Thats a lot of men to serve from such a small rural area. But it is also, very near typical. It is common knowledge the Civil War killed circa 2-3% of the population. But the real devastation of the war does not become clear until it is looked at as to the military age male population that did the fighting. In the north, 10% of the military male population was killed. In the south, adjusted to the white male population that would do the fighting, the death rate was closer to 25%, a number wholly comparable to the losses of France in World War I or the Soviet Union during World War II. At the company level, many units came from the same cities or towns, and it is for this reason you find Civil War monuments spread not only over the old battlefields but over the village greens at the center of old towns both north and south. As Shelby Foote so ably pointed out once, it only took one terrific encounter, like Antietams cornfield or Gettysburgs Peach Orchard and suddenly a town didnt have anymore young men. They were all dead. I dont think Americans today quite understand the full emotional impact of just how traumatic the Civil War was, a trauma that went way beyond the battlefield.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 07:08:28 +0000
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