ONCE A CIVIL WAR :
A Few Observations
Over time, this blog has received a few compliments, a few complaints, a few threats, and a few (far too few) interesting comments that have led me to re-examine, revise, or add to past posts. This has inspired me to post a few brief explanatory notes that I hope are helpful for the average visitor.
Note # 1: I encourage comments, particularly from individuals who have additional or corrected information on the blogpost topic of the day. I'm particularly interested in comments from people whose ancestors fought in the war. We're still living with the consequences of what they did 60,000 days ago.
Note # 2: This blog is hardly exhaustive as to battles. There were over 10,000 battles during the 1,458 days of the Civil War. That's nearly seven encounters per day, most of them only of local historical interest. It was never my intention to list them all. Exactly who or what determined whether an action was a "battle," a "skirmish," an "incident," or some other event where the Blue and the Gray faced off was and is never entirely clear since different witnesses described the same action using different terms. Generally speaking, a "battle" was larger and bloodier than a "skirmish," and a "skirmish" was larger and bloodier than an "incident," but much of an action's size and violence is subjective and depends on who saw what when and where and who got shot and wounded or died. Still, nobody would call Gettysburg a "skirmish." Measuring the Civil War by battles alone leaves three-quarters of the cup empty, anyway. It was as much (or more) a social and political contest as a military conflict.We are still living with the social and political changes wrought by the war. Tens of thousands of books haven't summed them all up. Neither can this blog.
Note # 2: This blog is hardly exhaustive as to battles. There were over 10,000 battles during the 1,458 days of the Civil War. That's nearly seven encounters per day, most of them only of local historical interest. It was never my intention to list them all. Exactly who or what determined whether an action was a "battle," a "skirmish," an "incident," or some other event where the Blue and the Gray faced off was and is never entirely clear since different witnesses described the same action using different terms. Generally speaking, a "battle" was larger and bloodier than a "skirmish," and a "skirmish" was larger and bloodier than an "incident," but much of an action's size and violence is subjective and depends on who saw what when and where and who got shot and wounded or died. Still, nobody would call Gettysburg a "skirmish." Measuring the Civil War by battles alone leaves three-quarters of the cup empty, anyway. It was as much (or more) a social and political contest as a military conflict.We are still living with the social and political changes wrought by the war. Tens of thousands of books haven't summed them all up. Neither can this blog.
Note # 3: I am not a professional historian. This blog began simply as a homegrown project that I thought was more challenging than a do-it-yourself wood shop kit of a railway cannon and more enduring than a Revell plastic model of the C.S.S. ALABAMA. I really wanted to educate myself (and others) on aspects of the Civil War that aren't part of the "standard" histories. I think I've succeeded to date fairly well. Fortunately, there's no shortage of source material. Everybody alive during the war years seemed to have kept a journal. A great many things were documented. Much of this source material is available online, and I've begged and borrowed it, read a score or two of the something like 75,000 books currently available that are related to the Civil War, and sometimes drawn my own conclusions. Occasionally those conclusions change based on subsequent readings. For example, I was none too fond of Robert E. Lee when I started out, but I've developed a different appreciation for him now. I still think he was wrong when he went with the secessionists in 1861; but he did much in 1865 to make things right.
Note # 4: People have complained about the use of Confederate flags in the blog, which I feel is like complaining about the mentioning of measurements in a cookbook. I'm not a lover of the Confederate flag. It doesn't swell my bosom with pride to see it flying anywhere. But it is part of the history of the United States, this blog is a history of the United States, and as historical artifacts Confederate flags have their place in this blog and at Civil War historical sites, but not in front of your neighbor's house. We live in the United States of America, we're all one people, and we should all feel pride in that fact. The South ain't gonna rise again folks, except maybe in its standard of living. The same goes for the use of a word like "Darky" and its less palatable synonyms. If I'm quoting something and that's what it says that's what I'll post. Again, it's an historical artifact, it's not my opinion or my usage. Frankly, I hate the racist terminology (all racist terminology) that was in use during the 19th and 20th Centuries, but I'm also not a fan of political correctness. I don't believe in bowdlerizing anything.
Note # 5: This is a visual history as much as a textual one:
A. If you believe that you hold the copyright to something on this blog please let me know and I will give you credit where credit is due.
B. Most of the images in the blog are in the public domain, as are most of the documents I quote from. Images with clear copyrights are used occasionally, and I acknowledge their use and hope the holders do not mind. I do try to get permission whenever I can. Sometimes I can't decipher the copyright text. Sometimes I don't get responses to inquiries. Sometimes I find material on sites other than the copyright owners' and can't track them. I've shared some beautiful artwork by Mort Kuntsler and Dan Troiani. I only recently identified the pieces as theirs. I am here and now giving both men a blanket acknowledgement, as I am with Harper's Weekly.
