I found that the article "Why Did so Many Die?" was extremely devastating. Basically the article talks about the numbers of men that were killed during the Civil War,260,000 rebel soldiers were killed along with 373,000 Union soldiers. The amount of deaths were drastic and never before seen. There were many factors at the time as to why the numbers were so extreme. There were completely different warfare tactics being used, which emphasized frontal assaults. There was new technology in weapons as well. In place of cannons and smoothbore muskets barreled rifles now stood, resulting in thousands of deaths a day.For awhile there were no doctors or surgeons to help the wounded, then when there were they got reputations of being butchers. Soldiers dreaded the operation table worse then the armed enemies themselves. The doctors had little knowledge of bacteria did operations under disgusting and disturbing conditions, one in every five wounded died. Bacteria and diseases killed many, diseases killed nearly twice as many soldiers as did battle. Most that were died were prisoners of war,about 56,000.
1. What do you believe caused more Union soldiers to be killed overall than rebel soldiers?
2. The article says that a century later in Vietnam only one in four-hundred wounded died as to the one in five wounded that passed in the Civil War, what factors do you believe changed over the years to alter that statistic so drastically?
