The Civil War (1861 to 1865) was the bloodiest war that the United States has ever fought.
Fought between the Union in the North and the Confederacy in the South, the war simply tore the United States apart in ways that no other event in our nation’s history ever has. It took decades before the country was able to recover from the immense loss of life and sheer devastation to the economy, cities, and industries that the conflict caused.
Here are the 18 most horrifying facts you didn’t know about the Civil War:
1 – 50,000 Families Were Split Between the Union and the Confederacy

No less than 50,000 American families had brothers who were fighting on opposite sides of the conflict. Many of these families were located on the border states like Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia (which formed on the Union side in 1863 mainly for that reason).
2 – Over One Million People Were Killed

While no one knows for sure precisely how many people died during the Civil War, most estimates are that at least a million people perished in total. Many of these were soldiers on the battlefield (either from weapons or from disease), while many others were prisoners in POW camps, civilians who were killed in the crossfire or from starvation, and slaves who were trying to escape from the South.
3 – An Entire Generation of Young Men Was Wiped Out

The Civil War saw an entire generation of young men lose their lives, especially in the Southern states. This sheer level of loss of life was beyond what anybody expected at the war’s outbreak.
4 – At Least 630,000 Soldiers Died

Of the aforementioned one million people who are estimated to have been killed in the war, at least 630,000 of them were soldiers. Of these, around 360,000 fought for the Union and 290,000 fought for the Confederacy. Now it’s not hard to see how literally an entire generation of men lost their lives in the war.
5 – A Majority of Soldiers Died From Disease

Of the 630,000+ soldiers who died in the Civil War, around 400,000 didn’t die from the battlefield but rather from disease. Typhoid, pneumonia, malaria, measles, and tuberculosis all ran rampant around the ranks of both armies, and there were no cures available for any of them except malaria.
6 – Dysentery Killed Almost 100,000 Men

At least 50,000 Union and 45,000 Confederate soldiers were killed by dysentery alone. This was because food and water sources that soldiers relied upon would regularly become infected from the horrible sanitation conditions in army hospitals and camps.
7 – Surgeons Would Often Not Clean Their Tools Between Operations

Many times surgeons had to work rapidly on so many patients that they used the same tools to treat patients surgically without cleaning those tools in between the surgeries. This caused widespread cross contamination and only made sanitary conditions in army encampments worse than they already were. Speaking of surgery…
8 – At Least 60,000 Amputations Were Performed

No less than 60,000 soldiers across both sides of the conflict lost at least one limb throughout the course of the war. This means that by far more American soldiers suffered an amputation in the Civil War than any other war the United States has ever participated in.
9 – Most Soldiers Who Underwent an Amputation Were Sedated…But Not All

It’s a big myth that soldiers who underwent an amputation during the war were never sedated. In reality, most soldiers were sedated with a mix of chloroform and whiskey. That being said, if sedation medications were not available, then amputations would proceed anyway in an attempt to save the soldier’s life. Army encampments on both sides became infamous for the screams of soldiers who were having a limb amputated without being sedated.
10 – There Were Very Few Surgeons During the War

Making matters worse was how the proportion of surgeons to wounded soldiers was very low. Both the Union and Confederacy were in desperate need of trained surgeons throughout the war. As an example, in the aftermath of the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864, there were less than 40 Union surgeons who had to operate on more than 7,000 wounded men. Many of these wounded men died while waiting for treatment.
11 – Conditions at Prisoner-of-War Camps Were Horrible

Conditions at prisoner-of-war camps were even worse than at the army encampments. Disease ran rampant and prisoners received preciously little food. The infamous Confederate POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia, had a fatality rate of at least 30% amongst the prisoners, and almost everyone who survived was emaciated and incredibly ill by the time of their rescue.
12 – There Were More Than 50,000 Casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 was the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil. 50,000 soldiers were either killed or wounded in three days of fighting of around 150,000 engaged, representing a casualty rate of at least 33%. After the battle, the stench from the dead on the battlefield was so strong that it traumatized many of the surviving soldiers for the rest of their lives.
13 – Trench Warfare at Petersburg Foreshadowed World War I

The Battle of Petersburg was a nine-month long battle fought 1864 to 1865. It was marked by muddy and bloody trench warfare where both sides dug trenches and would repeatedly launch ineffective human wave attacks right into musket, cannon, and Gatling gun fire. Tens of thousands of soldiers were killed. This foreshadowed what would happen five decades later in World War I.
14 – Doctors Believed Pus Meant a Patient Was Recovering

Medical knowledge during the Civil War period was a bit…lacking compared to today. For instance, it was believed pus showing from a soldier’s injury meant that soldier was healing, when in reality, it meant that the wound was only getting worse. This meant that soldiers were often sent out from hospitals (like the one you see above) when they were in no condition to be so.
15 – The Union Enacted a Scorched Earth Policy Towards the End of the War

The Union was merciless in the closing months of the war. Most notably, during Union General William Sherman’s ‘March to the Sea’ campaign across Georgia, the Union burned down cities, destroyed civilian homes and buildings, burned fields of crops, and destroyed all infrastructure that they could find. While brutal, the policy arguably hastened the end of the war and may have have saved lives in the long run.
16 – More American Soldiers Were Executed Than From All Other American Wars Combined

Both the Union and the Confederacy had no tolerance for desertions or cowardice in battle. Any soldier caught fleeing the battlefield or refusing to fight would likely be executed either by hanging or firing squad. At least five hundred American soldiers were executed in total, which represented more executions than all other wars America has participated in put together.
17 – The Confederates Massacred 300 Defenseless Union Troops at Fort Pillow

After overrunning Fort Pillow in 1864, the Confederate attackers proceeded to brutally massacre more than 300 Union troops inside, most of whom were defenseless due to being very ill or severely wounded from prior battles. The massacre represented one of the worst war crimes in the Civil War and “Remember Fort Pillow!” became a rallying cry for the Union afterward.
18 – The Union Destroyed Much of Fredericksburg

The Union was hardly free from committing war crimes themselves. In one horrific incident, after arriving at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1862 the Union forces proceeded to burn churches, hospitals, and residential homes to the ground and killed hundreds of helpless civilians in the process.

Leave a comment