There are only a handful of wars that have been fought on U.S. soil, and of those, the American Civil War was the deadliest and most destructive conflict in the nation's history. According to the American Battlefield Trust, the war had more than 10,000 military engagements; 50 of them were major; 100 were significant. Battles took place across the country, from the Northern and Southern states, where the majority of battles took place, to Texas and the New Mexican territory.
Not only was there monumental destruction of cities and towns, but a catastrophic loss of life, with the deaths of approximately 620,000 soldiers and civilians, both men and women, who fought for both the Union and the Confederacy. This figure accounts for roughly 2% of the national population at the time. In all, the war resulted in a total of 1.5 million casualties including deaths, injuries, illnesses, imprisonments, and missing persons. (Loss of life is an unfortunate part of any conflict. A recent drone strike in Tel Aviv by the Iranian-backed Houthis caused death and injury.)
At the time of the Civil War, the United States was comprised of 37 states. Every state suffered casualties, but some had more devastating losses than others. To compose a ranking of Civil War deaths by state, 24/7 Tempo collected death toll data from the American Battlefield Trust and historical records by William F. Fox and Frederick H. Dyer, both compiled shortly after the Civil War, to identify the states with the highest number of casualties.
When Fox and Dyer began their research, many death records had already been lost, leading many historians to claim that Civil War fatalities are substantially underestimated. As a result, we opted to use the highest recorded death toll for each state. Information regarding the allegiance of each state during the conflict was also sourced from the American Battlefield Trust.
The Civil War marked a period where new military advancements, improved logistics, and outdated tactical strategies came together, leading to unprecedented levels of casualties in American history. The majority of casualties and deaths were due to non-combat-related diseases, with a ratio of five deaths from illness for every three soldiers killed in battle. The primitive state of Civil War medical care resulted in many avoidable fatalities from wounds and illnesses.
The Battle of Gettysburg alone saw more American soldiers killed or wounded than the combined toll of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. With willful conscription in the South, the war's impact was felt in almost every household, with an estimated one in three Southern households experiencing the loss of at least one family member. (These are 25 horrifying Civil War images.)