ruined with rust, and all our young men not now under arms called
from their fields under the conscription act, when you have not arms
for them. If this policy is to be continued, hunger will at no distant
day produce its natural result. Might not an army of 50,000 men,
under a bold leader marched from Chattanooga on Nashville and
Louisville, transfer their armies and their operations to the rich fields
and large provision supplies of Kentucky? If so, it would be worth
more than all our operations against gunboats off the coast. Excuse
me if I intrude. I express but the universal sentiments of our people
when I say that the defensive policy of fortifying and falling back
toward the center will, if persisted in, end in starvation and over-
throw.
Let me beg you to send heavy re-enforcements to Chattanooga with-
out delay. When Georgia has sent so many troops to the field, it is
injury to leave her vital points exposed with no adequate protection.
The President has her men and her guns, and she looks to him. I
remain here to-morrow.
JOSEPH B. BROWN.





STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
Raleigh, N. 0., February 25, 1863.
Hon. JAMES A. SEDDON,
Secretary of War:
SIR: I had the honor some three weeks or a month ago to address
you respectfully, asking the removal of a lot of broken-down cavalry
horses from the northwestern counties of this State, of General Jenkins’
command, which were devouring the substance of a people threatened
with famine. I have not had the pleasure of receiving a reply to that
letter. I beg leave to inform you that their depredations are still con-
tinued and that they have become not only a nuisance but a terror to
the community, and to inclose you a letter# from Colonel Forkuer, of
Seventy-third North Carolina Militia, giving evidence of their behavior.
With every possible disposition to aid in the support of the army, I
have the strongest reasons conceivable—the existence of my own peo-
ple—for declining to permit those horses to remain in that section of
the State. When the question of starvation is narrowed down to women
and children on the one side and some worthless cavalry horses on the
other I can have no difficulty in making a choice. Unless they are re-
moved soon I shall be under the painful necessity of calling out the
militia of adjoining counties and driving them from the State. I hope,
however, to be spared such a proceeding.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Z. B. VANCE.
 
very insteresting. i wish they would of made history this good in school. i may have done better.
you all have my whole family into this now, even my 16 year old thanks.
 
Great post whitworth! You've anticpated and weakened the argument that civilian deaths were a direct result of Yankee depredation.

ole

And how is this not a direct result of blockades, and yankee 'depredations'? Because the South has trouble working with what it has, you don't see the yankee hand in that?

Where are all these men off to, Ole?

To get drunk and chase women?

Yours fought from a position of full and excess; the South from its want.

Want that the North caused the South, and is now trying to live with...

You can't live with it.

Can you?



Good!

Beowulf
 
To All,

I recently returned from vacation and one of the stops I made was at the new Visitor's Center at Gettysburg.

There, while touring the many exhibits, I saw the figure that 50,000 Southern civilians lost their lives during the Civil War.

Anyone else have information on this figure? Right? Wrong? In the ball park?

Any additional information and views would be appreciated.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

50,000 that they know about.

50,000 that they admit to...

50,000 people in a time when there basically were no real records like we have, today...

50,000 people.

50

Thousand

that they admit to....









50,000

from Those People.



Beowulf
 
50,000 that they know about.

50,000 that they admit to...

50,000 people in a time when there basically were no real records like we have, today...

50,000 people.

50

Thousand

that they admit to....









50,000

from Those People.



Beowulf

Beowulf,

Post evidence, source documents, ORs, or SOMETHING related to actual historical fact on the subject under discussion, Southern civilian deaths during the Civil War.

If you want to rant and rave, campaign for office like Hillary, Obama, or McCain so I can turn down the volume or switch channels.

Unionblue
 
Beowulf, I thought the "South" was united behind the War effort? Perhaps you should pick up a book about the Agriculture in the CW.

I might suggest: Gates, Paul W., Agriculture and the Civil War, Borzoi Book, 1962.

Now if you had done any reading on the subject you would know that the blockade runners weren't carrying food, at any point. In fact they carried precious few military supplies because luxury goods were more profitable. Money talks, even in the CS.

50,000... frankly I find the number suspect simply because it is so rounded. At best it's a geuss. How much of that had to do w/ "yankee" depravations and how much was typical wartime shortages? It doesn't matter; folks like Beowulf blame the US for everything else anyway, what's another 50k? I wonder how it would compare to say the civilian deaths during the Tai Pai or Sepoy Rebellions, Irish "problems", Spain against Napolean or the Danes against the British. There are ample Rebellions and Wars wwere the civilian population suffered; both from the actions of the enemy and the incompetance of their own govt.

The CS govt took incompetence and corruption to a new level, making period NYC politics look honest. Between the tithing sys, conscription and out of control inflation... the rich got richer and the average family paid in spades for the greed and political ambition of a few.

4 millions in bondage...

4,000,000 people in bondage at a time when there basically there were no real records like we have, today...

Four

Millions

that they admit to....









4,000,000

from the sainted slaveocracy.


A

load

of...
 