C. There have been a couple of individuals who immediately jump to the "I'm going to sue you for using that unidentified 150 year old sepia-tint picture of my great-great-great Aunt Violet" default. And I'm supposed to know that how? Unless your online material is clearly copyrighted to you specifically I can't know that you have any interest in it. Threats are foolish anyway. In my experience, agreeing to share material is far more sensible than arguing over it, and we'll both get more and better web traffic to our sites. Someone who wants to sell Civil War memorabilia shouldn't get angry when I'm helping her advertise it for free.
A. If you believe that you hold the copyright to something on this blog please let me know and I will give you credit where credit is due.
B. Most of the images in the blog are in the public domain, as are most of the documents I quote from. Images with clear copyrights are used occasionally, and I acknowledge their use and hope the holders do not mind. I do try to get permission whenever I can. Sometimes I can't decipher the copyright text. Sometimes I don't get responses to inquiries. Sometimes I find material on sites other than the copyright owners' and can't track them. I've shared some beautiful artwork by Mort Kuntsler and Dan Troiani. I only recently identified the pieces as theirs. I am here and now giving both men a blanket acknowledgement, as I am with Harper's Weekly.
C. There have been a couple of individuals who immediately jump to the "I'm going to sue you for using that unidentified 150 year old sepia-tint picture of my great-great-great Aunt Violet" default. And I'm supposed to know that how? Unless your online material is clearly copyrighted to you specifically I can't know that you have any interest in it. Threats are foolish anyway. In my experience, agreeing to share material is far more sensible than arguing over it, and we'll both get more and better web traffic to our sites. Someone who wants to sell Civil War memorabilia shouldn't get angry when I'm helping her advertise it for free.
Note # 6: I have not footnoted the blog. I tried to give sources when I began the project, but the blog began to look unreadable, and since this is supposed to be both educational and enjoyable I didn't see any point in cluttering the posts with footnotes that would be of interest only to me and a few other purists. Shelby Foote didn't footnote either, and his CIVIL WAR: A NARRATIVE is still considered a standard text. I should be as fortunate as he.
Note # 7: Big numbers:
A. The reported size of armies in the Civil War at any given time is open to debate. For example, the number of men in the Army of The Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign is sometimes listed as 100,000, sometimes at 110,000, and sometimes at 125,000. The fact is that all these numbers may be right. Not every man "under arms" fights every time. Troops are detailed for administrative tasks or non-combat duties like guarding supply trains, or may be placed in reserve, or may be ill, and not see combat in a given battle. Who counts as an "effective" is open to interpretation. An army is only as good as its effectives, after all, and an army of 10,000 in which 7,000 are stricken with fever is an army of 3,000. Illness killed two men for every battle death in the war, and survivors of illness are included in the casualty rate. Commanders had a stake in underreporting epidemics in the ranks, and they also had a stake in minimizing the number of desertions and maximizing the number of effectives. The Army of Tennessee in early 1865 is a case in point. Listed at 20,000-30,000 men, it had, at one point, less than 5,000. During the Civil War men frequently enlisted and deserted and re-enlisted under pseudonyms and so a percentage of the "missing" always reappeared, though not always in the same place. Sometimes they even reappeared on the other side of the war. Another question is whether men who fought Indians on the frontier between 1861 and 1865 should be counted as "Civil War combatants." There's little doubt that the Indian Wars intensified during the Civil War and as a result of the Civil War. Thus, even a basic number, the number of soldiers who fought is open to question, though broadly speaking 3.2 million men fought on both sides in the war. In practice, I've taken two or three estimates and averaged them when calculating the size of forces in a given battle.
B. The number of casualties in the Civil War is a matter of intense debate. For over a century, the number of Civil War dead was estimated at 620,000, but modern historians virtually all agree that this number is far too low. I've seen estimates varying as high as 850,000 battle and disease deaths. I tend to go with my gut on this and use 700,000 as a base number, though as modern historians continue to count, I'm sure the number will be revised, sadly, upward. After all, was a Southern civilian armed with a pistol against a Yankee patrol a "civilian" or a "combatant"?
