Memory and Meaning

EPILOGUE · MEMORY AND MEANING · The American Civil War, 1861–1865

Count the dead first, and count honestly. The traditional figure, 620,000, was assembled from muster rolls a century ago; demographic work on census survival rates (J. David Hacker, 2011) indicates roughly 750,000 — more likely undercounting than over. Either number exceeds American deaths in both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam combined, out of a population of 31 million: one white Southern man of military age in five, or four; a Black civilian toll in the contraband camps and the chaos of liberation that was never counted at all; and behind each name, as a Union veteran wrote, “a circle of mou

The turn: Gettysburg, 19 November 1863.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.