Surviving the War - An Ohio Farm Family

I went back over my wife's ancestry, that was an Ohio farm family. How did they fare during the Civil War. What price didn't they have to pay, like the Confederate founding fathers forced many of the Southern farm families to pay, because of secession.

Here is a little summary of that one Ohio farm family.

The northern states did not have to strip their farms of all the young farmers. In my wife's family, the ggg grandfather was a very successful farmer in southern Ohio. At 55, in 1862, he couldn't have run a large farm by himself. His oldest son left with his cousin for service with an Ohio regiment, after the 1862 harvest. Both served until the end of the war.

Left to be the anchor of the farm was my wife's gg grandfather at the age of 21. These were the farmers of Ohio, that grew enough crops to feed their families, but also grew a surplus for the neighboring towns and the U.S. Army. Left on the farm were many younger children, a daughter 19; a son 17; a son 15; a daughter 13; a daughter 11; a daughter 9; a son 6; a daughter 3. One married daughter 23 had a minister husband serving as a civil war musician from 1862-1865.

How would this farm family had fared in the south, with all the boys over 15, off fighting the war and so many younger children to support?
Probably not very well.

How did this Ohio family fare food wise during the war. Good, I would think ! The father in his late fifties early in the war, only survived until two years after Appomattox.
But the rest of the family that lived on this Ohio farm during the Civil War, all, including the mother, survived into the 20th Century.

The cost in deaths, due to secession, wasn't just on the battlefields and camps of the armies of the Confederacy. The costs of secession came home to the small farms of the South.
 
I've no idea what the actual number might be, nor what the breakdowns would be from starvation, murder, or "caught in the crossfire."

But, particularly in Kentucky, Tennessee, and some parts of Alabama, there appears to have been a fair amount of fratricide that shouldn't be overlooked. There are reports of northern sympathizers dragged from their houses and strung up during the early days of the war, followed by some measure of revenge when the tides reversed.

As far as starvation... Aside from the well off, many of the rural appear to have been subsistence farming, and would have had a thin time of it in the corridor between Chattanooga and Atlanta certainly. Other than that I don't know. Booker T Washington observed that his immediate family didn't suffer as much as they did in the "big house" as they were used to meager, coarse rations.
 
Interesting story, Whitworth. My ggfather was 50 in 1861. He had three boys under 6 and four girls over six. In a letter home, he mentions the Sioux uprising of '62 and assures the family that it only scared them for a while. Beyond that (the letter was written in '63) he talked about "our boys" having had a hard time but were coming back, and the prizes [sic] of things like sugar, salt and flour. He also mentions the passing of his three-year old son.

ole
 
How would this farm family had fared in the south, with all the boys over 15, off fighting the war and so many younger children to support? Probably not very well.
A telling comparison between the draft and conscription.

ole
 
Fifty thousand is probably a little low for civilian deaths due to starvation and a combination of malnutrition/disease.

The Southern states were not prepared for war and basically could not sustain such a war, without death in the civilian ranks.
By 1862, the Confederate government had drawn so many eligible soldiers to its ranks, there were few left to help feed the civilians.

The battle book historians would ignore this cost of the war; a cost never really calculated by the Confederate founding fathers, when seceding. Of course, starvation would never sell any battle book.

One need only see the mention of General Lee's army running out of rations or trying to survive on short rations.
One need only read the Confederate War Clerk's diary on the cost of food in Richmond, to note the Confederacy had a serious food problem.

One need only read of the Richmond food riot, to know people were not properly feed in many areas of the Confederacy.

I haven't done an extensive study, but the shortage of food is only one of the reasons the Confederacy should never have seceded. Plus the logistical inability to move food around from surplus areas to areas in need.

I saved this letter sent to Jefferson Davis in 1862. What an abysmal way of running a war.



RALEIGH, N. C., December 11, 1862.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,

President of the Confederate States of America:

DEAR SIR: The undersigned, senators and representatives from the Tenth Congressional District of North Carolina, now attending the General Assembly, desire to call your attention to the following statement of facts:

The people living in the counties composing the Tenth Congressional District own comparatively but few slaves, and have, therefore, to rely mainly upon white labor for the cultivation of their lands and their supplies of provisions. In nearly all the counties we represent the number of volunteers and conscripts furnished to the Confederate Army is almost equal to our entire voting population. This district is composed of fifteen counties. These counties do not [contain] as many slaves, all told, as some single counties in the middle and eastern divisions of the State. It is manifest, then, that the levies made by the conscript law upon our section have well-night stripped us of our laboring population. We further state that with aid of the conscripts during the last summer we have been unable to produce sufficient supplies for the present winter and coming spring. We hope, however, by the strictest economy and the abandonment of a portion of our live stock to prevent actual starvation. It must be borne in mind, nevertheless, that great privation and suffering are inevitable. We could cite hundreds of instances where three or four families of women, numbering from ten to fifteen children, have been thrown together into one house, not having so much as a boy large enough to go to mill. These noble women or now aided by the few scattering men who remain at home. But if the remaining conscripts, from thirty-five to forty or forty-five, are enrolled and ordered into camp, it can result in nothing short of actual starvation among some of these helpless women and children. Moreover, it will be impossible for the few old men and boys remaining at home to cultivate one half the amount of land that was cultivated last summer in that section, and hence the danger of a general famine through that entire district. This section of the State which we represent is very mountainous and remote from railroad facilities, and cannot, therefore, procure provisions from abroad.

