The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 1 (of 2): A Narrative and Critical HistoryEggleston, George Cary
History
The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 1 (of 2): A Narrative and Critical History
Eggleston, George Cary
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
XXVIII. The Seven Days' Battles 397
XXIX. The Second Manassas Campaign 414
XXX. Lee's First Invasion of Maryland 423
PART I
THE CAUSES OF THE WAR
INTRODUCTION
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE CONFEDERATE WAR
During the years from 1861 to 1865, one of the greatest wars in all
history was fought in this country.
There were in all three million three hundred and seventy-eight
thousand men engaged in the fighting of it.
There are not that many men in all the regular standing armies of
Europe combined, even if we include the unpaid hordes of Turkey and the
military myriads of the armed camp known to geography as Russia.
The actual fighting field of this war of ours was larger than the whole
of western Europe, and all of it was trampled over and fought over by
great armies.
The men killed or mortally wounded in our war numbered on the Northern
side alone 110,000. The total number of deaths resulting from military
operations on the Northern side alone was 350,000. The figures for the
Southern side are not accessible, owing to the loss of records. But
as the fighting was equally determined on both sides, and as other
conditions were substantially equal, it is certain that the losses of
life were relatively about the same on both sides. It is well within
the facts, therefore, to say that this war of ours directly caused the
death of more than half a million men. No other war in modern history
has cost so many lives or half so many.
We hear much of our recent war with Spain. Let us take it as a basis
of comparison. The total number of men even nominally called into the
field in that war was less by nearly two to one than the deaths alone
during the Confederate war. The number of men who were actually engaged
in the Spanish war numbered only about one tenth as many as those who
were buried as victims of the Confederate war's battle fields.
Again, the total number of men killed and wounded during the Spanish
war--including every man who was touched by a bullet or scratched by
a sword or bayonet thrust or hurt by a splinter at sea--was only two
hundred sixty-eight. That is fewer than the number who were stricken in
each of many before-breakfast skirmishes of the Confederate war, some
of which were deemed too insignificant to be reported to headquarters
with precision.
Looking for higher standards of comparison, we find that 43,449 men
fell killed or wounded at Gettysburg alone. That is almost double the
loss of the allied forces at Waterloo and probably equal to the total
losses on both sides at that greatest and most decisive of European
battles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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