- War of Independence: 2 percent (1 in 50)
- War of 1812: 0.8 percent (1 in 127)
- Indian Wars: 0.9 percent (1 in 106)
- Mexican War: 2.2 percent (1 in 45)
- Civil War: 6.7 percent (1 in 15)
- Spanish-American War: 0.1 percent (1 in 798)
- World War I: 1.1 percent (1 in 89)
- World War II: 1.8 percent (1 in 56)
- Korean War: 0.6 percent (1 in 171)
- Vietnam War: 0.5 percent (1 in 185)
- Persian Gulf War: 0.03 percent (1 in 3,162)
Via Futility Closet, quoting Nicholas Hobbes’ Essential Militaria (2003).
5 Responses
Bradley has a good point, but I would also like to see it broken into different jobs, considering that for every “frontline” infantry man there is at least 2 or more support staff.
I’d be curious about levels of severe injury. Injury levels went up quite a lot in more recent wars due to improved combat medicine (less injured people dying) and less of a focus on “battles.”
Way better as a chart:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AlPSyE5hW-J2dGd4VnF4TUNQTWlITC01V3BKMWVTSFE&output=html
I wonder if these numbers literally deaths in battle or do they include deaths more broadly due to war, like fatal injuries from any kind of skirmish, etc.?
Would really like to see the Civil war numbers broken out north/south.