[seemoAR]

I have a set of old encyclopedias that was copyrighted in 1942 and 1953 and printed in 1957. I realize they were printed pre-PC and therefore must be suspect. I looked up the American Civil War, It was sometimes known as the War of Secession, and also known as the War Between the States. It was fought between eleven seceding States and the United States Government from 1861 to 1865.

It list two chief causes of the war. One was the question of the extension of slavery into the territory of the United States not yet organized into States. The other was the issue of states' rights. The quarrel over these two issues grew more and more bitter and finally resulted in the war.

The most interesting thing to me was the size of the armies and the casualties that occurred.

The North had over 2,500,000 soldiers. Total Union Casualties were 359,528, 110,070 were killed in battle or died of wounds. Disease killed 224,586, 24,872 died of other causes.

The Souths' forces were estimated at from 600,000 to 900,000 men. 134,000 reported killed or wounded.

If these numbers are correct the North had somewhere between
three and four times as many soldiers as the South.

Interesting isn't it.

[Non-Sequitur]

Interesting isn't it.

If those figures are true, and I've seen numbers all over the board on the size of the confederate army, that would mean that 4.4% of Union soldiers were killed in combat, and that as many as 22% of confederate soldiers were killed in combat. And people call Grant a butcher.