American Civil War casualties

**American Civil War casualties** are the Union and Confederate soldiers who became unable to perform their duties for any reason (like disease, injury, going missing, being captured, or death). 

A single soldier could be listed as a casualty several times during the war, which makes it impossible to know exactly how many people were casualties. This is not the number of *casualties* in the war - only the number of deaths. Disease caused around 3 out of every 4 of these deaths. 

## Background 
The American Civil War was the nation's bloodiest war. If there was conflict, people expected it to be brief and mostly for show purposes. During the Civil War, both armies had rifles that could shoot farther, could reload faster, and were much more accurate than the muskets used in the Mexican–American War. Also, by dying well, a person showed others how to die well. Newer estimates have put the number at about 750,000 (about 20% higher than previous estimates).

### Poor records 
As many as half of the men killed in Civil War battles were not identified when they were buried. Some of the records were kept by the Union Army and sent to the War Department in Washington, D.C.. The Adjutant General started a bureau for the “collection, safekeeping, and publication of Rebel Archives” in July of 1865. However, Livermore's number was based on incomplete battle reports, and it made a crude guess as to how many soldiers died from disease and other causes. About 75% of soldiers were born in America. At times, treatment of wounds, infections and diseases actually did more harm than good.

Even healthcare practitioners were not immune; nurses were particularly at risk of catching diseases from the soldiers they tended. Over 40% of hospitalized soldiers died from hospital gangrene throughout most of the war.

## Amputations 
### The most common surgery 
Amputation was by far the most common surgery in the Civil War. Around 60,000 surgeries were done during the war, according to estimates. Of these, nearly 75% were amputations. 

Lastly, if a man was wounded in the head, stomach or chest, he rarely lived long enough to be taken to a field hospital.

### "Butchers" 
Until the war, most American doctors had never seen wounds like these. Most only had experience in lancing boils or pulling teeth. Doctors knew very little about germs and bacteria. They used bandages over and over again on different men without washing or disinfecting them first. By modern standards their operations were , even . 

Soldiers called medics "butchers" and feared amputations more than anything else. To avoid losing a limb and the painful operation, some soldiers and officers tried to treat their wounds themselves.

### Wound location 
A soldier's ability to survive after an amputation depended partly on where his wound was. The closer a wound was to the center of the body, the higher the mortality rate. 

For example, Confederate General John Bell Hood was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Chickamauga. His leg was amputated just over  from his hip. This type of hip operation had an 83% mortality rate. Hood was among the 17% who survived. 

By comparison, arm wounds had a much lower mortality rate: 24%. But Stonewall Jackson did not survive long after the loss of his arm. 

### Process 
Surgeons completed the amputation process quickly. They had to, in order to keep the patient from losing too much blood or going into shock. A leg amputation at the knee could be done in three minutes. In most cases, some form of anesthesia was used. 

The surgery started with cutting around the arm or leg. Then the surgeon would saw through the bone. They would pull out the soldier's nerves as far as possible, then cut them off. 

They often left the bloody stump to heal by itself; other time, they sewed a flap of skin over the stump. 

### After the amputation 
Men who survived an amputation needed to return to their work after the war. Each of them needed a prosthesis to replace their missing arm or leg. 

North Carolina was the first of the former Confederate states to provide artificial legs to its veterans who needed them. They passed a law in 1866 that promised this. Any veteran amputee who could not use an artificial leg received $70. In total, North Carolina took care of 1,550 veterans who applied for help.

## Notes 
## References 
## Other websites 
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