Thanks to the Wig-Wags Blog for posting this interesting article on The Civil War’s Last Veterans, Wives and Stats to bring us even MORE statistics to ponder. Yippee!!

According to the post, the following table comes from Fact Sheet: America’s Wars by the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs:

Civil War (1861-1865)
Total U.S. Servicemembers (Union)…………..2,213,363
Battle Deaths (Union)………………………………140,414
Other Deaths (In Theater) (Union)………………..224,097
Non-mortal Woundings (Union)…………………..281,881
Total Servicemembers (Conf.) ………..1,050,000
Battle Deaths (Confederate) ………………74,524
Other Deaths (In Theater) (Confed.) (note 3, 4)……59,297
Non-mortal Woundings (Confed.) ……………..Unknown

Discussion questions for your class:

1. What percentage of Total U.S. Servicemembers were killed in battle?
2. What percentage of Total Confederate Servicemembers were killed in battle?
3. According to the website, the Confederate figures are incomplete. Why do you think they are incomplete?

Now let’s add in some additional figures from the same website:

America’s Wars Total
U.S. Military Service During War…………….41,891,368
Battle Deaths………………………………………….651,022
Other Deaths (In Theater)………………………….308,797
Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater)………….230,279
Non-mortal Woundings…………………………..1,431,290
Living War Veterans…………………………….17,484,000
Living Veterans (War & Peacetime)…………23,532,000

Based on this table ask your students:

1. What percentage of soldiers fought during the Civil War when compared to all America’s Wars?
2. What percentage of Union Battle Deaths make up the total for all America’s Wars?
3. How would having more accurate Confederate data impact these figures?

Don’t you just love math. 🙂

Until next time….