Of the ten deadliest battles of the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg in early July, 1863, was by far the most devastating battle of the war, claiming over 51 thousand casualties, of which 7 thousand were battle deaths. The Battles of Shiloh, Bull Run (Second), Antietam, Stones River and Chancellorsville all have very similar casualty counts, between 22.5 and 24 thousand casualties each, although it should be noted that the Battle of Antietam took place in a single day, and with 22,717 casualties it is the bloodiest day in U.S. history. The Battles of Chickamauga, the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, all had approximately 30 to 35 thousand casualties each, whereas the Siege of Vicksburg is the only entry on this list with less than 20 thousand casualties.

The American Civil War is the conflict with the largest number of American military fatalities in history. In fact, the Civil War's death toll is comparable to all other major wars combined, the deadliest of which were the World Wars, which have a combined death toll of more than 520,000 American fatalities. The ongoing series of conflicts and interventions in the Middle East and North Africa, collectively referred to as the War on Terror in the west, has a combined death toll of more than 7,000 for the U.S. military since 2001. Other records In terms of the number of deaths per day, the American Civil War is still at the top, with an average of 425 deaths per day, while the First and Second World Wars have averages of roughly 100 and 200 fatalities per day respectively. Technically, the costliest battle in U.S. military history was the Battle of Elsenborn Ridge, which was a part of the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War, and saw upwards of 5,000 deaths over 10 days. However, the Battle of Gettysburg had more military fatalities of American soldiers, with almost 3,200 Union deaths and over 3,900 Confederate deaths, giving a combined total of more than 7,000. The Battle of Antietam is viewed as the bloodiest day in American military history, with over 3,600 combined fatalities and almost 23,000 total casualties on September 17, 1862. Revised Civil War figures For more than a century, the total death toll of the American Civil War was generally accepted to be around 620,000, a number which was first proposed by Union historians William F. Fox and Thomas L. Livermore in 1888. This number was calculated by using enlistment figures, battle reports, and census data, however many prominent historians since then have thought the number should be higher. In 2011, historian J. David Hacker conducted further investigations and claimed that the number was closer to 750,000 (and possibly as high as 850,000). While many Civil War historians agree that this is possible, and even likely, obtaining consistently accurate figures has proven to be impossible until now; both sides were poor at keeping detailed records throughout the war, and much of the Confederacy's records were lost by the war's end. Many Confederate widows also did not register their husbands death with the authorities, as they would have then been ineligible for benefits.

The Battle of Gettysburg, at the beginning of July 1863, was the largest and costliest battle of the American Civil War, and is often regarded as the turning point in the war. Confederate General Robert E. Lee sought to capitalize on his victories earlier in the year, such as the Battle of Chancellorsville, by launching his second invasion of the northern states. He did this in order to alleviate the pressure on the Virginia farmland, which had been ravaged by the preceding campaigns, and also in an attempt to force the Union into negotiations to end the war. In June, General Lee's forces marched through Virginia, into Pennsylvania, and were pursued by Union forces led by Major General Joseph Hooker, and later Maj. Gen. George G. Meade. The Battle of Gettysburg The armies met near the town of Gettysburg, PA, on the morning of July 1. In the first day of fighting, the Confederates won control of much of the area surrounding the town, while the Union held the lands to the south. On the second day, reinforcements arrived on both sides, and while the Confederate forces tried flanking the entrenched and heavily defended Union forces, they had limited success. At 1pm on the third day of battle, General Lee launched what was probably the largest artillery bombardment of the entire war, and two hours later he ordered Pickett's Charge, which saw roughly 12,500 Confederate troops charge the Union forces entrenched on Cemetery Ridge. The bombardment had little effect on the Union defenses, and the oncoming soldiers suffered heavy casualties before being forced to retreat, marking an end to the battle and a victory for the Union. Gettysburg has been described as the bloodiest battle of the war, as, not only were the casualties higher than any other battle, but the depletion of ammunition stocks led to much close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat on the final day. Legacy Over 165,000 men took part in the Battle of Gettysburg, with roughly one third becoming casualties. More than 7,000 men died in the fighting, and a further 33,000 were wounded. The battle also saw the deaths of six Confederate and five Union generals, more than any other battle in the war. Although the war would not end for another two years, this battle is seen by many as the turning point, and as the closest that the Confederacy came to accomplishing their goal of complete cessation from the Union. Prior to this, the Confederacy had won more decisive battles than the Union, but after Gettysburg this shifted in favor of the Union, who would go on to win the war in 1865. Four months after the battle, President Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address, which paid tribute to the men who fell in the battle, and has gone on to become one of the most famous speeches in American history.

