Notes From The Classroom, pt. II--Civil War Casualties

As I mentioned in my last post, I spend a lot of time teaching my high school students about the American Civil War.  Or, to be more accurate, I should say "the Civil War era".  As I tell them on the first day of the school year, I'm a pacifist, and I don't like war.  As a result, I spend a lot of time talking about life during wartime, and the effects of wars on American society, but not a lot of time on the "bang bang, shoot shoot" part.  This usually disappoints a few students (mostly boys) but of course I still make time to cover certain major battles as well as key military leaders and their tactics, so even the more "bloodthirsty" kids have something to look forward to.

This past week I taught the kids about the scale of Civil War casualties, as well as the terrible conditions faced by soldiers of that era, especially those who were wounded in battle. When I teach this class, I have several goals in mind; first, to put the event into a global perspective, and second, to try to relate the information to the wars the United States have been fighting for most of their lives.

I find it helpful to put the Civil War into a global perspective for a couple of reasons.  Primarily, since I teach students from all over the world (my school draws from over 20 nations) I don't want to seem chauvinistic.  And secondly, if I am successful in driving home the point that the Civil War was the most significant event in our nation's history, it stands to reason that civil wars in other countries are equally important.  I start the class by sharing the following facts with the class:

• 3,000,000 soldiers (USA and CSA) fought in the Civil War, which was about 10% of the total population. 

• Approximately 620,000 soldiers died in the war (about 2% of the total population). An equivalent today would be  six million deaths.

I then share the casualty totals of some significant 20th Century civil wars for comparison:

• Russian Civil War (1917-21): 8.8 million
• Chinese Civil War (1927-49): approximately 6 million
• Korean War (1950-53): over 3 million

These numbers typically elicit a strong response, but someone usually raises the significant differences between 19th and 20th century technology.  So I mention that contemporary with the US Civil War was the Taiping Rebellion in China. This civil conflict lasted from 1850-1864 and claimed at least 20 million lives. 

After this perspective, I try to make a comparison to something with which they should be familiar, the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.  At this point I am teaching students who were only four or five years old in 2001, so their recollections are naturally hazy.  But they are quite aware that 9/11 changed their world. Nearly 3,000 people died that day (with many more dying since then, especially rescue workers at Ground Zero).   Our country was horrified by the carnage in 2001, but (thank God) nothing similar has happened to America since then.  But imagine living here 150 years ago.  In the space of four and a half months in 1863, the following battles took place (among others): 

Chancellorsville, Virginia: May 1-4 1863: 30,099 casualties (17,278 USA / 12,821 CSA)

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: July 1-3 1863: 51,112 casualties (23,049 USA / 28.063 CSA)

Chickamauga, Georgia:Sept. 19-20 1863: 32,624 casualties (16,170 USA / 18,464 CSA)

and that was after two hard years of war, with another year and a half to go.  I ask the students to consider what it must have been like to live in the country back then.  I imagine that people must have been almost in a state of shock.  Everyone must have known someone connected to the war and the tension of never knowing when a loved one's name would show up in the newspaper's death rolls must have been terrible. 

And that is a useful point of contrast to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have gone on for most of  my students' lives. According to The New York Times, during the last decade, less than 1% of the total population has been on active military duty, compared to 9% during WWII and 10% in the Civil War. This makes it easier for people to have an "out of sight, out of mind" approach to war.  

I also spend time discussing medical science and technological advances in the last 150 years.  We talk about how wounds to the extremities were the most common injury in the Civil War, and that most resulted in amputation.  After grossing the students out with discussions of the highly septic conditions of operating rooms 150 years ago, I ask if they know what the most common injuries are for American soldiers today. According to Catherine Lutz of Brown University, [.pdf] they fall into four categories:

• Traumatic Brain Injury:  A Rand report in 2008 found 19 percent of returning service members reported having experienced a possible traumatic brain injury...Whatever the true number, TBI cases range from severe, penetrating TBI to the more common mild TBI which can display itself in psychosocial dysfunction, seizures, irritability and aggression, depression, confusion and memory loss.

