William Fox has created a massive reference work, which brings together in one place statistics on all those killed on the Union side in the Civil War. By cross-referencing the data in various ways, the author provides many useful insights on the course of the war and the ways that men might die.
This book was prepared as the government was compiling the massive, multi-volume Official Records of the war. By arranging the data in different ways, Fox has made this volume an essential companion volume to the Official Records, providing an easy way to determine where the regiments fit into the higher level of brigade, division and corps, and which battles the regiments participated in.
The information is arranged by battle, by state and in various other ways. A chapter on "Muster-out Rolls" provides many specific records of how individual named men died, whether on the battlefield, in prison, in hospital, or by accident.
The core of the volume, consuming half the pages and justifying the main title, is Chapter X, "Three Hundred Fighting Regiments - Statistics and Historical Sketch of Each." This chapter collects detailed information on those regiments with the highest number (or the highest percentage) of those killed in action or who died of other causes related to action. One page is devoted to each regiment, listing first the place of the regiment in the order of battle, and the successive commanders of each regiment. This is followed by a company-by-company compilation of the numbers of those "killed and died of wounds" and of those who "died [of] disease, accidents, in prison, &c." Next comes a list of the number of "killed & mortally wounded" in each battle in which the regiment fought. The page concludes with a series of notes, usually arranged in chronological order.
High quality scanned images of the whole of the original book. This CD has been bookmarked for easy
navigation, and pages can be searched, browsed, enlarged and printed out if required.
