[BroJoeK]

Mrs. Don-o: "the mass die-off of black slaves--- hundreds of thousands of them --- as a (surely unintended) consequence of the Civil War and its aftermath."

I've never seen that subject addressed directly, and would be most interested in a reasonably-short summary.
But have long suspected that when people throw out numbers like "50,000 civilians died", since there are no actual records, then if there's any reality to that number, it may refer almost entirely to rough estimates of slaves who died from economic & social disruptions of the war.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I don't have the book at hand, but maybe if you googled this author, Jim Downs, you'd find more info., He seems to be no dingbat, but on the scholarly side of the spectrum (Oxford University Press.)

I have to agree --- I suspect Downs would agree --- that statistics are hard to get with any precision, especially at a time when a census esp. of black slaves and freedmen was hardly exact. However, slaves appeared in property lists (e.g. estates, bequests) and they were enumerated decenially by the US. govt. in the antebellum days for apportionment purposes (House districts.)

So realistic estimates could be made.