During the years from 1861 to 1865, one of the greatest wars in all history was fought in this country.There were in all three million three hundred and seventy-eight thousand men engaged in the fighting of it.There are not that many men in all the regular standing armies of Europe combined, even if we include the unpaid hordes of Turkey and the military myriads of the armed camp known to geography as Russia.The actual fighting field of this war of ours was larger than the whole of western Europe, and all of it was trampled over and fought over by great armies.The men killed or mortally wounded in our war numbered on the Northern side alone 110,000. The total number of deaths resulting from military operations on the Northern side alone was 350,000. The figures for the Southern side are not accessible, owing to the loss of records. But as the fighting was equally determined on both sides, and as other conditions were substantially equal, it is certain that the losses of life were relatively about the same on both sides. It is well within the facts, therefore, to say that this war of ours directly caused the death of more than half a million men. No other war in modern history has cost so many lives or half so many.
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