The First World War saw the mobilization of more than 65 million soldiers, and the deaths of almost 15 million soldiers and civilians combined. Approximately 8.8 million of these deaths were of military personnel, while six million civilians died as a direct result of the war; mostly through hunger, disease and genocide. The German army suffered the highest number of military losses, totaling at more than two million men. Turkey had the highest civilian death count, largely due to the mass extermination of Armenians, as well as Greeks and Assyrians. Varying estimates suggest that Russia may have suffered the highest number of military and total fatalities in the First World War. However, this is complicated by the subsequent Russian Civil War and Russia's total specific to the First World War remains unclear to this day.

Proportional deaths In 1914, Central and Eastern Europe was largely divided between the empires of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia, while the smaller Balkan states had only emerged in prior decades with the decline of the Ottoman Empire. For these reasons, the major powers in the east were able to mobilize millions of men from across their territories, as Britain and France did with their own overseas colonies, and were able to utilize their superior manpower to rotate and replace soldiers, whereas smaller nations did not have this luxury. For example, total military losses for Romania and Serbia are around 12 percent of Germany's total military losses; however, as a share of their total mobilized forces these countries lost roughly 33 percent of their armies, compared to Germany's 15 percent mortality rate. The average mortality rate of all deployed soldiers in the war was around 14 percent.

Unclarity in the totals Despite ending over a century ago, the total number of deaths resulting from the First World War remains unclear. The impact of the Influenza pandemic of 1918, as well as various classifications of when or why fatalities occurred, has resulted in varying totals with differences ranging in the millions. Parallel conflicts, particularly the Russian Civil War, have also made it extremely difficult to define which conflicts the fatalities should be attributed to. Since 2012, the totals given by Hirschfeld et al in Brill's Encyclopedia of the First World War have been viewed by many in the historical community as the most reliable figures on the subject.

Andersonville Prison was one of the largest, and most overcrowded and unsanitary prison camps during the American Civil War. For this reason, almost one third of all prisoners died while in captivity in the prison. As Confederate records were so poorly maintained, there are no complete records for the entire war, however from March until August, 1684, we know that over 7,700 Union soldiers died in captivity here. The most common causes for death were diarrhea and dysentery, and scurvy, which are both fast-spreading diseases, facilitated by poor and unhygienic living conditions. As a comparison, approximately 5.9 thousand Confederate POWs died from diarrhea or dysentery between 1861 and 1865.

Estimates for the total death count of the Second World War generally range somewhere between 70 and 85 million people. The Soviet Union suffered the highest number of fatalities of any single nation, with estimates mostly falling between 22 and 27 million deaths. China then suffered the second greatest, at around 20 million, although these figures are less certain and often overlap with the Chinese Civil War. Over 80 percent of all deaths were of those from Allied countries, and the majority of these were civilians. In contrast, 15 to 20 percent were among the Axis powers, and the majority of these were military deaths, as shown in the death ratios of Germany and Japan. Civilian deaths and atrocities It is believed that 60 to 67 percent of all deaths were civilian fatalities, largely resulting from war-related famine or disease, and war crimes or atrocities. Systematic genocide, extermination campaigns, and forced labor, particularly by the Germans, Japanese, and Soviets, led to the deaths of millions. In this regard, Nazi activities alone resulted in 17 million deaths, including six million Jews in what is now known as The Holocaust. Not only was the scale of the conflict larger than any that had come before, but the nature of and reasoning behind this loss make the Second World War stand out as one of the most devastating and cruelest conflicts in history. Problems with these statistics Although the war is considered by many to be the defining event of the 20th century, exact figures for death tolls have proven impossible to determine, for a variety of reasons. Countries such as the U.S. have fairly consistent estimates due to preserved military records and comparatively few civilian casualties, although figures still vary by source. For most of Europe, records are less accurate. Border fluctuations and the upheaval of the interwar period mean that pre-war records were already poor or non-existent for many regions. The rapid and chaotic nature of the war then meant that deaths could not be accurately recorded at the time, and mass displacement or forced relocation resulted in the deaths of many civilians outside of their homeland, which makes country-specific figures more difficult to find. Early estimates of the war’s fatalities were also taken at face value and formed the basis of many historical works; these were often very inaccurate, but the validity of the source means that the figures continue to be cited today, despite contrary evidence.

