Numbers, numbers, numbers

 

            It’s a trick question: How many people were killed during the American Civil War?

          This is a trick question because nobody knows.

          The approximate figure used most often until recently was the product of research done in the 1890s, an estimate of better than 620,000 soldiers and civilians, including men, women and children. It is a horrific figure.

          More recently, research by Dr. David Hacker of the University of Binghamton in New York pegs the total death toll at about 750,000. Well, actually, Hacker places the figure between 650,000 and 850,000. As I understand it, Hacker arrived at the 750,000 figure because it is between 850,000 and 650,000.

          In other words, Hacker’s figure is a guess. A well researched guess, sure. Well intentioned guess, without question. But it is still a guess.

          It seems disturbing that guesswork should get the instant acclaim and acceptance that Hacker’s has since it was published. Think about it this way: The estimate, somewhere between 650,000 and 850,000, has a variance of 200,000 deaths. That variance represents more than a quarter of the estimate at the low end (about 30 percent of 650,000) and nearly a quarter at the other end (about 23 percent of 850,000). What kind of guesswork is accepted that has better than a 25-percent chance of inaccuracy according to its own author?

          As I understand the work, and simplified the best I can, Hacker used the 1850 United States census and 1870 United States census to estimate death rates in the normal population, then compared the actual numbers and subtracted. In fairness, it should be noted that Hacker’s study also looked at birth rates and other contributing factors. He apparently considered the number of immigrants that served in both the Federal and Confederate armies and accepted the official number of African Americans said to have served in the United States Army during the war.

          None of the above is intended to criticize Hacker’s work. The criticism here is aimed at those who accepted the new death estimate immediately and have already started quoting it. The 750,000 figure is an average between two estimates. Historians citing Hacker’s research should cite both the low and high ends of the research, but I fear that will not happen in the future.

          Nobody knows how many men, women and children were killed during the American Civil War. It is a terribly complicated question. Silly as it sounds, a researcher must first define the term war dead.

          A Confederate officer from Alabama named Bolling Hall Jr. lost his right leg during the battle of Drewry’s Bluff in 1864. He died in 1866, having never recovered his health. Is Hall to be counted among the war dead?  If so, would the decision be the same if Hall had survived another year? Two more years?

           The reader is invited to make that decision, then spend the remainder of the 21^st century searching through records in order to make a determination of how many soldiers passed away soon enough after suffering a wound to be classified as war dead and how many lived long enough to be classified as non-war dead.

          It would be impossible to track every wounded soldier in both armies, plus the sailors in both navies and determine a date and cause of death but you’d need to have that information before you could make a reasonable estimate of the number of deaths caused by the Civil War.

          Then you’d have to research the number of civilians that died for war-related reasons within the same time frame accepted for soldiers and sailors.

          Your guess is as good as mine.

Thanks for reading.