Estimating Civil War Dead? Closer To The Truth?

The new topic of interest across American Civil War blogs is the number of dead which resulted from the American Civil War. The estimated number of 618, 222 has been revised to an estimated 750,000 and may well have been as high as 850,000 dead Union and Confederate soldiers. An article by historian J. David Hacker, an associate professor of history at Binghamton University, SUNY, which appeared in the New York Times “Opinionator” on line column seems to have sparked this renewed interest. I must admit that it is a topic that needs closer scrutiny, but I must disagree with the findings set forth in the article. I must admit also that this is strictly my opinion as I am not familiar with the method of “back projection”, so I can not discount or confirm the veracity of this information. Given this, I will state why I do not agree with the new figure as presented in the article.

I question whether using census data, coupled with (or for that matter, set against) the back projection can lead to a solid, verifiable result. The article shows that census under counts were estimated by using back projection over several different census years. The years 1850 through 1880, and all of these had a shortfall in numbers. They ranged from 6.5 percent in 1870, the year that carries the the most doubt, and 3.6 percent in 1880. The average under count over these 40 years would be 5.4 percent. If we add the shortages back into the total of each census, would that not increase the population figure and thereby decrease the number of estimated civil war deaths? By not counting people that should have been, it seems that would skew the numbers in favor of more deaths. Can we even use these figures as a basis for a more accurate death toll? Can “back projection” be reasonably used when a catastrophic event is involved?

The article goes further in looking at the differences in mortality between the sexes in the 1850's, 1860's and 1870's. The figure presented states that the war was responsible for the deaths of 750,000 men. Based on what? The census, which has already been shown to be flawed. And does the census count the dead? Furthermore, does the census take into account the number of ex-Confederates that fled the country fearing reprisals from the Federal government, who never returned? Does it take account of the former soldiers of both armies that drifted west after the war and may not have been counted due to living in sparsely populated regions of the growing country? The census can give a reasonable figure for the population, but it can't give a figure for the death toll of the Civil War. There are to many variables to contend with and the basis for the new figure is just to weak for me to hang my hat on. What would make me believe the new figure is if the census data used was thoroughly confirmed, not simply speculation. I will concede however that the death toll is probably higher than the accepted 618,222 but until something more definitive and substantial comes along, I will stay with this figure.

The author asks if the difference in figures really matter's and answers yes as it will cause us to look at the war differently. I can't say honestly that it would change the way we look at it. It was a tragic event, yes, and the added 130,000 dead would make it even more tragic, but seeing the war differently I say no. The new figure may influence the way the socio-economic landscape is viewed but I feel that to view it or the war itself differently would lead us into the realm of “what if...”, which will produce nothing but more assumption and bear little in the way of actual fruit that will enhance our understanding of the war or the era. What happened post war occurred in spite of, not because of, the butchers bill.

The true number will never be known. All the documentation available and used in compiling

both estimates is flawed and based on assumption and incomplete information but the fact still remains that the years 1861 to 1865 were the darkest time the United States has ever known.

It has never been my intention to turn this blog into an “Op Ed” column, filled only with my opinions and thoughts about the American Civil War but this article and subsequent posts by other bloggers lent itself well to me for expressing my opinion. This post is in no way meant to disparage their views. I am not refuting the new death toll, nor am I discounting it, yet I am not embracing it either. I merely question it. I never take things at face value and although my thoughts may at times go contrary to the thoughts of others, they do show another viewpoint some may not have considered while searching for a solid answer. That is my hope and intent anyway. If indeed the 750,000 figure holds up, it does need to be recorded. Just give me something a little more substantial than assumptions.

The article this post refers to can be found at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/recounting-the-dead/?scp=19&sq=Disunion&st=blog

The Picket

Adam Rankin Johnson, An Earlier Incident

Adam Rankin Johnson, born in Henderson, Kentucky February 8^th, 1835, had an amazing career as a Confederate soldier and leader and would eventually rise to the rank of Brigadier General. Early in the war he served as a scout with Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry, that officer utilizing Johnson and another scout, Robert Martin, on his personal staff. The exploits of the two would earn them a reputation of daring throughout the Western Theater, so much so that when John C. Breckinridge requested the services of the two scouts, Forrest reportedly told them “ Boys, you've made such a fine reputation I am afraid you will not be allowed to remain with me much longer.” After serving with with Breckinridge and being commissioned as officers on his staff, the pair was sent to Henderson on a recruiting mission, and Johnson bore a memorized, coded message to be delivered to a David Burbank. The message was a series of numbers that Breckinridge insisted Johnson recite back to him. Breckinridge informed young Johnson the information contained in the message was to sensitive for written dispatch, and would ask Johnson to repeat the message, word for word again at a later time before he divulged the name of Burbank. Satisfied, Breckinridge sent the two men on their way.