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Mental injuries, including PTSD, have also been common.  The Veterans  Administration reported 192,114 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had been diagnosed with PTSD through the end of 2010, with these numbers, however, excluding anyone diagnosed and treated outside the VA system...Several features of these two wars have made emotional and cognitive impairment more common, including multiple and extended deployments with less rest between deployments (39 percent of all soldiers who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan have had two or more deployments, even after wounding, and more exposure to handling body parts and seeing friends killed, surviving with more grievous wounds, and higher rates of  TBI.  Other predictors for PTSD include “killing of innocent bystanders, or having to  witness such killings without the ability to intercede, [which] is also associated with more intense psychiatric manifestations. This is of significant concern due to the large numbers  of civilians killed during this current conflict by both coalition forces and the insurgency.”

• Amputation:  More soldiers survive their wounds now than ever before in human history. The widespread use of body armor protecting the vital organs has also  meant an unusually high number of wounded soldiers with multiple amputations (including limbs and genitals) and complex combinations of injuries, including burns,  blindness and deafness, and massive facial injuries.  According to the Army Office of the Surgeon-General, there were 1,621 amputations among US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and “unaffiliated conflicts” through September 1, 2010. Half of these were caused by  improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Blast injuries from IEDs often combine penetrating, blunt, and burn injuries. IED shrapnel can include nails, dirt, and clothing and create enough small wounds to exsanguinate the victim. There has also been a high incidence of blinding injuries. 

• Spinal Cord Injury: US News reports that  "explosions are the main cause of spine injuries among wounded U.S. military personnel...Researchers analyzed more than eight years of data on back, spinal column and spinal cord injuries suffered by American military personnel serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Of nearly 11,000 evacuated casualties, about 600 (nearly 5.5 percent) had a total of more than 2,100 spinal injuries. Explosions accounted for 56 percent of spine injuries, motor vehicle collisions for 29 percent and gunshots for 15 percent, the study found. In 17 percent of spine injuries, the spinal cord also was injured. Fifty-three percent of gunshot wounds to the spine led to a spinal cord injury. 

One of my students pointed out that it is a shame that since so many injuries are "invisible" it will be hard to recognize and thank these veterans for their service to the country.  I thought that was an excellent example of being able to discuss "current events" in the context of a history class.  Thanks for reading!

9/11, 10 Years On

I have nothing meaningful to add to the plethora of efforts to commemorate (or exploit) the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  I was not in the vicinity of New York, Washington or Shanksville, and none of my family or friends were harmed in the attacks.  But like all Americans (and people all over the world) who were aware of the events of the day, I have not been able to forget what happened.  And considering the way that our country has changed since then, I think it is important to look back at that "happening ten years time ago" and, perhaps, see how things could have been different.

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In 2001 I was a faculty member at Groton School, about 40 miles west of Boston.   As I walked from my on-campus house toward Chapel that Tuesday morning, I was struck by the absolutely perfect beauty of the sky.  People who know me are aware that when it comes to the scenery surrounding me, I am usually barely sentient.  But the purity of the cloudless blue sky, and the coolness of the air, have stayed with me all these years.  Little did I know that planes leaving Boston's Logan Airport had already been hijacked, and were being diverted through that perfect sky toward their targets.

During the first period of the day I left my office (I was the Academic Technology Manager, which gave me the chance to work with teachers to incorporate technology into their curricula) and went to ask a question of our network administrator.  While we were talking, the head of the math department came into the server room and urged that we turn the tv to CNN.  "A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center", he said.  Since his son is an airline pilot, it makes sense that he was particularly attuned to the topic of plane crashes (his sister had called him to deliver the message).  As we were watching, in shock and dumbfounded surprise, we watched the second plane crash into tower 2.  Obviously this has been reshown on television and in movies countless times since then, but I will never forget my first sighting of it.  Watching the fire from the first plane, we naturally assumed that the crash had been an accident, but the second plane crash made all of us jump to the truth of the matter--the crashes were the result of terrorism.

Groton has a lot of students from New York, and I was never prouder of the school than I was that day.  An emergency school assembly was convened, New York area students were approached by advisors, deans, chaplain and headmaster, and we in the technology department tried to find ways to get messages to families in New York, which was difficult as phone lines were jammed.  In the days that followed, as the world tried to come to terms with what had occurred, I remember having conversations with colleagues, family and students in which we all recognized that things would never be the same.  I remember feeling like I finally knew what my grandparents had felt on December 7, 1941 and what my parents had felt on November 22, 1963; and wishing that I still didn't.

