The western farm boys and out-doorsmen regarded themselves as tougher soldiers than the effete “paper-collar” soldiers from the Northeast. But in truth the “pasty-faced” clerks and mechanics of the East proved to be more immune to the diseases of camp life and more capable in combat of absorbing and inflicting punishment than western Union soldiers. For the war as a whole the death rate from disease was 43 percent higher among Union soldiers from states west of the Appalachians than among the effete easterners, while the latter experienced combat mortality rates 23 percent higher than the
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