If he found nothing, that is just as troubling as if he had found all of it. "Nothing"? You mean to say no former slaves starved, and no families who's lands and farms had been destroyed starved? Nobody died of disease? Nobody died of exposure?
"Nothing" doesn't sound plausible either.
What did happen was the 1870 census when many Southerners refused to be counted, understating the South's population and leading to claims of mass deaths. By 1880's census they all were counted and all those statistically dead people restored to political life, a miracle of representative government, for sure.
Well, that's one theory anyway. Might be right, though I don't see much point in refusing to make your representation as high as possible.
I'm not going to go to a lot of trouble looking for this information again. I stumbled onto it the first time looking for something on a completely different point, but what I read seemed quite plausible, and the guy did cite sources for his information.
If I run across it again, i'll try to remember that you and some others want to see it.
Nothing to justify claims of "millions" or even "thousands" of civilian deaths.
Yes, there are plenty of graves of actual Confederate soldiers, but there is no noticeable increase in civilian graves or news reports of mass deaths from starvation & exposure.
Further, during the war is one thing, but after the war might be something else entirely.
After the war came certainly huge economic & social disruptions, but even then, no actual data supporting claims of "millions" or even "thousands" of unnatural deaths.
DiogenesLamp: "I'm not going to go to a lot of trouble looking for this information again"
Of course not, after all, why bother with mere facts when simple handwaving suffices?