Adam Rankin Johnson

It was on this trip that an interesting event took place. Humorous actually.

On the way to Henderson the pair stopped on the road several times to obtain food for themselves and their horses from sympathetic citizens. On one occasion the scouts came upon the home of a Confederate soldier who had lost an arm at the recent Battle of Shiloh and was convalescing there. The man was also suffering from a serious case of poison oak, which had covered his face and swollen his eyes and lips terribly. As Johnson was aiding the stricken mans wife in applying ointment to the poison oak, Martin was away from the house tending to the horses. Suddenly the thunder of Union cavalry sounded around the house. Trapped, Johnson told the soldiers wife to wipe off the medicine they had just applied, and rushed out to greet the Yankees. Feigning alarm, Johnson asked the commanding officer for a surgeon.

“What in the world do you want with a surgeon?” , the commander, a major, demanded.

“Why, we have a sick Confederate soldier in the house and we are afraid he has smallpox.”, replied Johnson.

“The thunder you say!” the major cried. “Here, doctor, you had better go in and look at the man.”

The doctor obeyed and entered the house. A guard was set around the house to prevent any of the Union soldiers from entering. After a short time the surgeon emerged from the house and pronounced the case as being “undoubtedly smallpox”. Unwilling to chance even drinking the water on the place, the Federals departed but not before placing a yellow flag on the gate as a sign of warning to the passersby to avoid the home.

When Adam Johnson first met N.B. Forrest, he was impressed by Forrest's “great and prompt decision making”. As this incident shows,these same attributes would also be manifest in Johnson, as well as his friend Robert Martin and serve them well throughout the rest of the war. And in a very short time, Johnson, with the aid of his friend, would gain the nom de guerre of “Stovepipe”, but that is another story.

Source: The Partizan Rangers of the Confederate States Army, Johnson, Adam Rankin, 1904

Photo: http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/

A Small Thing But...

May I present to you, the twist drill.

A modern day version of what was a relatively new tool developed in the 1860's. A rather unassuming tool, and mostly taken for granted in the 21^st century although it is used in manufacturing everything today from the car you drive to the chair you are sitting in now. Yes, the lowly twist drill, so taken for granted, so much ignored, so, so... boring! (pun intended!) But without this little keystone of modern industry, this may not have came to be:

That of course is the very Confederate ironclad ram built in a cornfield along the banks of North Carolina's Roanoke River in 1863 and early 1864. The same ironclad which was largely designed by Gilbert Elliot, a native North Carolinian of 19 or 20 years of age, with the help of John L. Porter who would polish the design and bring it to fruition. She was the monster that aided Major General Robert F. Hoke in re-capturing Plymouth, North Carolina which surrendered on April 20^th , 1864. Without the Albemarle that would have been nearly impossible although Hoke's men outnumbered the Federals, they were well entrenched and had five US Navy gunboats in support. The place would be a tough nut to crack indeed. All of this is interesting but what has a drill have to do with all of it?

Gilbert Elliot had difficulty obtaining iron for the “skin” of the ram and would finally get his hands on some in the Autumn of 1863. Framing of Albemarles hull was completed in early October, and on the 6^th, Albemarle was launched, sans armor, into the waters of the Roanoke River, which happened to be running high at the time.[1]

With the beast in the water and iron ready to hang, the work to transform her into an engine of war began. The problem was that the armor plates had to be pierced with a number of holes, one and a quarter inch in diameter, so they could be mounted to the hull and to each other. This was not an easy task, and it would be time consuming.

 In the Spring of 1864 the Confederacy did not have time to waste.

 As Gilbert Elliot puts it , in an article in “The Century” magazine:

“But one small engine and drill could be had, and it required, at the best, 20 minutes to drill an inch and a quarter hole through the plates, and it looked as if we would never accomplish the task.” Discouraging yes, but work continued. Now enter our subject, just now being devised. Elliot continues:

“But 'necessity is the mother of invention', one of my associates in the enterprise, Peter E. Smith, of Scotland Neck, North Carolina, invented and made a twist drill with which the work of drilling a hole could be done in four minutes, the drill cutting out the iron in shavings instead of fine powder.” [2] Thus the Albemarle was completed in the ensuing five and a half months, and be ready for the fight at Plymouth. This is not to say that the twist drill altered the course of the Civil War, but it did make one episode brighter for the Confederacy at a time when brightness was quickly fading into memory.

