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2006-10-25 Home Front: WoT

How 620,000 were killed in a four-year war

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Posted by Mike Sylwester 2006-10-25 02:31|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Facts! Always with the facts!

How dare you let soomething as trivial as facts get in the way of my n-a-a-a-a-a-rative!

/sarcasm off

Posted by no mo uro 2006-10-25 07:14|| 2006-10-25 07:14|| Front Page Top

#2 Nice response. Those figures are a joke. Even al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't admit those high figures.
http://press-release.blogspot.com/

Posted by Snease Shaiting3550 2006-10-25 08:53|| 2006-10-25 08:53|| Front Page Top

#3 Dear Mike,

I had always read that there were 13,000 fatalities at Antietam and close to 20,000 fatalities at Gettysburg. Picket's charge was said to have resulted in over 1,000 Confederate fatalities. I'm questioning the numbers as being low. I'm certainly not arguing the Lancets gross exaggeration of Iraqi deaths. Please advise if there is a link for your stats, I was taught and seem to remember reading differently.

Posted by Rightwing 2006-10-25 09:42|| 2006-10-25 09:42|| Front Page Top

#4 It's WikiWeedia. A "collaborative" effort toward defining truth.

I have the Shelby Foote 3-volume set of the Civil War. Awesome read. A source I believe and recommend without hesitation. If the urge strikes, I'll see if he consolidated such battles and stats somewhere - I'm not going to wade through all 3 vols, though, lol.

Posted by .com 2006-10-25 09:56|| 2006-10-25 09:56|| Front Page Top

#5 Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" Edited by Patricial L. Faust:

The approximately 10,455 military engagements, some devastating to human life and some nearly bloodless, plus naval clashes, accidents, suicides, sicknesses, murders, and executions resulted in total casualties of 1,094,453 during the Civil War. The Federals lost 110,100 killed in action and mortally wounded, and another 224,580 to disease. The Confederates lost approximately 94,000 as a result of battle and another 164,000 to disease. Even if one survived a wound, any projectile that hit bone in either an arm or a leg almost invariably necessitated amputation. The best estimate of Federal army personnel wounded is 275,175; naval personnel wounded, 2,226. Surviving Confederate records indicate 194,026 wounded.
In dollars and cents, the U.S. government estimated Jan. 1863 that the war was costing $2.5 million daily. A final official estimate in 1879 totaled $6,190,000,000. The Confederacy spent perhaps $2,099,808,707. By 1906 another $3.3 billion already had been spent by the U.S. government on Northerners' pensions and other veterans' benefits for former Federal soldiers. Southern states and private philanthropy provided benefits to the Confederate veterans. The amount spent on benefits eventually well exceeded the war's original cost.
Inflation affected both Northern and Southern assets but hit those of the Confederacy harder. Northern currency fluctuated in value, and at its lowest point $2.59 in Federal paper money equaled $1 in gold. The Confederate currency so declined in purchasing power that eventually $60-$70 equaled a gold dollar.
The physical devastation, almost all of it in the South, was enormous: burned or plundered homes, pillaged countryside, untold losses in crops and farm animals, ruined buildings and bridges, devastated college campuses, and neglected roads all left the South in ruins.
Detailed studies of Union and Confederate military casualties are found in Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America 1861-65 by Thomas L. Livermore (I901) and Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1867-1865 by William F. Fox (1889).

http://www.civilwarhome.com/warcosts.htm

N.B. the number killed in action and the number killed by disease. Nothing remarkable for pre-WWII warfare for most casualties occurring as a result of non-combat causes.

Posted by Procopius2K 2006-10-25 10:05|| 2006-10-25 10:05|| Front Page Top

#6 Strategy page had a good article on deaths in Iraq. First of all, approx 550,000 Iraqis have died from natural causes since the war began. Second, 10,000+ Iraqis die from crime in a normal year.

My suspicion is that deaths from all causes = 620,000 and Lancet blames the United States for all of them.

P.S. regarding natural causes: It is interesting that disease and accidents cause a majority of American casualties in Iraq. Apparently the germs in Iraq are industrial strength.

Al

Posted by frozen Al 2006-10-25 10:07|| 2006-10-25 10:07|| Front Page Top

#7 The problem in Iraq today is not that 650,000 might have been killed. (This is highly unlikely) The problem is that 2,650,000 haven't been killed. To staunch this internal war, something on the order of 10% of the population must be extinguished just to get their attention. Unfortunate, but true.

Posted by SpecOp35 2006-10-25 11:55|| 2006-10-25 11:55|| Front Page Top

#8 Re: #3, Rightwing
<< had always read that there were 13,000 fatalities at Antietam ... >>

I'm no expert on the Civil War, but here is another site that looks authoritative about casualties at Antietam. It says 1,550 Confederate and 2,100 Union soldiers were killed there.

For this list I used only numbers of deaths, not numbers of casualties (including wounded, desertions, missing, etc.)

Posted by Mike Sylwester 2006-10-25 13:40|| 2006-10-25 13:40|| Front Page Top

#9 Many folks, especially if it's convienent to their cause, confuse casualties (including killed, wounded, and missing) with deaths.

In the previous wars, where deaths from disease were so high, they were not counted as 'killed in action', right? When did the distinction between KIA and 'just dead' really begin?

Posted by Bobby 2006-10-25 15:30|| 2006-10-25 15:30|| Front Page Top

#10 National armies of the type in place since the 1600s have been keeping records denoting military dead from disease and those from combat. That distinction was important to the awarding of honors for battlefield operations, like medals and knighthoods. It really started becoming an important item during the birth of the Sanitation movements of the 1830-1860s, since they were trying to sort out preventable deaths due to sanitary conditions or lack thereof. The horrors of the Crimean and US Civil Wars were the big push behind the development of sanitation and cleanliness of medical personnel and facility; as well as the basis for the first Geneva Convention on the treatment of sick and wounded combatants. WWI is the first major war where disease is NOT the major killer of combatants, but even then, the number killed by disease was massive.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2006-10-25 20:36|| 2006-10-25 20:36|| Front Page Top

23:59 Thoth
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