We are free, thought the task is an unpleasant one, to state another fact. Most of the cases of desertion among the soldiers from that section have been produced by the sufferings of their families and parents at home. We challenge the Confederacy to produce a more loyal and brave people than ours, and instance as an example the glorious Sixteenth North Carolina Regiment. Yet with all their loyalty, if the law be enforced and the remaining conscripts be taken, it will produce the deepest discontent and dissatisfaction among the soldiers already in the field form that section. We had reason to expect that you would have exempted that section from any further call.

In view of the foregoing facts we respectfully ask that you will suspend the enforcement of the conscript law in the Tenth Congressional District of North Carolina. We now appeal with confidence to you in behalf of these helpless women and children, believing that you cannot consent to see any one section of our beloved Confederacy reduced to actual starvation while some of our sister States are behind us in furnishing men for the field. So far we have done our duty and leave results to you; and for our official position we refer you to Governor Vance and to our Representative in Congress, A. T. Davidson, and hope that the facts set forth may receive at your hands due consideration.

We are, sir, yours, respectfully,

C. D. SMITH, Senator;

W. M. SHIPP O. DICKERSON, Senator;

S. J. NEAL, Senator;

[AND TWELVE REPRESENTATIVES.]

Would some of you thicker skulled northern boys please read this letter again and notice the part about the small number of slaves and the fact these men worked their own land? That's my argument in a nutshell about the Confederate soldiers fighting for defense of their home territory and simply as a response to bullets flying towards their heads. Slavery was NOT the issue from their perspective. My Union ancestors even felt the Union was worth preserving. Imagine that?
 
50,000... frankly I find the number suspect simply because it is so rounded. At best it's a geuss. How much of that had to do w/ "yankee" depravations and how much was typical wartime shortages?
I'd give some credibility to the 50K as, at least, a fair guess, given that Hanny has also seen reference to that number.

I'd suspect that, given a population of 4KK over four years of war, adjusted for civilian population and by life expectancy, and you'll get a figure approximating 50K deaths from natural causes.

It would be extremely difficult if not impossible to attribute any of those deaths to military activies, although an excellent point was made in the observation that conscription eventually took all the able-bodied farmers (and many slaves) off southern farms (even those who avoided conscription didn't dare return to work their farms). Starvation? More like malnutrition weakening immune systems. Especially liked Booker T's observation that the slaves were quite accustomed to living and surviving on next to nothing.

ole
 
Would some of you thicker skulled northern boys please read this letter again and notice the part about the small number of slaves and the fact these men worked their own land?
A small number of slaves working their own land is not going to feed the CS Army and the CS civilian population.
That's my argument in a nutshell about the Confederate soldiers fighting for defense of their home territory and simply as a response to bullets flying towards their heads. Slavery was NOT the issue from their perspective. My Union ancestors even felt the Union was worth preserving. Imagine that?
I don't see where you can claim that slavery was not the issue when it was clearly an issue.

When you take it down to an individual, you may very well be correct that slavery was not the issue. Collectively, however, the CS Armies were, in effect, fighting to preserve slavery for an elite few (and many because they didn't want slaves freed either). Never before had so many been brainwashed by so few.

Back to civilian deaths, if you please.

ole
 
very insteresting. i wish they would of made history this good in school. i may have done better. you all have my whole family into this now, even my 16 year old thanks.
If we've succeeded in hooking your whole family, kawalabear, then this board is collectively happy in having you and yours aboard.

ole
 
Would some of you thicker skulled northern boys please read this letter again and notice the part about the small number of slaves and the fact these men worked their own land? That's my argument in a nutshell about the Confederate soldiers fighting for defense of their home territory and simply as a response to bullets flying towards their heads. Slavery was NOT the issue from their perspective. My Union ancestors even felt the Union was worth preserving. Imagine that?

Owning slaves was not the only reason to protect and defend slavery. There were the large slaveowner's wife, children, unemployed cousins, dotty aunts, et al who though they didn't own slaves themselves were dependent on the slaveowner and slavery. There was the large class of nonslaveowning whites whose economic well being was tied in some way to the slaveowner. And, most important, there were those who saw slavery as the only means of social control of the blacks.

As to whether the Confederate soldier knew what the fight was about, Chandra Manning, What This Cruel War Was Over, wrote: "It is patronizing and insulting to Confederate soldiers to pretend that they did not understand the war was a battle for slavery when
they so plainly described it as exactly that. There is no way to understand the Civil War from a Confederate perspective -- no way to understand why the war began or why it lasted so long -- without understanding why white nonslaveholding men would believe that the preserving of slavery justified a fight."
 
Back
Top