I was on dorm duty the next week, and the girls were diligently studying and completing their homework, when I decided to try to put my thoughts down.  Re-reading it now (it is on my website), I can't help but notice the debt I owed to Bob Cringely, and his extremely prescient writing the previous month that "I wonder whether the end of the Cold War may have accelerated this law enforcement trend as intelligence agencies try to stay in business by re-targeting their efforts on terrorism, the new bogeyman." I also can't help but notice the debt (stylistically, if not in content) owed to my rereading of the political essays of Gore Vidal.  Most importantly, I was encouraged to follow the lead of my friend Sascha Fruedenheim, whose invaluable blog often clarifies difficult ideas for me.

This week I was teaching history at Wyoming Seminary, where I have worked since 2003. And I realized that my 15-year old sophomores were about the same age 10 years ago as I was when Richard Nixon resigned, days before my fourth birthday.  Growing up I always heard about "Watergate", and it was clear that post-Watergate America (my America) was different from what came before, but I never knew how.  In fact, the desire to solve this mystery is one of the reasons I became a historian.  So for anyone who reads this, and especially for younger people, I hope it helps show that there was a "road not taken" in the fall of 2001.  At that time I urged travel on the road not taken, and, sadly, that has made no difference at all.

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The following is my original post from 2001. Some of the references are dated (such as reminders about the 2000 Presidential election), and some have since turned out to be wrong (such as the reference to Moammar Gaddafi's daughter).  But I still think the world would be a better place if we could all "work to arrive at peaceful solutions based on laws, empathy and compassion".  America will never forget 9/11.  But here's hoping that the next 10 years will enable our country to move away from a perpetual fear and constant war to a more sustainable existence.

Reflections on the Terrorism of September 11th, 2001

by Ethan M. Lewis

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Groton, Massachusetts

September 17, 2001

On this, the birthday of the United States Constitution, I find myself reflecting a great deal on the recent terrorism which so calamitously befell America. While the human tragedy is, obviously, the most poignant aspect of this incident, I have been spending most of my time thinking about the choices that our Nation now faces.

To me, the biggest threat these acts of terrorism pose to the United States lay in the dilemma of choosing an appropriate response. It seems to me that such a response could fall along a wide continuum, but that essentially it boils down to two options: revenge, or redress. America has always prided itself as a nation governed by the rule of law. During the past hundred years or so, this has been honored more in the breach than in fact, but it is a conceit that pleases most Americans to believe. Recent Presidents have responded to acts of terrorism with violent retribution (the attack on Tripoli that killed Gaddafi’s daughter [Reagan], the missile attacks on Afghanistan [Clinton], and let’s not forget Bush pere’s war against Iraq, which has yet to abate after 10 years, and has kept the United States on a permanent war footing, almost invisibly to most of the citizens of what we like to think of as our republic.

Although the Constitution clearly gives to the Congress the sole right to declare war, Congress has equally clearly relinquished this right over the last 50 years. President Truman sent us into Korea (another front in a never ceasing war) on the pretext of supporting the UN (a concept that grows more laughable the longer we go without paying our dues to that noble organization). We fought (and lost) a major war in Vietnam on the basis of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which ultimately led to the War Powers Act (which should be unnecessary, but in the end is just pointless, since it is never observed by President or Congress). We invaded the island of Grenada to kill some Cuban engineers, invaded Panama to illegally arrest its head of state (our former favorite drug dealer), and have maintained the war in Iraq on the strength of a resolution (that barely passed the Senate) authorizing the first President Bush to take any action he deemed necessary in protecting our oil vendors.

On September 11 , Mr. Bush’s son stated that an act of war had been committed against America. Obviously forgetting that only nations can commit acts of war (and ignoring the fact that no nation is claiming responsibility for this attack) Bush promised, and has continued to promise, to fight this war wherever it leads us, for however long it takes, just as soon as they can find someone to smack. Resident Bush (I will omit the "P" until he can Persuade at least a Plurality of the Public that he should be the President) seems eager to respond to this act of extraordinary violence in a similarly violent way.

