Casualty Statistics Question

[Neil of the Nene]

Hi, new member from England. I have a passing interest in the ACW and have just returned from a vacation where I visited Gettysburg and Manassas.

While visiting I was struck with the vast number killed overall compared to the relatively few killed in each battle. I assume that the numbers quoted, for example at Gettysburg, would probably be those killed outright during the battle and that several of the wounded would die later. But I still can't get my head around the figure of 620/630,000 killed overall when a battle like Gettysburg ended with just over 7,000 recorded deaths [edited to correct my initial error of quoting total casualties]. I tend to assume that Gettysburg was one of if not the largest battle of the war.

As I say, I am no expert and thus probably am missing something. For example were there many more battles than I am aware of through my limited reading? If so there must have been several the size of Gettysburg with similar numbers. Or were there hundreds of smaller battles and skirmishes with relatively high death rates?

Thanks for humouring me and I look forward to reading any replies you may wish to make.

 

[thomas aagaard]

2/3 of the death during this war came from none combat causes... mainly Sickness.

 

[MajGenl.Meade]

Welcome to the camp fire. Modern scholarship suggests the total number of deaths to be in the region of 700,000+ but the 620,000 figure remains the most "popular". Don't mistake casualties for deaths - nothing like 23,000 deaths occurred at Gettysburg.

Of all casualties there, 7,058 were fatalities (3,155 Union, 3,903 Confederate). Another 33,264 had been wounded (14,529 Union, 18,735 Confederate) and 10,790 were missing (5,365 Union, 5,425 Confederate). Doubtless, some number of the wounded died later and some of the missing were also fatalities.

Here are some numbers that give an approximate idea of the causes of death in the War of the Rebellion:

Hope you stick around and become ever more interested in this fascinating period of US history

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

Welcome to CivilWarTalk.

Disease was the major cause of overall death on both sides.

Here's an older thread you may find interesting:
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/why...ively-than-their-southern-counterparts.80149/

 

[rpkennedy]

Hi, new member from England. I have a passing interest in the ACW and have just returned from a vacation where I visited Gettysburg and Manassas.

While visiting I was struck with the vast number killed overall compared to the relatively few killed in each battle. I assume that the numbers quoted, for example at Gettysburg, would probably be those killed outright during the battle and that several of the wounded would die later. But I still can't get my head around the figure of 620/630,000 killed overall when a battle like Gettysburg ended with just over 23,000 recorded deaths. I tend to assume that Gettysburg was one of if not the largest battle of the war.

As I say, I am no expert and thus probably am missing something. For example were there many more battles than I am aware of through my limited reading? If so there must have been several the size of Gettysburg with similar numbers. Or were there hundreds of smaller battles and skirmishes with relatively high death rates?

Thanks for humouring me and I look forward to reading any replies you may wish to make.

Generally speaking, in the Union armies, if a soldier died of his wounds within a few days, he was usually listed as killed. By Confederate reckoning, unless a soldier was killed outright or died within the day or so, they were labelled as wounded. Overall though, between 15-20% of the wounded would die from their injuries.

And that doesn't mention the 60+% of the total who died of disease.

R

 

[Neil of the Nene]

First, thanks to MajGen. Meade for correcting my typo. I quoted the total casualties, not fatalities - jet lag.

Thanks for the replies. So sickness was the major cause of death. Is it therefore misleading to include these deaths in the total fatalities figure?

While visiting I saw the total fatalities figure compared to all other conflicts in which the US have been involved. Yet surely by WW1 & 2 many fewer deaths were from non-battle related causes. The comparison is surely not like for like.

Does this then raise a question as to how many men would have died from disease between 1861 & 64 had there not been a war? Was it the privations of campaign that caused the sickness or was general health, hygiene and medicine of the time more likely to cause or fail to prevent premature death?

 

[thomas aagaard]

a lot less.
Military camps are huge cities with rather bad sanitation... if there is not a very clear focus on the issue.
And for some periods some forces was rather badly supplied... both north and south.

Some of the issues was specific to this war. Some sickness is more common in humid warm climates, like the south.
So a northern farmboy would be much more likely to get it than a southern farmboy who was use the living in the area.
Without the war thousands of northerners would not have been marching across the south like they did,

Another issue was simply lack of military competence. Laying out a camp, proper field cocking and keeping clean and making sure the camps are healthy to live i all require knowledge and discipline. And with armies almost competently made up of civilians-turned soldiers there simply was not this knowledge.

In 1864 during the 2nd Sleswig war 75% of the danish deaths was caused by combat. And this despite much of the war being fought during winter, where the danish army had to camp outside with no tents, during snowstorms...

One thing I do think was a factor was that the army was made up of men who had served 16month as conscripts so they had all be exposed to cramped quarters, many other men and army life before. And part of the training did include stuff like "keep clean"

The hospital system was not that extensive at the start of the war (thanks to budget cuts) but it quickly got a lot better. And the only time food was an issue was because the tactical situation made it hard to get it... the rest of the time the soldiers was well supplied.
So it was possible to fight wars with much lower rate of death to sickness in 1864.

But the huge distances, big climate differences and many more soldiers who have lived rather isolated lives until they signed up all In my view, contributed to the higher death rate.

 

[zburkett]

I would add that many recruits brought different sicknesses that the other recruits had no immunity too and a radically different diet caused many problems early in the war.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

IIRC, it wasn't until 20th Century medicine came along that combat deaths started exceeding deaths from disease during warfare.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

I would add that many recruits brought different sicknesses that the other recruits had no immunity too and a radically different diet caused many problems early in the war.

