Many Sudden Deaths: The Sacrifice of One

2 CommentsSpecial Days, SUDDEN DEATH!

This 3 minute video reminds us of the reason we have a Memorial Weekend.

The following is a listing of US casualties in the various conflicts that have been a part of the country’s history. The following numbers reflect only reported war deaths and exclude those wounded and/or missing. The Civil War maintains the highest American casualty total of any conflict.

In its first 100 years of existence, over 683,000 Americans lost their lives, with the Civil War accounting for 623,026 of that total (91.2%). Comparatively, in the next 100 years, a further 626,000 Americans died through two World Wars and several more regional conflicts (World War 2 representing 65% of that total). Using this comparison, the Civil War might very well be the most costly war that America has ever fought.

CONFLICT: Revolutionary War

SPAN: 1775-1783

Comments (2)

  1. Steve L.

    Reply

    What a joy, honor and privilege to be and an American!

    Will this great country continue to be blessed by God?

  2. Nameless Cynic

    Reply

    Well, from a technical standpoint, the soldiers in WWI and beyond were better trained than they had been in close-on to a century, and significantly better-armed (there were relatively few losses in the Spanish-American War, because it wasn’t a major conflict, more of a show put on to sell newspapers and the like); the Civil War stands out as a statistical anomaly because all of the casualties on both sides, and every “innocent” bystander caught up by the fighting, were American – the statistics were self-inflating.

    Add to that the fact that an improperly-handled black-powder weapon (some of them dating back decades, hanging around and rusting over the fireplace) can misfire dramatically on the user; and that medicine was somewhat more… primitive, and you find that disease and accident can account for up to 75% of total casualties (poor record-keeping being what it was, it’s difficult to get exact numbers).

    Just thought I’d throw that in there.

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