This predilection for violence is almost surprising, considering that the Resident told us, before the Iowa caucus, that the most influential person in his life was "the Lord, Jesus Christ". Bush professes to devout Christianity, but seems unwilling to turn the other cheek, as the Bible urges us. After Pan Am flight 103 was exploded in Scotland, the countries whose citizens were killed worked assiduously to find the people responsible for planting the bombs, strove to extradite them, and tried them in a Scottish court. This is civilized. This shows the primacy of law in our society. On Tuesday, Bush promised to "hunt down" the "folks responsible" for the attacks. Obviously, the people directly responsible are dead, killed in the airplane crashes. Who is left to find? If there are ringleaders still at large, it seems to me that the right thing for a peace-loving, law abiding country to do is find them, and try them for conspiracy to commit murder (and the lesser charges of hijacking, piracy, etc.). Instead, Bush and the Congress have committed America to a long term course of "war" against person or persons unknown. This weekend, Congress passed a joint resolution granting the Resident the right to take any action he felt appropriate to get some revenge. They also passed a resolution granting $40 billion to address the terrorism. While the Office of Management and Budget needs to spell out what they want the money for before they get it, only half is statutorily required to go to relief and reconstruction. Where will the other $20 billion go?

Probably to the erosion of our civil liberties. Much of the money will go to buy mysterious boxes like the "Carnivore" which the FBI wants to put in the office of every Internet Service Provider to eavesdrop on Internet transmissions; or to other means of harassing people. The so called "intelligence" services will probably also gain more resources to increase surveillance on Americans. It is inevitable that domestic travel will be subject to new restrictions and difficulties as a result of the hijackings, and already people who appear to be of Middle Eastern origin, or who worship Allah instead of Jesus have been subject to persecution and it’s slightly more benign twin, "profiling". At his most Fordian, Mr. Bush has promised to "whip terrorism" now. But how is this to be done? How does a society with open borders, paperless domestic travel, and a free press stop an invisible enemy?

And, the most serious question, though it will not be asked by our unelected leaders (by which I refer to the corporate media, as well as Mr. Bush) is, why do we have enemies? On Tuesday, Mr. Bush said, "freedom was attacked", by the terrorists. Such a rhetorical device does not attempt to deal honestly with the fact that America and its bullying foreign policy is hated by the greater part of the world’s people. America isn’t hated because it is free; it is hated because it is the most prominent rogue state in the world. The "sanctions" we inflict on Iraq have been attributed to the deaths of over one million Iraqi children in the past decade. Mr. Bush has threatened Afghanistan for harboring the Bin Laden terrorists; but America is the largest backer of the State of Israel, whose brutal subjugation of the native population of its territory has been censured by the world. (Many are unaware that the United States’ permanent veto has saved Israel numerous times from serious UN sanctions). Americans claim to honor the rule of law, but Mr. Bush is single-handedly reneging on international treaties, our country hasn’t paid it’s dues (over a billion dollars) to the United Nations, and we have backed out of the international war crimes agreement, because the Pentagon doesn’t want to see its future Lt. Calley’s on trial in the Hague.

What is to be done? I wish that the leaders of America would act in keeping with the values that they claim motivate the country. I wish that instead of abrogating treaties (and using the Supreme Court to steal elections) they would work to add strength to a World Court that could mete out appropriate sanctions to international lawbreakers. I wish that the self-professed Christians who run our country would respond to acts of violence not with more violence, but with love. Most of all, I wish that Americans would see this abhorrent act not as a random act of hate by fanatics, but as a response to aggressive acts undertaken by our country. This can be a hard perspective to take, but I think it is necessary. In 1991, I was in Berlin, Germany staying with friends on the night that the allied bombing of Baghdad started. My hostess was very upset (like many Europeans, she was against the war for oil, and like most Germans, she knew enough history to reject the facile comparison of Hussein to Hitler). I came in for the night, and saw her watching television. When I asked what was happening, she said "You’re bombing Iraq". My initial reaction was to deny any complicity, after all, I was against the war, too. But I realized that as an American, the world held us collectively responsible. 

Americans should try to pay more attention to the deeds that are carried out in their name, and participate in the political process that results in the decisions that so enrage our neighbors. To my way of thinking, nothing justifies violence, but it is important that we begin to see these acts of terrorism as reactions to our foreign policy, not random acts by lunatics who are enraged by "freedom". Most of all, I wish that my fellow citizens would see that violent reactions to violence do not solve problems, but merely beget more violence. Making "war" on terrorism will not make airliners or skyscrapers safer. For everyone's safety, we should work to arrive at peaceful solutions based on laws, empathy and compassion.