NEW STUDY REVEALS THAT CIVIL WAR DEATH TOLL FAR EXCEEDED PREVIOUS ESTIMATES
The Civil War is considered one of the most pivotal events in American history, as many things happened during this four-year battle. It all started in 1861, along with the ongoing tension between northern and southern states over states’ rights, westward expansion, and slavery. However, the bomb was dropped when former President Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860. The southern states decided to withdraw from their involvement in the northern states and decided to create the Confederate States of America. When the war ended, it was considered one of the deadliest and costliest that happened on American soil. It was estimated that there were around 2.4 million Soldiers killed and injured, but the Civil War death toll from the Confederate Soldiers was much more than that of their Union counterparts.
The Civil War Death Toll Has Changed
For over a century, the number of deaths from the Civil War was accepted as around 620,000, and it is often cited that the specific figure is 618,222, with 360,222 deaths from the Union and 258,000 from the Confederates.
Many experts mentioned that these figures did not come from an estimated guess but were a result of years of research starting from the late 19th century by Union Veterans William F. Fox, Thomas Leonard Livermore, and other researchers.
Their analysis involved intensively examining the Army cemetery records, documents, pension records, muster rolls, census records, and other essential documents.
The Real Confederate Death Toll During the War
For years, it was believed that there were more death tolls on the side of the Union Soldiers, but according to the newly released census, there are a total of 698,000 tolls. The analysis published also mentioned that Confederate states had more casualties than the Union, and their mortality rates were twice as high.
This new information from the census will even allow researchers to understand better the long-term effect of the war in regions affected by the conflict.
Caroline Janney, a history professor at the University of Virginia, has shed light on the potential outside applications of the researcher's methodology. There is the potential for the data to also include other pieces of information, such as migration patterns, which could help researchers better understand the time period.
Additionally, she explained how this information can help researchers understand how the deaths of Confederate Soldiers shaped societal norms, in a more nuanced way than simply numbers.
Political Science Professor Seeks to Pin Down the Elusive Count
A history professor at the University of Virginia, Caroline Janney, mentioned that the data from the census might contain other valuable information, such as migration patterns. Jeffrey Jensen, a political science researcher at N.Y.U. and one of the authors of the research, wants to better understand the socioeconomic effect of the Civil War. However, to proceed with the study, he needs to start with the loss in sheer numbers. The only problem is that the toll number is non-existent.
Most of the historians had only taken estimates of the fallen Confederate and Union Army and then added the figures to get the total number of deaths. Over a decade ago, demographic historian J. David Hacker devised a new method of calculating the loss: comparing census data versus the U.S. death counts; with this method, he could get around 750,000.
Dr. Hacker used a 1% sample of individuals from the 1850 to 1880 censuses, which questions its accuracy as this can fall under what statisticians call a sampling error.
New Methods Used in Getting the Accurate Data
Dr. Jensen used the sex differential technique, which separates the age of white men in the military that was born in the U.S. and compared them to the data from 1860 and 1870, and they were able to come up with a final estimate of the 698,000 Civil War death toll.
The census comparison tactic is insufficient to determine the total deaths from both sides since many people have migrated to other states to survive. To fix this gray area, the researchers had access to census records related to multiple years, allowing them to have an enormous scope of data.
By comparing the adjusted data, they were now able to separate the northern and southern deaths. With this tactic, it was found that southern states had a higher mortality rate of 13.1% for white men, which is twice higher than the northern states at only 4.9%. It was also found that at least 10% of white men were killed in seven Confederate states, and the same was true in one of the northern states.
Dr. Hacker plans to research the latest complete count with his new data, while Dr. Jensen and his team are ready to take their analysis further, determining the total Civil War death toll in the Confederate Army.
Suggested reads:
- 15+ Civil War Sites Preserving Our Nation’s History
- What Were the Main Causes of the Civil War?
- The Civil War Timeline: Major Events That Shaped a Nation
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