Hey Guys, I was doing some research and I found out that only 2/5 of the soldiers from the Union camps, and 2/7 of the soldiers from the Confederate camps actually died from war. According to Wikipedia out of the total 620,000 people who died in the Civil War only 210,000 were actually killed in action. That means that for every person that died from the actual war, 2 died from outside problems like disease. In my opinion, their were simple steps commanders could of taken that could of greatly prevented the loss of life from things like disease in the civil war. What do you think? Looking forward to seeing all your replies!
There were simple steps, but the reality is that in those days people didn't have the same understanding of the way disease spread as we do today. I'm not sure what the exact numbers were, but it does sound right that more people died from disease than from actually getting shot in battle. Especially in the prison camps in the south, where food was in short supply for the Confederate army let alone having enough to share for the Union prisoners of war.
Medicine back then was very different than what we have today. When someone got shot, they either got the bullet out and let the would heal, or the cut the arm or leg off. Disease was known back then, but I don't think they had any good ways to stop it from spreading. It's amazing that 4 out of 6 people who died weren't casualties that were in the battlefield.
