1861-65–Apr-June, Dysentery/diarrhea, Civil War, Union & Confederate Armies ~95,000

–95,000 Stover, Ken. “Civil War Diseases. CivilWarAcademy.com.
–~45,000 Union
–~50,000 Confederate
–57,000 Burns. Mercy Street. “Behind the Lens: A History in Pictures.” PBS.

Narrative Information

Burns: “The Civil War stories of heroic battlefield actions and adventures fill thousands of volumes. The undignified death of hundreds of thousands who died horrible, at times painful, deaths due to disease and wound infection contradicts the image of the noble soldier. The total reported sick cases for all disease was over 5.8 million. At the beginning of the war, soldiers routinely constructed latrines close to streams contaminating the water for others downstream. Diarrhea and dysentery were the number one killers. (Dysentery is considered diarrhea with blood in the stool.) 57,000 deaths were directly recorded to these most disabling maladies. The total recorded Union cases was 1,528,098. Thousands of the afflicted went into battle fatigued with abdominal pain, malaise and dehydration. If wounded, they often died due to their poor constitutional state, but were not counted as a death from disease.”

Stover: “The major cause of death during the Civil War was disease.

“Disease killed more people than everything else combined including gunshots, artillery, accidents, drowning, starvation, suicide, etc.

“The worst disease in the Civil War was Dysentery. Dysentery accounted for around 45,000 deaths in the Union army and around 50,000 deaths in the Confederate army.

“The reason Dysentery and so many other diseases were able to spread so rapidly through both armies was primarily because of a lack of sanitation practices and contaminated water. Proper hygiene during this time was nonexistent.

“This was not because doctors and nurses were negligent. They just did not know any better. Civil War Medicine was not yet advanced enough o connect a lack of hygiene with disease….

“Simple things such as placing a latrine downstream and away from the clean water supply were often overlooked. This foul water would quickly lead to water contamination which made the development and spread of disease much more frequent.

Sources

Barnes, Joseph K. (Surgeon General, United States Army). The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (1861-65). Part I, Volume. I, Medical History. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1870. Accessed 3-27-2021 at: https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-14121350RX1-mvpart#page/4/mode/2up

Bollet, Alfred Jay, M.D. “Typhoid Fever.” Civil War Rx: The Source Guide to Civil War Medicine. 2014. Accessed 3-27-2021 at: http://civilwarrx.blogspot.com/2013/04/typhoid-fever.html

Burns, Stanley B. MD. Mercy Street. “Behind the Lens: A History in Pictures.” PBS. Accessed 3-27-2021 at: http://www.pbs.org/mercy-street/uncover-history/behind-lens/disease/

Stover, Ken. “Civil War Diseases. CivilWarAcademy.com. Accessed 3-28-2021 at: https://www.civilwaracademy.com/civil-war-diseases