C. The same thing goes for Civil War battle casualties, which today are measured between 1.3 - 1.5 million. That's approximately 50% of the men who fought (including deaths), a terrifying figure. A casualty is defined as a soldier who is "lost to action by dint of being unable to perform his ordinary duties." That's a very broad definition --- for example, for how long? A day? A week? A month? 90 days? Not all Civil War casualties resulted in deaths, though many of them resulted in the permanent loss of a man due to the nature of Civil War wounds. On the other hand, a man like John Bell Hood continued to fight even though he had lost two limbs. After each wound he was counted as a separate casualty. Casualty figures for the Civil War are speculative at best, since many men with minor wounds undoubtedly chose or were pressured to continue fighting, and wounds like bullet grazings or the loss of a finger were counted at a commander's discretion. P.T.S.D. went unrecognized during the Civil War, but there were many documented cases where men simply cracked up or blew their own brains out. How these men were counted, or if they were counted at all, was again, at a commander's discretion. Thus, casualty figures vary widely. I have seen numbers for Gettysburg that lie between 48,000 and 54,000. What the actual number is is "around 50,000." For the sake of ease in counting casualties, I've doubled the number of battle deaths and rounded upward for a total of 2.1 wounded men for every deceased man.
D. Another area rife with speculation is the number of civilian casualties. Nobody counted them, although it is clearly a fact that they occurred --- Judith Henry at Bull Run and Ginnie Wade at Gettysburg are just two famous cases. It's also difficult to calculate the number of civilian dead because many more civilians died of war-related starvation, disease, and privation than were killed by shellfire. Again, I've seen numbers that vary between 50,000 and 150,000. I think the higher number is more accurate for deaths from all causes.
E. Nobody really knows how many widows and orphans the war created. There were, however, 1.3 million applications for survivor benefits after the war. It's likely many people, particularly youngsters, never applied, and ex-Confederates were not eligible to apply, so the total number of widows and orphans probably hovers around two million.
F. The total number of men who fought is estimated as high as 3.2 - 3.5 million. The disparity between the Union population and the Confederate population wasn't as dramatic as the raw numbers make it seem. In 1860, there were approximately 32,000,000 Americans. After secession, there were 20,000,000 Northerners and 12,000,000 Southerners (including 4,000,000 slaves). But roughly 50% of the American population in 1860 was under age 18, and roughly 50% were females. 10% were overage or otherwise disabled. Thus, of the 20,000,000 Northerners, 10,000,000 were children, 5,000,000 were adult females, and 2,000,000 were elderly. Thus, only 3,000,000 men were available for combat in the North, 2,000,000 of which fought (most of the uninvolved were in remoter areas such as California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon and the Territories). In the South, the same numbers applied: Of the 8,000,000 whites, 50% were children, 50% were adult females, and 10% were overage. Thus, only about 1,500,000 men were potentially available for combat, and almost all of them fought for the Confederacy. About a million age-qualified male slaves remained an untapped manpower pool. Had the South armed its slaves, it may well have reached a 1:1 ratio with the North.
G. In sum, I am going with the following: 3.2 million soldiers, 700,000 military deaths, 150,000 civilian deaths, 1.5 million casualties, and 2 million widows and orphans out of a total 32 million Americans (as per the 1860 census). Roughly ten percent of the population fought, 5% were wounded, 2 % died, and 5 % were widowed or orphaned. For an approximation of scale against today's U.S. population, multiply everything by ten, and the horrifying cost of the Civil War in lives destroyed and unmade becomes obvious. No wonder it is the most written-about subject in American historiography.
Note # 7: Big numbers:
A. The reported size of armies in the Civil War at any given time is open to debate. For example, the number of men in the Army of The Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign is sometimes listed as 100,000, sometimes at 110,000, and sometimes at 125,000. The fact is that all these numbers may be right. Not every man "under arms" fights every time. Troops are detailed for administrative tasks or non-combat duties like guarding supply trains, or may be placed in reserve, or may be ill, and not see combat in a given battle. Who counts as an "effective" is open to interpretation. An army is only as good as its effectives, after all, and an army of 10,000 in which 7,000 are stricken with fever is an army of 3,000. Illness killed two men for every battle death in the war, and survivors of illness are included in the casualty rate. Commanders had a stake in underreporting epidemics in the ranks, and they also had a stake in minimizing the number of desertions and maximizing the number of effectives. The Army of Tennessee in early 1865 is a case in point. Listed at 20,000-30,000 men, it had, at one point, less than 5,000. During the Civil War men frequently enlisted and deserted and re-enlisted under pseudonyms and so a percentage of the "missing" always reappeared, though not always in the same place. Sometimes they even reappeared on the other side of the war. Another question is whether men who fought Indians on the frontier between 1861 and 1865 should be counted as "Civil War combatants." There's little doubt that the Indian Wars intensified during the Civil War and as a result of the Civil War. Thus, even a basic number, the number of soldiers who fought is open to question, though broadly speaking 3.2 million men fought on both sides in the war. In practice, I've taken two or three estimates and averaged them when calculating the size of forces in a given battle.
