Historian Offers New Civil War Casualty Figures

Historian J. David Hacker has devised new casualty figures for the Civil War, which he discusses in-depth in an article in the December issue of Civil War History.

Many historians have disputed the widely accepted figure of 620,000 Americans killed, noting that the 258,000 Confederate casualties is too low. However, detailed records on troop strength were kept sporadically on both sides, so establishing a more accurate estimate has proved difficult.

Hacker used 1870 census figures as the basis for his calculations and came up with an estimated total of between 650,000 to 850,000 casualties.

Click here for more details on Hacker's work.

California's Contributions by the Numbers

Here's a quick summary of California's casualties in the war:

15,725 total troops (of the 2,778,304 total Union force)

108 killed or mortally wounded
344 died from disease
62 died accidentally
59 died in other non-combat incidents
573 total deaths

I'm still trying to locate a reliable figure for combat wounded and will post it when I locate it.

A Civil War California Reading List

Here's a list of some of my favorite California-related Civil War history books:


Army of the Pacific by Aurora Hunt
The Beat of the Drum: The History, People, & Events of Drum Barracks Wilmington, California by Don McDowell
Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest by Donald S. Frazier, PhD
The Boys in the Sky-Blue Pants by Dorothy Clora Cragen
Brigham and the Brigadier: General Patrick Connor and His California Volunteers in Utah and Along the Overland Trail by James F. Varley
The California Column in New Mexico by Darlis Miller
California Sabers: The 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in the Civil War by James McLean
The Civil War in Arizona: The Story of the California Volunteers, 1861-1865 by Andrew Masich 
Confederate Pathway to the Pacific: Major Sherod Hunter and Arizona Territory, C.S.A by L. Boyd Finch
Glory Hunter: A Biography of Patrick Edward Connor by Brigham Madsen
Major General James Henry Carleton 1814-1873: Western Frontier Dragoon by Aurora Hunt
Their Horses Climbed Trees by Keith Rogers

Sharing My Years of Study

Welcome to my California and the Civil War blog, which finally provides me a place to share information I've gathered through years of study and research.

Let's get right to the elephant in the room, shall we? What connection did California have to the Civil War? Although a great deal of distance lies between the main battlefields of the war and the gold fields of the 31st state, California' 16,000-man contribution to the war effort surpassed the total number of men in the pre-war Regular Army. While the majority of California's volunteers manned frontier posts so Regular Army troops could travel east and join the fighting, some Californians saw combat at Gettysburg and on other fields.

Looking at the bigger picture, California was a destination visited by some of the pivotal figures in the war: Henry Wager Halleck, Joe Hooker, Ulysses Simpson Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman and Winfield Scott Hancock passed through the state before the war, as did Albert Sidney Johnston, John Bell Hood, William Dorsey Pender, Richard Brooke Garnett and Lewis Addison Armistead.

California also proved a haven for some old soldiers, including William Starke Rosecrans, Thomas Turpin Crittenden, Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, Tyree Harris Bell, George Blake Cosby, Henry Brevard Davidson and Edward Higgins.

In this blog, I'll offer information on men and battles, as well as monuments and museums that you can visit to learn more about this overlooked aspect of our country's Civil War history.