Stiles/Akin
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2016
- Location
- Atlanta, Georgia
Death and the Civil War | DLG Civil War Resources – the DLG B
blog.dlg.galileo.usg.edu
Before the war began, there were no formal procedures established to identify soldiers killed in the line of duty, or to notify their next of kin. The problem was staggering–approximately half of the men who lost their lives in battle during the Civil War were never identified. Approximately 120,000 Georgians served the Confederacy during the Civil War; 11,000 to 25,000 of these soldiers died on battlefields, or in hospitals from wounds and disease. Although most of the casualties were Confederate soldiers, there were also a significant number of Union soldiers who died in Georgia. Because so many of these men were unidentified and because the staggering death toll overwhelmed local resources, many of these soldiers were buried in mass graves adjacent to their last battle sites.