C. The same thing goes for Civil War battle casualties, which today are measured between 1.3 - 1.5 million. That's approximately 50% of the men who fought (including deaths), a terrifying figure. A casualty is defined as a soldier who is "lost to action by dint of being unable to perform his ordinary duties." That's a very broad definition --- for example, for how long? A day? A week? A month? 90 days? Not all Civil War casualties resulted in deaths, though many of them resulted in the permanent loss of a man due to the nature of Civil War wounds. On the other hand, a man like John Bell Hood continued to fight even though he had lost two limbs. After each wound he was counted as a separate casualty. Casualty figures for the Civil War are speculative at best, since many men with minor wounds undoubtedly chose or were pressured to continue fighting, and wounds like bullet grazings or the loss of a finger were counted at a commander's discretion. P.T.S.D. went unrecognized during the Civil War, but there were many documented cases where men simply cracked up or blew their own brains out. How these men were counted, or if they were counted at all, was again, at a commander's discretion. Thus, casualty figures vary widely. I have seen numbers for Gettysburg that lie between 48,000 and 54,000. What the actual number is is "around 50,000." For the sake of ease in counting casualties, I've doubled the number of battle deaths and rounded upward for a total of 2.1 wounded men for every deceased man.
D. Another area rife with speculation is the number of civilian casualties. Nobody counted them, although it is clearly a fact that they occurred --- Judith Henry at Bull Run and Ginnie Wade at Gettysburg are just two famous cases. It's also difficult to calculate the number of civilian dead because many more civilians died of war-related starvation, disease, and privation than were killed by shellfire. Again, I've seen numbers that vary between 50,000 and 150,000. I think the higher number is more accurate for deaths from all causes.
E. Nobody really knows how many widows and orphans the war created. There were, however, 1.3 million applications for survivor benefits after the war. It's likely many people, particularly youngsters, never applied, and ex-Confederates were not eligible to apply, so the total number of widows and orphans probably hovers around two million.
F. The total number of men who fought is estimated as high as 3.2 - 3.5 million. The disparity between the Union population and the Confederate population wasn't as dramatic as the raw numbers make it seem. In 1860, there were approximately 32,000,000 Americans. After secession, there were 20,000,000 Northerners and 12,000,000 Southerners (including 4,000,000 slaves). But roughly 50% of the American population in 1860 was under age 18, and roughly 50% were females. 10% were overage or otherwise disabled. Thus, of the 20,000,000 Northerners, 10,000,000 were children, 5,000,000 were adult females, and 2,000,000 were elderly. Thus, only 3,000,000 men were available for combat in the North, 2,000,000 of which fought (most of the uninvolved were in remoter areas such as California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon and the Territories). In the South, the same numbers applied: Of the 8,000,000 whites, 50% were children, 50% were adult females, and 10% were overage. Thus, only about 1,500,000 men were potentially available for combat, and almost all of them fought for the Confederacy. About a million age-qualified male slaves remained an untapped manpower pool. Had the South armed its slaves, it may well have reached a 1:1 ratio with the North.
G. In sum, I am going with the following: 3.2 million soldiers, 700,000 military deaths, 150,000 civilian deaths, 1.5 million casualties, and 2 million widows and orphans out of a total 32 million Americans (as per the 1860 census). Roughly ten percent of the population fought, 5% were wounded, 2 % died, and 5 % were widowed or orphaned. For an approximation of scale against today's U.S. population, multiply everything by ten, and the horrifying cost of the Civil War in lives destroyed and unmade becomes obvious. No wonder it is the most written-about subject in American historiography.
Note # 8: I'm a Yankee (actually I'm a Brooklyn Dodgers fan) born in Brooklyn, raised in Oyster Bay, New York, and now living in Florida. I have a couple of genuine Southron friends who appreciate the blog. I will make no excuse for believing that the "right" side (i.e., the United States) won the Civil War. I try to avoid bias, but it undoubtedly creeps in here and there. I think slavery was disgusting and I think the secessionists were backward-looking fools. I firmly believe that most Southerners of the time were dragged out of the Union by circumstance and not by choice. I think Southern patriotism was an effect of the war, not a cause of it, at least for most people, because parents tend to side with the army and flag their sons are fighting and dying for.
Note # 9: This blog is meant to be enjoyed. So --- enjoy it!
K.
