Yet Even MORE Statistics

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....

Free Resources Until April 30th!

The Alexander Street Press is providing FREE access to their online Civil War Collections until April 30th.

You can access the following Collections:

• The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
• The American Civil War Research Database
• Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines
• American Song

Try this, click The American Civil War Research Database then Click on: Analysis at the top of the page then click on Confederate and Union Losses Chart. You can view graphs of various statistics related to the Civil War, research specific regiments and get statistics (oh my) on soldiers.

For example, the following graph shows a comparison of Union and Confederate Losses of those who died or were killed in battle.


Why do you think there was a large increase in the number of Union soldiers killed in the early months of 1864?

So many statistics....So little time

According to John Busey's "These Honored Dead: The Union Casualties at Gettysburg", the following is a list of the number of soldiers killed during the Battle of Gettysburg.

Army Of the Potomac :

New York	978
Pennsylvania	745
Massachusetts	200
Michigan	200
US Regulars	182
Ohio	139
Maine	119
Wisconsin	105
Indiana	96
New Jersey	80
New Hampshire	67
Vermont	58
Minnesota	50
Connecticut	45
Maryland	29
Delaware	21
Rhode Island	14
West Virginia	11
Illinois	9
Total	3,148

Army of Northern Virginia:

North Carolina	1452
Virginia	1012
Georgia	774
Mississippi	393
South Carolina	295
Alabama	254
Louisiana	141
Texas	111
Florida	80
Maryland	65
Tennessee	55
Arkansas	41
Total	4,673

Total number killed: 7,821

Based on these figures, you can easily have your students working on some math concepts. Have your students answer questions such as:

• What is the average number of soldiers killed for both the North and the South?
• What percentage of the total number of soldiers killed were from Ohio?
• What percentage of those killed were from the South?
• How many more soldiers were killed from North Carolina versus Pennsylvania?

Or, how about some critical thinking skills...

• Why do you think New York and North Carolina had the highest number of soldiers killed?
• During what day of the battle do you think Minnesota lost the greatest number of soldiers and why?
  

Until next time. From just north of Gettysburg...