New Estimates of US Civil War Dead

Ok, this is definitely outside the realm of topics normally covered by this website, however, not only is today (April 12th) the 151st anniversary of the beginning of the US Civil War (1861-1865), the most destructive war in the history of the United States, but groundbreaking new research has emerged showing that the war was likely even more deadly than previously thought.

A demographic historian from Binghamton University in New York, J. David Hacker, has found that the old numbers we are used to (618,222 dead - 360,222 from the Union, and 258,000 from the Confederacy) may actually have significantly understated the total number of those killed during the war. 

For those of you who do not know, the standard numbers of Civil War dead quoted above come from research done immediately following the Civil War by two Union Army veterans and amateur historians; with their research having become gospel as far as the general public is concerned (for actual military historians the numbers have always been in question).

Fast forward to today and Dr. Hacker's research, based upon census data made public by the University of Minnesota, though unable to account for civilian deaths, has found that the actual number of military dead came to somewhere between 650,000 and 850,000. Hacker then settled on the midpoint number of 750,000 military dead on both sides during the US Civil War - or over 20% more military deaths than previously thought. Professional historians think that his census based research is a far more accurate estimate. Though there is not adequate space to discuss his methodology, the gist is that Hacker compared the numbers of a particular group of people (in this case military age males) in census counts done before and after the war. From there he made adjustments by comparing these numbers to elements such as the numbers of native born births (removing immigrants from the equation), normal mortality figures, and the such. Needless to say, if Hacker's numbers stand up, then we have even more reason to remember the huge cost imposed on this nation by a war all too often overshadowed in its importance by more recent events.