New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll - Page 3 - Historum

betgo · April 6th, 2012, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaganSmash

Even more amazing, the desertion rate was very low, and soldiers almost never left formation while the two sides were firing point-blank at each other.

Maybe the desertion rate was also undercounted. A large part of the Confederate army deserted at the end when things were hopeless and they needed to take care of their families. There were also swampy and mountainous areas of the south filled with deserters and draft dodgers.

**tjadams** · April 6th, 2012, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaganSmash

Even more amazing, the desertion rate was very low, and soldiers almost never left formation while the two sides were firing point-blank at each other.

Seems not. The Union estimated their losses at:

Quote:

Though the determination of the fully number is a bit complicated, the total would seem to have been well over 200,000....General Hooker estimated in 1863 that 85,000 officers and men had deserted from the Army of the Potomac, while it was stated in December of 1862 that no less than 180,000 of the soldiers listed on the Union muster rolls were absent, with or without leave.

For the CSA:

Quote:

Many who withdrew from the army "had little conception of the gravity of their offense." For such men desertion bore no stigma; and, in sum, it appears that this factor (which, after all, was but a reflection of many other factors) "contributed definitely to the Confederate defeats after 1862 and . . . [to] the catastrophe of 1865." ...Men felt that their services were actually more needed at home than in the army. Not a few Southern soldiers found themselves in the situation of an Alabaman who deserted the army when his wife wrote him: "We haven't got nothing in the house to eat but a little bit of meal. . . . I don't want you to stop fighting them Yankees . .but try and get off and come home and fix us all up some and then you can go back."

The Civil War Armies

howard38 · April 6th, 2012, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaganSmash

I can't remember the details, but the man who ran the South's largest POW camp was put on trial and hanged.

That was the aforementioned Henry Wirz the commandant of Andersonville where almost 13,000 Union prisoners died. The conditions were miserable but Wirz may have been scapegoated. Andersonville was established late in the war and by that time the south had very few resources to care for their own soldiers much less prisoners of war. Wirz tried to get prisoner exchange re-established but the North refused, reasoning that the Confederacy needed troops more than they did.

ReaganSmash · April 6th, 2012, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tjadams

Seems not. The Union estimated their losses at:

For the CSA:

The Civil War Armies

Thats true, but a lot the time men would leave their position's, return home to tend their farms, businesses, etc and then travel back to their army after a while. This also happened in the Revolutionary War

**tjadams** · April 6th, 2012, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaganSmash

Thats true, but a lot the time men would leave their position's, return home to tend their farms, businesses, etc and then travel back to their army after a while. This also happened in the Revolutionary War

I can only believe the numbers provided.