Who, What, Why: How many soldiers died in the US Civil War?

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. I saw this story and it made me think

Most people from the west, mid west, north, new england don't call themselves northerners, mid westerners nor new englanders however

Southerners still have that regional self identification.

The new york times article on the war had the mortality raised 20 percent with agreement with most scholars.


NY Times
New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll


But new research shows that the numbers were far too low.

By combing through newly digitized census data from the 19th century, J. David Hacker, a demographic historian from Binghamton University in New York, has recalculated the death toll and increased it by more than 20 percent — to 750,000.

The new figure is already winning acceptance from scholars. Civil War History, the journal that published Dr. Hacker’s paper, called it “among the most consequential pieces ever to appear” in its pages. And a pre-eminent authority on the era, Eric Foner, a historian at Columbia University, said:

The old figure dates back well over a century, the work of two Union Army veterans who were passionate amateur historians: William F. Fox and Thomas Leonard Livermore.

Fox, who had fought at Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, knew well the horrors of the Civil War. He did his research the hard way, reading every muster list, battlefield report and pension record he could find.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html?_r=2