In comparison to Europe, estimate ranges are often greater across Asia, where populations were larger but pre-war data was in short supply. Many of the Asian countries with high death tolls were European colonies, and the actions of authorities in the metropoles, such as the diversion of resources from Asia to Europe, led to millions of deaths through famine and disease. Additionally, over one million African soldiers were drafted into Europe’s armies during the war, yet individual statistics are unavailable for most of these colonies or successor states (notably Algeria and Libya). Thousands of Asian and African military deaths went unrecorded or are included with European or Japanese figures, and there are no reliable figures for deaths of millions from countries across North Africa or East Asia. Additionally, many concentration camp records were destroyed, and such records in Africa and Asia were even sparser than in Europe. While the Second World War is one of the most studied academic topics of the past century, it is unlikely that we will ever have a clear number for the lives lost in the conflict.

Previous research concerning the relationship between conflict and public health finds that countries emerging from war face greater challenges in ensuring the well-being of their populations in comparison with states that have enjoyed political stability. This study seeks to extend this insight by considering how different civil war conflict strategies influence post-conflict public health. Drawing a distinction between deaths attributable to battle and those fatalities resulting from genocide/politicide, we find that the magnitude of genocide/politicide proves the more effective and consistent predictor of future rates of disability and death in the aftermath of civil war. The implications of this research are twofold. First, it lends support to an emerging literature suggesting that important distinctions exist between the forms of violence occurring during civil war. Second, of particular interest to policymakers, it identifies post-civil war states that have experienced the highest rates of genocide/politicide as the countries most in need of assistance in the aftermath of conflict.

Casualty Reports from the Syrian Civil War

Since June 2011, the Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC) has recorded casualties resulting from the ongoing civil war in Syria. The data provided here is a periodically-refreshed extract of VDC's database. For more information about the data and VDC, see the link below.

Source: About VDC

This data collection describes international and civil wars for the years 1816-1992. Part 1, the International Wars file, describes the experience of each interstate member in each war. The unit of analysis is the participant in a particular conflict. When and where each interstate member fought is coded, along with battle and total deaths, pre-war population and armed forces, and whether the member in question initiated the conflict. Each war is characterized as interstate, colonial, or imperial, and major power status and/or central system membership of the warring parties is noted. Part 2, the Civil Wars file, describes when and where fighting took place, whether the war was fought within the boundaries of a major power or central system member, whether there was outside intervention and, if so, whether the intervening state was a major power, on what side they intervened, who won the war, number of battle deaths, total population, and total number of pre-war armed forces.

This file is the online supplement to "Theories of Civilian Victimization: Constraint, Control, or Contestation? Evidence from Afghanistan", and includes the accompanying dataset, R-code, and additional figures and analysis not included in the main paper.

Indiscriminate violence against civilians has long been viewed as a catalyst for new rounds of violence in civil wars. Can humanitarian assistance reduce violence after civilians have been harmed? Crossnational studies are pessimistic, drawing a connection between humanitarian aid and increased civil war violence, lethality, and duration. To date, however, we have few subnational studies of wartime aid and subsequent violence. To examine this relationship, I draw on the Afghan Civilian Assistance Program (ACAP II), a USAID-funded initiative that investigated 1,061 civilian casualty incidents (2011–13). Aid was assigned as if randomly to about half (55.8%) of these incidents, facilitating counterfactual estimation of how assistance affected Taliban attacks against the International Security Assistance Force, Afghan forces, and civilians. Challenging prior studies, I find that ACAP was associated with an average 23 percent reduction in attacks against ISAF, but not Afghan forces or civilians, at the village level for up to two years after the initial incident.

