The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-11-13
ACTUAL DEATH LOSS
OF THE CIVIL WAR
An Appalling Catalogue OF Sacrifices b,
Battle and Disease.
NEARLY 100000 UNION MEN FELL
Large Percentage OF the "UnknOwn.''
The Dead in Southern Prisons.
Difficulty of Making an Approximate
List -. Eighty three Cemeteries
Where They Are Buried.

Writes Leslie J. Perry in the Sun:
Investigation long ago determined the
queer fact of the utter impossibility
of determining with absolute accuracy
the number of deaths from all causes
of Union soldiers during the war of
the rebellion. The grand aggregate, of
course. is approximately known. With
in the Union Lines the records of deaths
were so systematically kept and filed
from time to time in the War depart
ment, there preserved and subsequent
he brought together and collated so
carefully that the aggregate number is
now settled as near as it possibly ever
can be settled The statistics are near
enough to absolute certainty to be sat
isfactory to historians.
The uncertain quantity. the great
stumbling block to any close approXi-
nation of the melancholy aggregate,
is the deaths among prisoners of war
in the hands of the enemy. The larger
proportion of the official records of the
southern prison depots We're lost OF de-
stroyed in the hurly- -burly of the wind
up. There were at least a dozen pris-
ons, of which only partial records or
next to none at all We're secured. The
death lists of several of the most i'm
portant stations have never been found,
and the only mode by which the num-
ber of the dead at such, and many 9TH
ers, was satisfactorily obtained was by
eXhuming and counting the skeletons.
This was such an almost impossible
task that it was not wholly carried
out. and thus the total number of
Union dead in Southern prisons re-
mains to this day and will ever re-
main an unknown quantity.
SOUTHERN PRISON PENS.
At Salisbury, N. c., for instance, one
of the leading and Oldest of The Con-
federate prisons, the dead were buried
in tiers, sometimes two. three and four
deep. averaging 240 feet in length. No
headboards or other marks of identfi-
cation We're set up; no record of the
names of the dead seems to have been
kept-at all events, none has been
found: no coftins or boxes We're used:
the miserable bodies, incased in their
own squalid rags. were bundled into
the trench in the most expeditions man
ner, side by side, in row 24O feet long,
over which a thin coating of dirt was
spread; then another tier of dead was
put down on top of this bottom layer
of bodies, until the receptacle was full,
when another trench was opened. The
bodies in these trenches have never
been eXhumed and counted, and in the
absence of official lists it thus happens
that no exact knowledge of the number
of Union dead buried at Salisbury is
Ohtainable. Testimony ELECTED during
the trial of Major Gee. the last Confed-
crate officer in charge of this prison,
indicated that as many as 10000 SOL
diers might be buried i'm these trenches,
perhaps some of whom We're Confeder-
ates, and others, again, political pris-
Oners and nOndescripts. Officers of the
United States Quartermaster'S depart-
ment, sent to Salisbury Immediately
after the war to put this burial place
in order, after a careful examination
of all sources of information, estimated
the number at 12,1l2 This figure has
been strenuously disputed. 1T seems
probable that the true number lies be-
tween 1900 and 12,ll2, doubtless more
than the first and considerably less
than the last.
GETTING AT THE FACTS.
These facts concerning the Salisbury
biased mind how indefinite and un-
of the deaths of Union soldiers in
Southern prisons must have been, and
necessarily so from the very INSULT
cient data upon which they We're based.
So long as thirty-two years ago an
official statement of them was made
very hastily by Secretary Stanton, fix
ing the aggregate at 26,92S. These were
the then ascertained deaths by names
from army rolls, rolls of honor, prison
rolls, etc, but this aggregate sum did
not include the unknown estimated
dead, which at that time swelled the
known list to more than $4,000 men.
But aside from all estimates, the
records Of the War department now
bear upward of 10000 specific names of
soldiers who died in Southern prisons.
The additional names to the number
stated by Mr. Stanton in 1865 have
been ascertained through testimony
taken by the Pension office in the dis
posal OF applications for pensions, and
the record Is growing from year to
year, though in decreasing ratio.