Yes, plus exposure to different areas and climates... Malaria was a huge problem on the lower Mississippi, with sometimes half or more of gunboat crews laid low with it at one time or another; some gunboats at some times could only muster one effective gun crew. With all the reports of how thick the mosquitoes were, it's not too surprising. Locals would have been affected too, of course, but there wouldn't normally have been large formations of men tramping about in the bayous, so it must have been easy pickin's for the skeeters...

 

[DR_Hanna]

Georgia boys complained that the cold Virginia winters were making them sick, and wanted to be re-assigned back to GA!
I also note that the 44th Ga Vol Inf fought their first battle, Beaver Dam Creek, with 514 effectives when the number should have been closer to 1100. A lot of attrition occurred between March and the end of June '62 but I haven't seen any mention of it or the reason.

 

[Bruce Vail]

Georgia boys complained that the cold Virginia winters were making them sick, and wanted to be re-assigned back to GA!
I also note that the 44th Ga Vol Inf fought their first battle, Beaver Dam Creek, with 514 effectives when the number should have been closer to 1100. A lot of attrition occurred between March and the end of June '62 but I haven't seen any mention of it or the reason.

The 3rd North Carolina was also in Ripley's Brigade at Beaver Dam Creek. The regimental history notes that after the Seven Days, two of the officers traveled to Raleigh to collect 400 conscripts to replenish the regiment. This is the only mention of replacements anywhere in the regimental history.

 

[Yankeedave]

There is an oddity to the camp situation, at least early on. The city boys faired better in camp due to them already having been exposed to many of the diseases from living in the city. The country boy faired poorly from this situation.

 

[bankerpapaw]

Welcome from Arkansas

 

[civilken]

Welcome I will let you in on a secret the Civil War one of those things the more you read the more you want to know. So good luck or get out while you can once you start you can't stop.

 

[zburkett]

You are so right. Then you move into the middle of much of the action and it keeps getting more addictive.

 

[civilken]

You are so right. Then you move into the middle of much of the action and it keeps getting more addictive.

In the 1980s I read Gore Vidal's Lincoln, and I enjoyed it a fellow inspector on the railroad asked me about the battles and the Civil War and I said oh no I am just reading Lincoln he laughed and said how can you know Lincoln without knowing the war and I've been reading ever since and still learning and I still love it. You are right..

 

[Suzanne A]

The disease issue means more than you might think. During the Civil War, they did not have the germ theory of disease which wouldn't arrive until the end of the century. They believed that what we now know of as contagious diseases were contracted from bad air called miasma. Exposure to disease and transmission of disease by human contact and proximity were not understood. "Disease" during the Civil War included death due to bacterial infection. Again, due to the lack of knowledge of germs and sanitation. Medical researchers now believe that most men who died of gunshot wounds actually died of infection due to the treatment of the wound. Unclean water, cloths and sponges were used in treating wounds, the hands of the attending persons were not washed and had just come from contact with other patients, etc. Some hardy souls miraculously managed to combat the infection just with their own immune systems, but infection often lingered for months and then the patient succumbed.

Outside of urban areas, which also had major problems at the time due to introduction of diseases into the population by immigrants and ships crews and lack of understanding of bacterial infection and the spread of disease, most soldiers had not been exposed to anyone outside of their small town or rural community before joining a regiment. Tuberculosis was a major killer and many contracted it because of close exposure to infected soldiers in the Army. Similarly, as noted by others above, lack of knowledge of basic principles of sanitation caused much dysentery, which again the soldier would not be as likely to contract in the more controlled environment of his family farm and community. Tuberculosis and dysentery were the biggest killers by disease during the War.

It's sad and appalling to read the history of the War while knowing of all the needless carnage. And about the horrid hospital and nursing practices. If they had just turned away the recruit with TB, if they had just put their latrines and live stock in the right places in camp. If the surgeons and nurses had just washed their hands and used clean water, sponges and bandages. Etc.

 

[MaryDee]

I read up on various 19th century medical advances last spring during the TV series "Mercy Street." (Actually it was a review of what I learned in 8th and 9th grade health classes.) Obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweiss pioneered hand-washing in the 1840s and 50s. Most physicians rejected his findings and pushed Semmelweiss, to whom every woman who has had a child should be grateful, into obscurity, poverty and eventual insanity. The other famous "microbe hunters" (Koch, Pasteur, Lister, etc.) came into prominence about 10-15 years after the war. Lister's articles on antiseptic surgery were published in 1867--so close! Of course it also took a while for their discoveries to be accepted by the general run of medical practitioners.

Look up "laudable pus" to find the medical attitude towards infection in the Civil War. Infection was considered a normal part of the healing process!

 

[huskerblitz]

I read up on various 19th century medical advances last spring during the TV series "Mercy Street." Obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweiss pioneered hand-washing in the 1840s and 50s. Most physicians did not accept his findings

With that said, in time of war and meatball surgery as it was...time was an issue and with the casualty rates of some battles the surgeons were working very rapidly and very long hours. Dr. B.F. Stevenson noted that during the Chickasaw Bayou he was tended wounded during and directly after the battle for upwards to 20 hours each day (roughly 5 days).

Plus, remember that clean water wasn't always available or in abundance in the field and using dirty water would have been no help and likely worse.