A dataset to advance the study of life-cycle interactions of biomedical and socioeconomic factors in the aging process. The EI project has assembled a variety of large datasets covering the life histories of approximately 39,616 white male volunteers (drawn from a random sample of 331 companies) who served in the Union Army (UA), and of about 6,000 African-American veterans from 51 randomly selected United States Colored Troops companies (USCT). Their military records were linked to pension and medical records that detailed the soldiers������?? health status and socioeconomic and family characteristics. Each soldier was searched for in the US decennial census for the years in which they were most likely to be found alive (1850, 1860, 1880, 1900, 1910). In addition, a sample consisting of 70,000 men examined for service in the Union Army between September 1864 and April 1865 has been assembled and linked only to census records. These records will be useful for life-cycle comparisons of those accepted and rejected for service. Military Data: The military service and wartime medical histories of the UA and USCT men were collected from the Union Army and United States Colored Troops military service records, carded medical records, and other wartime documents. Pension Data: Wherever possible, the UA and USCT samples have been linked to pension records, including surgeon''''s certificates. About 70% of men in the Union Army sample have a pension. These records provide the bulk of the socioeconomic and demographic information on these men from the late 1800s through the early 1900s, including family structure and employment information. In addition, the surgeon''''s certificates provide rich medical histories, with an average of 5 examinations per linked recruit for the UA, and about 2.5 exams per USCT recruit. Census Data: Both early and late-age familial and socioeconomic information is collected from the manuscript schedules of the federal censuses of 1850, 1860, 1870 (incomplete), 1880, 1900, and 1910. Data Availability: All of the datasets (Military Union Army; linked Census; Surgeon''''s Certificates; Examination Records, and supporting ecological and environmental variables) are publicly available from ICPSR. In addition, copies on CD-ROM may be obtained from the CPE, which also maintains an interactive Internet Data Archive and Documentation Library, which can be accessed on the Project Website. * Dates of Study: 1850-1910 * Study Features: Longitudinal, Minority Oversamples * Sample Size: ** Union Army: 35,747 ** Colored Troops: 6,187 ** Examination Sample: 70,800 ICPSR Link: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/06836

Political scientists have conducted only limited systematic research on the consequences of war for civilian populations. Here we argue that the civilian suffering caused by civil war extends well beyond the period of active warfare. We examine these longer-term effects in a cross-national (1999) analysis of World Health Organization new fine-grained data on death and disability broken down by age, gender, and type of disease or condition. We test hypotheses about the impact of civil wars and find substantial long-term effects, even after controlling for several other factors. We estimate that the additional burden of death and disability incurred in 1999, from the indirect and lingering effects of civil wars in the years 1991–97, was approximately equal to that incurred directly and immediately from all wars in 1999. This impact works its way through specific diseases and conditions and disproportionately affects women and children.

The civil war in Yemen erupted in late 2024 between forces of the UN-recognized government of Yemen and rebels spearheaded by the Houthi rebels. The war quickly reached regional dimensions, with the former side backed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates as well as other countries, while the latter is backed mainly by Iran. Tens of thousands have been killed as a direct consequence of battles, and even more have lost their lives due to indirect consequences such as famine and a lack of essential health care.

Determining the appropriate casualty threshold criteria for case selection in the civil war literature has proven contentious. Yet despite continued debate, our survey of the literature finds that scholars rarely examine their findings across multiple thresholds. Of those that did evaluate their findings in this way, nearly half found that their results changed at different thresholds. Because minor and major conflicts often exhibit different causal patterns, scholars should explore their empirical findings across a range of theoretically-motivated thresholds. To illustrate the utility of this approach, we demonstrate that the relationship between narcotics and conflict intensity varies across thresholds. We then introduce a dynamic theory that emphasizes the endogeneity of rebel groups' decisions to turn to drug cultivation during civil war.

