When American fatalities in
Iraq passed a thousand on 7 Sept. 2004, there
was the inevitable comparison of this with other wars. The news media
generally
drew their numbers from the Departments of
Defense
and
Veterans
Affairs, but I
have some small disagreements with those. Among them:
The US government ignores
the Philippine War.
The total given by the VA
for the Indian Wars ("1,000") seems to
be a wild guess. Just two major defeats -- Custer's and St. Clair's --
add up
to about 900 dead all by themselves.
The official number of
Americans killed in the Revolutionary War (4,435) is
only about 2/3 the numbers usually given by historians.
The total of US combat
deaths during the Civil War is given as 140,414 --
or some 30,000 higher than most historians would estimate. I suspect
(but don't
know for sure) that the boost may come from the DoD counting deaths
among POWs
as combat rather than disease. I can't think of where else they'd get
30,000
more war dead.
The VA accepts without
comment the very
incomplete statistics of
Confederate War dead -- 74,524.
The upshot of these unusual
Civil War estimates is that it appears that the
ratio of Union to Confederate killed was 2:1, rather than the more
widely
accepted 55:45. This distorts our understanding of the nature of the
Civil War,
and it perpetuates the idea that the North won through sheer brute
numbers --
which may or may not be true, but you should at least use reliable
numbers to determine this.
With that in mind, I decided to
make my own list (although I doubt that
anyone is going to accept my numbers over the VA's)
FN1:American
-- "American" is
not as clearly definable as you'd think. Obviously, anyone fighting
under the
authority of the US government counts, but should we include the
Confederates? And if the Confederates count, shouldn't the Tories and
Texans? Once this
happens, we've shifted from a legal definition of American to an ethnic
definition, and we have to be fair about including situations where
substantial
numbers of ethnic Americans fought and died outside the legal structure
of the
US government. I've italicized those.
FN3:Legal Authority
- The main reason
I've bothered with this category is that people sometimes try to trim
the list
of American wars by arbitrarily deciding that some are more "official"
than others, and therefore Russia, for example, wouldn't count. My
point here
is that, yes, there are legal differences between wars, but that you
shouldn't
include some
undeclared wars (e.g. Gulf War) while ignoring others (e.g.
Lebanon). Although only a handful of American wars have been launched
by a
formal diplomatic declaration of war, all have had at least the tacit
support of
Congress. Some have seen specific resolutions authorizing the Executive
Branch
to use force as it sees fit. Sometimes Americans have fought under
governments
established by revolution, which is a legal can of worms.
FN4:Indian Wars
- for now, I'm lumping
all these together, but ideally, each should be counted separately. For
details
and sources, see below.
FN5:War Names
- I've tried to avoid the
cute, designer names that have been attached to some of these wars,
like Desert
Storm and the Polar Bear Expedition, in favor of more descriptive names.
FN6:War against Terrorism
- Deaths in "Operation
Enduring Freedom" (Defense
Link) outside the Afghanistan,
plus the 22 soldiers and 33 sailors
killed at the Pentagon, Sept. 11, 2001 (CNN).
It doesn't
include the civilians killed on 9/11.
Although more American died in
the Civil War, more Americans were killed in
WW2. It's a pedantic technicality perhaps, but the Civil War was
America's deadliest
war, World War II its bloodiest.
Ransom, One Kind of Freedom (est. Afr.Ams.)
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p.619 (est. total)
White, Great Big Book of
Horrible Things, p.299 (est. total)
That would probably be the Battle of
Celaya,
1915, in the Mexican Revolution, in which some 10,000 died. That beats
the
7,000 killed at Gettysburg (see below). On the other hand, the Spanish
Conquest
of Tenochtitlan in 1520 is said to have killed 100,000-200,000 Aztecs
in battle
so, if true (big if), that would take the title.
Bloodiest Battle in American
History:
That depends. You probably mean
the most Americans killed in a single
battle, which would be the 26,277 killed in the Battle of
Meuse-Argonne.
But the "bloodiest battle
in US history" could also mean the most people of all
nationalities
killed in a battle involving a major commitment of American troops,
which would
be the 150,000 Americans and Japanese killed at Okinawa.
Gettysburg, the bloodiest
battle of the Civil War, is
usuallyclaimedto
have killed 3,155
Union and 3,903 Confederate troops, for a total of 7,058.
KIA: 2100 USA + 1550
CSA = 3,650 killed in action on both sides.
Perhaps 4,000 died
of wounds later [1,910 USA + 1550 CSA], or were dead but
counted as missing [225 USA + 306 CSA], giving perhaps 7,650 who died
as a
result of the battle, but not necessarily on that single day.
[Question:
How many of these 3000 died on the first
day, in the SF earthquake, rather than the fire? The 1871 Chicago fire killed
250, so even
assuming twice that many died in the SF fire, that leaves 2,500 dead in
the
earthquake.]
September
16, 1928, Lake Okeechobee
Hurricane:
2,500
Military
history online: for 3-day
battle, 3155 US KIA + 2600-4500 CS KIA [=5755-7655
KIA Total; 1/3 of that is an average of 1918-2552 KIA on any given day]
Bonekemper, A
Victor, Not a Butcher, estimates
that Grant lost a
total of 6,000-6,500 men on 3 June. [p.186] Most other sources (Catton,
Freeman, et al.) estimate 7,000 US lost that day [p.310-311]. Fuller
est. 1,100
US KIA that day. Confed. losses that day are estimated at 1,200-1,500
(Freeman), 1,300 (Fuller), <1,500 (Catton).
[Calculation: Fox, Regimental
Losses, says that 1,844 US
troops
were killed out of a total of 12,737 lost in the 13-day battle. That's
14.5%. Taking 14.5% of 7,000 + 1,300 gives 1,015 US and 188 CS KIA 6/3.]
16 Oct. 1980 Associated
Press & 7 Nov. 1980 Facts on File World News
Digest: 4,678
Hurricane
Katrina (August 29, 2005 and in
subsequent flooding): 2,500 to 4,400
22 Nov 2005 USA
Today: 6,644 people still
missing after Katrina. "Those counting the
victims are particularly concerned about an estimated 1,300
unaccounted-for
people who lived in areas that were heavily damaged by Katrina, or who
were
disabled at the time the storm hit." Official death toll: 1,306 --
including 301 unidentified.
January 19, 2006 CNN:
More than 3,200 people are officially still unaccounted for.
Feb 6, 2006 Newsweek:
about 2,500 people remain missing and the trail is going cold. About
100
unidentified bodies left.
Aug. 31, 2010, Houston
Chronicle: 1,464 dead and 135
missing (Direct storm casualties reported by Louisiana in 2007)
[Estimate = 1,300
official + 1,300 to 3,200 missing -100 unidentified probably counted
among both the dead and the missing = 2,500 to 4,400 = ca. 3,500 if you
split the difference.]
San
Francisco Earthquake (April
18-21, 1906): 3,000
Lake
Okeechobee Hurricane (September
16, 1928): 2,500-3,000
