Baton Rouge tri-weekly gazette & comet., 1865-07-15

De lie rS6ueTals IMPRESSION lndI rLuo
losses sustained by the armies Of the
republic in the late civil war reached
somewhere near a million lives, and
we, find this numbersin the English
Journals frequently given as though
it were an established fact. It may
be as well, therefore, to state that
official returns in the War Depart
1ment show that the deaths in the
army since the war broke out, SO far,
as heard from, with the estimates
made from those returns not yet
handed in, including the starved
prisoners, etc, will reach an oaggre.t
gate of three hundred and twenty
thousand men. When we take into
consideration the immense numbers
of men we have put in the field, the
duration Of the war;, the terrible
marches incident to operations over,
SO vast a stretch of country, the
great number of battles, sieges, com
bats, skirmishes, expeditions, etc,
this mortality is by no means larger o
7 The official estimate is that in
| time Of peace the ordinary mortality
for the number Of men in the field
would be forty thousand, which, de-
Quoted from the above total, would
leave the extraordinary mortality
285,000. Many persons reach far
larger figures than these by taking
newspaper reports of battles etc,
and making loose estimates where
they find no regular data. rThe war
has been sanguinarys it is true,
but not nearly 50 much so as has
been supposed both in Europe and
America; and now that it is over,
and the facts can be examined dis
passionately, we may express our
qualification to find that our losses
fall so far below the general estimates.
LIT affords proof that our generals
have been much more'skillful, scien-
tifc and humane than they have lre-
1 ceiyed credit for being, and that
/ their skill has won success for us at
Ifar less cost of life than might have
been looked for. This IL one of the
chief studies of the scientific soldier,
and we cannot afford to, neglect,
therefore, the proper examination Of
Isuch data as the above. .'''' y
4 These three hundred and twenty
thousand men are ssubtracted from
the fighting material of the nation.
Another estimate we have seen in.
print makes the dead and perma-
nently disabled on both sides during
the war about six hundred thousand.
men. We presumethat, in. estimating
properly the effect of the war. upon
the republic, we should include all
Hoses, north and south, as SO much
taken from the resources of the na-
tion. So viewing. them, while we
must deplore the sacrifice of such a
vast multitude at the shrine of war,
IL E i. 2 TX = -
yet the loss is not SO great as to Grip
pie us. The nation is very far from
being exhausted after this struggle,
prodigious as, it has been. When
Secretary Cameron proposed to OBJ
/ tain arms enough for the whole four
millions Of our fighting population,
he did not look forward to such a
war as we have had, though he pro-
vided for it. Yet out OF that four
millions we have not lost so many
but that those we have left are still
a powerful array, adequate to any
emergency, however great. " ''-s..
| Still it must be evident that we
need time to recover from this. drain
of our vital element. The peace
which we have conquered is too val
liable to be lightly sacrificed, and
hence We neglect no opportunity of
reminding our readers that just at
present we are scarcely in trim to
play the part of knight-errant all
over the world. War is not the nor
NAL condition of our race, as some
persons seem to imagine. Nor can
any nation, however great. afford
to engage in many and rapidly
succeeding wars without exhaust
ing that .sT q e5 ta aa
| Bold peasantry. a nations pride, .5-es..,. .,
! When once destroyed can never be supplied. t'
1t is the native element of our
population which has been most
heavily afflicted in this war, and that
can only be recuperated by a lasting
peace. Foreign immigration sup
plies this native element in the Sec
ond generation, but this process is a
slow one.-PhsI. North american. f
CoENEcucuT TRooPs.-Adjt. Gen.
Morse, of Connecticut has just made
| a report on the number Of men fur
ln:-J,od ~, ~ o4I g tat, f,,. ~, 49,. 80