The Battle of Antietam (also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg) is the single bloodiest day in the United States' military history, with almost 23,000 total casualties, which included over 3,600 fatalities. The battle began at dawn on September 17, 1862, as General Robert E. Lee's Confederate army were attacked by Major General George B. McClellan near Antietam Creek, Maryland. While the Union had almost double the Confederacy's numbers, McClellan did not commit his full force, and did not capitalize and push his attack any time he broke Lee's defensive line. This meant that Lee's men were able to hold off the Union army until reinforcements arrived in the evening and drove the battered Union army back, thus ending the battle. Although some skirmishes took place during the day before and after the 17th, they pale in comparison to the violence and losses suffered on that day.

Central African Republic CF: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data was reported at 261.000 Person in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 675.000 Person for 2022. Central African Republic CF: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data is updated yearly, averaging 88.000 Person from Dec 2001 (Median) to 2023, with 17 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 906.000 Person in 2021 and a record low of 27.000 Person in 2015. Central African Republic CF: Battle-Related Deaths: Number of People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Central African Republic – Table CF.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Battle-related deaths are deaths in battle-related conflicts between warring parties in the conflict dyad (two conflict units that are parties to a conflict). Typically, battle-related deaths occur in warfare involving the armed forces of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla activities, and all kinds of bombardments of military units, cities, and villages, etc. The targets are usually the military itself and its installations or state institutions and state representatives, but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form of civilians being killed in crossfire, in indiscriminate bombings, etc. All deaths--military as well as civilian--incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related deaths.;Uppsala Conflict Data Program, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/.;Sum;

This article introduces individual-level microdata on victims of violence in Nepal’s civil war (1996–2006). The data being presented in this study are unique in that they are a census—not a sample—of the known population of victims for which information could be collected. The unit of analysis is the individual victim, and the data provide information on: whether the victim was killed, injured, or disappeared; the districts and villages where they were targeted; their permanent home addresses; the circumstances of the attack (combat, extrajudicial, etc.); socioeconomic information; whether they had any affiliation to rebel groups or other political parties; identification of the perpetrator; and whether the victim was considered to be a government or Maoist informant. After describing the data, an application of the data is performed and some preliminary findings are discussed on the differences in targeting behavior between the government and the Maoist rebels.

The paper uses data from the International Peace Research Institute and the Global Precipitation Climatology databases and the Armed Conflict Data database developed by the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo, Norway, and the University of Uppsala, Sweden (referred to as PRIO/Uppsala). In the dataset armed conflict is defined as a contested incompatibility which concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths. The database only focused only on politically motivated violence. All country-year observations with a civil conflict in progress with at least 25 battle deaths per year (or 1,000 battle deaths in some specifications) are coded as ones, and other observations are coded as zeros. Note that, the PRIO/Uppsala does not include conflict information at the subnational level or by month within each year; nor does it provide the exact number of conflict deaths. The dataset from the Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) database provides monthly rainfall estimates dating back from 1979. The GPCP data rely on a combination of actual weather station rainfall gauge measures, as well as satellite information on the density of cold cloud cover (which is closely related to actual precipitation), to derive rainfall estimates, at 2.5 latitude and longitude degree intervals.

The Siege of Vicksburg was one of the most tactically important victories for the Union in the American Civil War. Victory helped give the Union control of the Mississippi River, while cutting off a major supply line for the Union forces. When Major General Ulysses S. Grant's Union troops tried taking the fortress by force, in mid-May 1863, they were twice pushed back with heavy casualties. Instead of sending his men to try a third time, Grant then used artillery to besiege the city on a daily basis and cut off all supply networks into the city. The inhabitants survived for another forty days before running out of provisions, (many reports claim the starving inhabitants had to resort to eating dogs and rats to survive) and surrendered on July 4. Interestingly, the legacy of the siege meant Independence Day was not celebrated in Vicksburg again until after the Second World War, 81 years later.