It is very difficult to determine with any precision the number of deaths from disease in the American Civil War. Casualty figures for the Confederate Army in particular are very incomplete and are based almost entirely on estimates, both contemporary and modern. In addition, historians are beginning to revise the long accepted death toll of around 625,000. Some recent demographic studies have argued that the death toll from the war was much higher, closer to...
It is very difficult to determine with any precision the number of deaths from disease in the American Civil War. Casualty figures for the Confederate Army in particular are very incomplete and are based almost entirely on estimates, both contemporary and modern. In addition, historians are beginning to revise the long accepted death toll of around 625,000. Some recent demographic studies have argued that the death toll from the war was much higher, closer to 750,000. It is universally agreed, however, that a much greater number of Civil War deaths were attributable to disease than battle wounds. For every two soldiers who perished on the battlefield (or of wounds suffered in battle), three died of diseases like typhoid fever, dysentery, typhus, measles, and cholera. So if we use the "traditional" figure of around 620,000 deaths in the Civil War, we can estimate over 400,000 of these deaths were due to disease. If we accept the higher figure of 750,000 (and some argue that the total was even higher than this), we reach a number of almost 500,000. The point is that the death toll was horrific; primitive and unsanitary conditions in camps killed more soldiers than combat.
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