[AnalogReigns]

Good thing other nations intervened in our civil war to stop it, eh? (Oh wait, none did...)

[Secret Agent Man]

britain tried to help the confederacy, no?

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Well back then there was no King Obama and there was no opportunity to spread Is-lame. People call King Obama ‘inept”. No he isn’t, he has pretty much accomplished everything he set out to do hasn’t he? Helped spread radical Is-lame, damaged the US, radical Is-lame never had it so good under this guy.

[wideawake]

In reality, 0 people died of starvation as a result of Sherman's March.

[I cannot think of a name]

“100,000 to 250,000 CIVILIAN DEATHS were caused by the war—the vast majority being in the South.”

The next US civil war will make that look like a Sunday picnic.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I read somewhere (always beware a statement that begins, "I read somewhere...") that recent research indicates that a truly HUGE number (I'm talking about, like, a million?) Southern rural black people died in the CW and its decade-long aftermath, from starvation and the final-blow diseases which mow down masses of people weakened by malnutrition.

These deaths were caused by the collapse of agriculture in the South: the destruction of livestock, both food and draft animals; physical destruction of crops and assets such as barns, stables, granaries, tools, roads, bridges, rail and port facilities; such a terrible loss of manpower that there was nobody who could effectively plant and reap, and preserve the harvest.

Plus the horror of epidemic waterborne diseases from springs and wells contaminated with corpses of man and beast.

Anybody know about this?

[humblegunner]

True or not, nobody should take as gospel anything from a blog.

[rockrr]

I bet it hurt when he pulled that number out of his rear end...

[Fiji Hill]

A French unit did join the Confederates in the Battle of Palmito Ranch in 1865—the only time that an organized military force from a foreign country intervened in the war. This Confederate victory was the last battle of the war.

[Ditto]

Some historians estimate that as many as 50,000 civilians died of starvation as a result of Sherman's march to the sea alone.

Which historians 'estimate' that figure?

That would be over 5% of the total population of the state of Georgia at that time, slave and free. Nothing I have ever seen or read spoke of any starvation in the wake of Sehrman's march, let alone 50,000 people.

I think you are pulling statistics out of the air to make some contempoary political point.

It's not nice to mess with our history. In my experience, it's something typically that the hard left does, not conservatives.

[stylecouncilor]

Ping

[x]

"Caused by the war" is a tricky phrase. War brings large numbers of people into motion and spreads disease. Smallpox was rampant during the war. Slave populations in particular hadn't been immunized, but given the competence of many practitioners, immunization often only spread the disease. Much the same thing happened during the American Revolution.