Comments on: Recounting the Civil War dead https://habitablezone.com/2011/09/21/recounting-the-civil-war-dead/ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:20:24 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jody https://habitablezone.com/2011/09/21/recounting-the-civil-war-dead/#comment-6052 Jody Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:59:49 +0000 http://habitablezone.com/?p=3826#comment-6052 The prevailing thought for me, about the Civil War has always been, Can I even imagine what it must have been like for the Western settlers/neutral...if there were neutral observers... to hear the news that THEIR country is at war...with each other. The prevailing thought for me, about the Civil War has always been, Can I even imagine what it must have been like for the Western settlers/neutral…if there were neutral observers… to hear the news that THEIR country is at war…with each other.

]]> By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2011/09/21/recounting-the-civil-war-dead/#comment-6047 ER Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:12:37 +0000 http://habitablezone.com/?p=3826#comment-6047 Most men die in war (at least until the very modern time) as the result of disease, and wartime increases civilian deaths from disease too, as do delayed effects of injuries, malnutrition (especially among children and so on. And what do we classify as a wartime death; a man who survived the fighting but perhaps lived ten or twenty years less than he might have otherwise due to wartime wounds or disease? Not to mention America must have become a nation of cripples. The treatment for almost any limb wound, and the most survivable medical procedure, was amputation. Did all those missing young men open job opportunities for the survivors? Supposedly, the European Black Death sparked a medieval economic boom. Was there a labor shortage after the war? What about the widows and orphans now adrift in the land? Were they a rapidly expanding source of labor for the new industrial mills and sweatshops? Or did they represent a welfare drag on the economy? The period between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century has always been a mystery to me. What was it really like back then? We know there was rapid industrialization, social dislocation, population shifts, urbanization, expansion into the vanishing frontier, imperialist adventures abroad, and of course, lots of immigration. The temporal distance from Fort Sumter to the Wright Brothers was the same as that between the the JFK assassination and 9/11. It could easily fit in one lifetime. But the lessons learned by the Americans in mobile, mechanized warfare, trains, telegraphs, high explosive shell artillery, steam gunboats, repeating cartridge firearms, had been carefully studied by the Europeans. I understand the Prussian General Staff was particularly interested in the American Circus. The ability to move, set up, and break down a tent full of performers, their animals, support facilities, housing and bleachers, several hundred miles in 24 hours--and do it on a rigid schedule for months at a time, had immediate military application. Tactics is for amateurs, weapons are for geeks, real soldiers obsess about logistics. The seeds for World War were planted much earlier. Most men die in war (at least until the very modern time) as the result of disease, and wartime increases civilian deaths from disease too, as do delayed effects of injuries, malnutrition (especially among children and so on. And what do we classify as a wartime death; a man who survived the fighting but perhaps lived ten or twenty years less than he might have otherwise due to wartime wounds or disease? Not to mention America must have become a nation of cripples. The treatment for almost any limb wound, and the most survivable medical procedure, was amputation.

Did all those missing young men open job opportunities for the survivors? Supposedly, the European Black Death sparked a medieval economic boom. Was there a labor shortage after the war? What about the widows and orphans now adrift in the land? Were they a rapidly expanding source of labor for the new industrial mills and sweatshops? Or did they represent a welfare drag on the economy?

The period between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century has always been a mystery to me. What was it really like back then? We know there was rapid industrialization, social dislocation, population shifts, urbanization, expansion into the vanishing frontier, imperialist adventures abroad, and of course, lots of immigration. The temporal distance from Fort Sumter to the Wright Brothers was the same as that between the the JFK assassination and 9/11. It could easily fit in one lifetime.

But the lessons learned by the Americans in mobile, mechanized warfare, trains, telegraphs, high explosive shell artillery, steam gunboats, repeating cartridge firearms, had been carefully studied by the Europeans.

I understand the Prussian General Staff was particularly interested in the American Circus. The ability to move, set up, and break down a tent full of performers, their animals, support facilities, housing and bleachers, several hundred miles in 24 hours–and do it on a rigid schedule for months at a time, had immediate military application. Tactics is for amateurs, weapons are for geeks, real soldiers obsess about logistics.

The seeds for World War were planted much earlier.

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