Fascinating New Research
From NYT: “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 — to 750,000. “Wars have profound economic, demographic and social costs,” he went on. Dr. Hacker’s data suggests that 650,000 to 850,000 men died as a result of the war; he chose the midpoint as his estimate. “We’re seeing at least 37,000 more widows, and 90,000 more orphans. That’s a profound social impact, and it’s our duty to get it right.”
The new figure is winning scholars’ acceptance. 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: “It even further elevates the significance of the Civil War and makes a dramatic statement about how the war is a central moment in American history. It helps you understand, particularly in the South with a much smaller population, what a devastating experience this was.”
The old (1870) figure was compiled by two Union Army veterans who were passionate amateur historians: William F. Fox and Thomas Leonard Livermore. But their work undercounted the number of immigrants killed as well as the number of soldiers dying from disease.
Published census data from the era did not differentiate between native-born Americans and immigrants; about 500,000 foreign-born soldiers served in the Union Army alone. And because the Union had better medical care, food, and shelter, especially in the war’s final years, Southern losses to disease were, proportionally, much higher.
The new figure is winning scholars’ acceptance. 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: “It even further elevates the significance of the Civil War and makes a dramatic statement about how the war is a central moment in American history. It helps you understand, particularly in the South with a much smaller population, what a devastating experience this was.”
The old (1870) figure was compiled by two Union Army veterans who were passionate amateur historians: William F. Fox and Thomas Leonard Livermore. But their work undercounted the number of immigrants killed as well as the number of soldiers dying from disease.
Published census data from the era did not differentiate between native-born Americans and immigrants; about 500,000 foreign-born soldiers served in the Union Army alone. And because the Union had better medical care, food, and shelter, especially in the war’s final years, Southern losses to disease were, proportionally, much higher.
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