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Death and the Civil War | Article

The Civil War By the Numbers

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"Incidents of the war: A harvest of death." The three days of conflict at Gettysburg resulted in 51,000 casualties, making it the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Courtesy: Library of Congress

From 1861 to 1865, the Civil War ravaged America. It still holds several notorious records, such as the highest number of average deaths per day (504). Read more of the shocking statistics from the War that divided our nation.

4:1 — The ratio of people who attended church weekly to those who voted in the 1860 election

2.5 — Approximate percentage of the American population that died in the Civil War

7 million — Number of Americans lost if 2.5% of the population died in war today

2.1 million — Number of Northerners mobilized to fight for the Union army

880,000 — Number of Southerners mobilized for the Confederacy

50 — Estimated percentage of Civil War deaths that occurred in the last two years of the War

40+ — Estimated percentage of Civil War dead who were never identified

66 — Estimated percentage of dead African American Union soldiers who were never identified

2 out of 3 — Number of Civil War deaths that occurred from disease rather than battle

68,162 — Number of inquiries answered by the Missing Soldiers Office from 1865-1868

4 million — Number of enslaved persons in the U.S. in 1860

180,000 — Number of African American soldiers that served in the Civil War

1 in 5 — Average death rate for all Civil War soldiers

3:1 — Ratio of Confederate deaths to Union deaths

9:1 — Ratio of African American Civil War troops who died of disease to those that died on the battlefield, largely due to discriminatory medical care

200 — Number of African American soldiers massacred following their surrender at Ft. Pillow, Tennessee on April 12, 1864

100,000+ — Number of Civil War Union corpses found in the South through a federal reinterment program from 1866-1869

303,356 — Number of Union soldiers who were reinterred in 74 congressionally-mandated national cemeteries by 1871

0 — Number of Confederate soldiers buried in those national cemeteries

58 — Number of Confederate bodies thrown down a local farmer's well on a federal burial detail in 1862

1,733 — Approximate number of American battlefield deaths in the Mexican War, 1846-1848

900 — Approximate number of battlefield deaths in 12 hours at the Battle of Bull Run

3,000 — Estimated number of horses killed at the Battle of Gettysburg

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