Casualties

MikeyB

Sergeant
Joined
Sep 13, 2018
Over the years, I've sometimes seen figures stating higher Union casualties at Gettysburg, although most of the time, I have seen higher Confederate causalities.

Are there generally acceptable figures out there? Or statistics that you personally consider more reliable?
 
Most sources have total Union casualties within a few hundred of 23,000.
There is a fair amount of discrepancy with Confederate numbers . Regimental Losses in the Civil War ( Fox) list them at 20,448 , but notes that the total reports by Hill , Longstreet , Ewell and Stuart come out to 22,968. You will often find the number as around 28,000 for Confederate casualties in various sources . Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg ( Busey 2005) comes up with 23, 231. Probably safe to say that both casualty figures were fairly close .
 
Most sources have total Union casualties within a few hundred of 23,000.
There is a fair amount of discrepancy with Confederate numbers . Regimental Losses in the Civil War ( Fox) list them at 20,448 , but notes that the total reports by Hill , Longstreet , Ewell and Stuart come out to 22,968. You will often find the number as around 28,000 for Confederate casualties in various sources . Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg ( Busey 2005) comes up with 23, 231. Probably safe to say that both casualty figures were fairly close .

What does the NPS go with? Its interesting that it is a pretty wide potential range on the CSA side.
 
NPS says 28,000 Confederate casualties , but the site Stone Sentinels has them as nearly equal around 23,000. American Battlefield Trust says total casualties over 51,000. Looks like a subject that should be fairly easy to track down doesn't have a definitive answer .
 
Apparently the Confederates didn't always count casualties the same as Union forces . For instance , if a soldier was wounded but was able to immediately or quickly return to ranks he was listed as wounded by Union forces , but may not be listed as wounded by Confederate forces . I've also found claims that casualties from "Pickett's Charge" were undercounted .
 
Busey and Martin's analysis is the best out there (and has been published, revised, and re-released a numbe of times) but even they acknowledge that Confederate records can be spotty and that some of their numbers are estimates and may be undercounts. My guess is that the Confederate casualties were probably closer to 28,000 than 23,000 but I'm not married to that conclusion.

Ryan
 
Confederate records of casualties were often lacking in accurate statistics, and/or were lost in the evacuation of Richmond and other government offices during the final days of the confederacy. So generally speaking, the level of confidence among historians is lower in the number of reported confederate losses vs. federal losses.
 
Most sources have total Union casualties within a few hundred of 23,000.
There is a fair amount of discrepancy with Confederate numbers . Regimental Losses in the Civil War ( Fox) list them at 20,448 , but notes that the total reports by Hill , Longstreet , Ewell and Stuart come out to 22,968. You will often find the number as around 28,000 for Confederate casualties in various sources . Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg ( Busey 2005) comes up with 23, 231. Probably safe to say that both casualty figures were fairly close .

Interesting that my 1994 addition of Regimental Strengths by Busey and Martin shows CSA losses at 22,874. Eleven years later, that number had risen by 357. Further upward revisions might be expected, but I suppose will level off short of 24,000. But that's just for the battle itself (July 1-4), and hundreds more were lost (mostly captured) before the Potomac was recrossed. I'd guess 28,000 would be a reasonable estimate for the campaign as a whole, but that does not include (as was noted) the slightly wounded who quickly recovered and rejoined their commands, nor does it include losses among slaves who accompanied the army in support roles.
 
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In "The Gettysburg Campaign in Numbers and Losses" ( Petruzzi and Stanley 2012) it is estimated that total casualties for the campaign ( June 9th to July 14th ) were nearly 60,000 . This would include Brandy station , 2nd Winchester etc. through Falling Waters .
 
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