It is also said that this twist drill was the first twist drill devised but that honor goes to the Northerner, Stephen A. Morse of Massachusetts, who invented a twist drill in 1861 and patented his design in 1863. But he was not operating in a cornfield. Be that as it may, the twist drill is yet another invention that came out of the “First modern war”, and still has a place in society today even if it is in the shadows.

Sources

1) The CSS Albemarle and Peter Cushing: The Remarkable Confederate Ironclad and the Union Officer Who Sank It, page 82, Stemple, Jim 2011 McFarland and Company, Inc. Publishers retrieved from Google books http://books.google.com/books?id=6D8Z2xz0U9kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Albemarle&hl=en&sa=X&ei=v9wZT6OrCsjAtgeRqK2aCw&ved=0CFEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Albemarle&f=false

2) Ibid, page 83

Albemarle image from the National Museum of the U.S. Navy http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h57000/h57266.jpg

A Booming Business

The area around White House on the Pamunkey River was already hot and disease was running rampantly through the troops of the Army of the Potomac that June 10^th, 1862. Major General George B. McClellan was in the later stages of his Peninsular Campaign, readying to move on Richmond, and the division of Brigadier General George A. McCall had just begun to arrive. Late of Irwin McDowell's I Corps they would attach themselves to the V corps of Fitz-John Porter.

As if the anticipation of battle was not enough to fray the nerves of these Pennsylvanians, the sight that greeted them on the wharves upon landing, was. A number of undertakers had set up shop there, and one sign in particular would have stood out, a sign of ominous portent. It read:

“Undertakers and Embalmers of the Dead – Particular Attention payed to Deceased Soldiers.”

 That would set a man to thinking he should cast away his playing cards and dice, perhaps even his pipe, and begin a new regimen of prayer to Almighty God. And even more so these men, for they were the Pennsylvania Reserves and the fighting down on the Peninsula would be their first real taste of the war.

My question though, has always been this: What other kind of soldier, other than a deceased one, would need the “Particular Attention” offered by these fellows?

Bad Water

It is always interesting for me to research the American Civil War, and sometimes I find some of the neatest stuff. Take for example the following anecdotes, taken from “Reminiscences of the Civil War” compiled from diaries of men from the 103rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry, about the scarcity of drinking water:

The water of the Yazoo River is supposed to be the most unhealthy water in the United States. A steamboat captain has been heard to say; “If a man drinks the river water a week, he will have a sandbar in him half a mile long.” The inhabitants of that section of the country will under no circumstances drink or use in any way the well or spring water that may be found, but depend entirely on rainwater.

 The regiment had been attached to the IX Army Corps* of John G. Parke and sent to Haynes' (Haines') Bluff and Snyder's Bluff during the Vicksburg campaign, arriving at that place on the 11^th of June, 1863. After fortifying the bluffs, the regiment moved to Oak Ridge and fortified that place. It was here that the writer of this particular segment of reminiscences wrote:

“The trials and tribulations of the troops while in this part of the world can not be described.”

The Indian word “Yazoo”is said to mean “the river of death” or its equivalent. A camp kettle of water from what was thought to be a good spring from the bluffs would, if allowed to stand in the sun for an hour, have a deposit of some kind quite half an inch deep. We have since been astonished that the entire Command was not swept off the earth.

Many generals of both sides, in particular those that had served in the Mexican War, would take steps to insure good water supplies and keep those supplies untainted. They did not always succeed, but some at least made an effort. These instances do not point to poor camp placement or policing, but the men suffered from stomach problems while in the area of their operations which they would leave after the fall of Vicksburg. Of their time there the writer wrote:

 At Oak Ridge we had lived much better than while at the Bluffs, as wild blackberries were quite thick, and of the finest quality. Still many of the men were taken down with stomach troubles.

I wonder...

 One last story relating to water, at least for this post. After the 103^rd Illinois left Oak Ridge they went to the Black River (where they found more blackberries) and after a lightly contested crossing marched toward Jackson, Mississippi. Of the march on the 8^th of July the writer relates this story:

On this march we suffered greatly from want of water. Wells and cisterns having failed, we were compelled to use water from pools, (a great thunderstorm had drenched the area the night of the 6^th) in nearly all of which the Rebs had killed a mule or some other animal, so

that to use the water was victuals as well as drink.

I certainly hope this entry was made in jest!

Source

Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/details/reminiscencesofc00illi pages 14,15,17

*Note*

The 103^rd Illinois was a part of the 2^nd brigade, 1^st division, XVIth Army Corps prior to being attached to the IX Corps at the time of these incidents. They were brigaded with the 6^th Iowa, 40^th Illinois, 46^th Ohio, and 15^th Michigan.