What was the probability of being killed or wounded in any average battle in the US Civil War?
RayLopez99
soldier (Oliver W. Holmes, Jr., who later served on the US Supreme
Court and is still the longest serving justice ever, as he lived into
his 90s) and it was interesting. At first he was gung-ho, then he
wanted out after witnessing the slaughter. It's also interesting that
some of his fellow solders, including one Henry L. Abbott who was
exceptionally brave (and refused, like the British admiral Nelson, to
take cover during fire as an example of bravery to his men, where were
taking cover--BTW Abbott was killed in action), thought the Civil War
was pointless and that the slaves would eventually be freed anyway (as
BTW happened nearly 40 years later in Brazil, without the need for
war).
Holmes was involved in several battles, and narrowly escaped death
more than a few times, including one shootout at close range. Since
he was married for a long time but never had kids, some have
speculated that he was impotent, along the lines of the war
traumatized character in Ernest Hemingway's novel 'The Sun Also
Rises', because of a neck bullet injury that affected his spine, but
that's just speculation since he also had a medically unfit and quite
ugly wife, and further had a reputation as a flirt.
Here are the battles Holmes participated in, with the 20th Regiment of
Massachusetts:
Ball's Bluff (Holmes first wound was here, actually two wounds,
including a chest wound that miraculously did not hit vital organs)
Antietam (2nd wound, in the neck, here)
Fredericksburg (3rd wound in May 1863, a foot wound from a ball
bearing mortar shell that was just a minor skirmish, though he missed,
because of his second wound at Antietam, Burnside's suicidal charge in
Fredericksburg that decimated the 20th Reg. on or about December 11,
1862)
Petersburg (3rd campaign, Jan- July 1864; it was here that Holmes,
delivering a message on horseback, surprised some rebels and was
almost shot to death by 20 Confederates in a line, engaging in a close
range dual and using his horse as as shield while firing from the
saddle).
Now referring to a hypergeometric distribution with replacement, which
becomes in our case a binomial distribution, see here:
http://wiki.stat.ucla.edu/socr/index.php/AP_Statistics_Curriculum_2007_Distrib_Multinomial
Let's assume the following parameters, to the question: what is the
probability you will be killed or wounded in N battles if the
probability of being killed or wounded per battle is 10% (a good rule
of thumb is 10% casualties, though I suspect for the US Civil War it
was possibly greater, especially for the 20th Reg, which also saw
action, though Holmes was not present, at Gettysburg)?
Let's make N=5, the number of battles. P, dying or wounded = 10%, so
P'(prime), the complement is 90% (surviving unscathed)
Do the math, use your stats calculator, and you get:
For five battles, probability is 32%
For four battles, prob. is 29%
For three battles, prob is 24%
For two battles, prob is 18%
For one battle, prob is 10%
As you can see, the more battles the more chances of dying, and at
some point it becomes nearly inevitable you will be killed, which is
probably why Holmes rationally wanted out (he transferred to a staff
position, but ironically he came closest to a fatal shootout while
delivering a message as a staff officer as stated above).
But to do justice we need a better gauge of P, is it 10% or higher?
Holmes himself implied it must have been higher, since "most" (at
least 50% is most?) of his original mates who volunteered for war were
dead by the end of the war.
Any thoughts?
RL
Ray O'Hara
"RayLopez99" <raylo...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8de4327f-8233-4d94...@17g2000prr.googlegroups.com...
odds of getting hit in a battle, about 1 in 5.
after that you prove to be an idiot.
Slavery was the South's cause, they seceded{committed treason} to preserve
slavery.
The North's cause was maintaining the Union and the national border
integrity.
the North did not start the war and they didn't go into it to end slavery.
that any fool in the 21st Century can still spout such idiocy as you have
is amazing.
the North was willing to wait the South out on the slavery issue but the
South forced the issue.
RayLopez99
>
> odds of getting hit in a battle, about 1 in 5.
>
What is your source for 1 in 5? Is this for casualties (wounded or
killed) or mortality (killed)?
RL
Ray O'Hara
RL
=========================================================================
years of reading about battles.
there was the occasional battle like Gettysburg where casualties were hire
,{40% for the ANV} but 20% is the usual rule of thumb.
RayLopez99
>
> What is your source for 1 in 5? Is this for casualties (wounded or
> killed) or mortality (killed)?
>
> RL
>
> =========================================================================
>
> years of reading about battles.
> there was the occasional battle like Gettysburg where casualties were hire
> ,{40% for the ANV} but 20% is the usual rule of thumb.
OK thanks. So the revised stats (and I assume you mean deaths?) is:
N = 5 battles, doing the math gives 0.4096, or 41% probability of
death after five battles.
That's quite a high number, I think much higher than WWI (10% I think
was a rule of thumb) or WWII (probably 5% unless special battles like
Stalingrad or Kursk are considered) and certainly the Vietnam and Gulf
wars.
RL
RayLopez99
Actually my math was off. An easier way is to compute the probability
of life after N battles, which, if mortality is 20%, is simply
(0.8)^N. Then take the complement to get death.
So here are the revised numbers for the probability of death:
N=1 battle, 80% chance you will live, or 20% death.
N = 2 battles, 64% chance you will live, or 36% death
N=3, 51% life, or 49% death
N = 4, 59% death
N = 5, 67% death
Which explains why, after five or six bloody battles including the
fact the 20th Mass. Reg. faced down Picket's Charge in Gettysburg,
which probably had greater than 20% mortality, as well as
participating in the ill-fated charge at Fredericksburg by Burnside
(which the 20th Mass Volunteers remembered at Gettysburg by crying out
'Remember Fredericksburg!' when the shoe was on the other foot) that
most of Holmes fellow soldiers were dead by the end of the war.
Whoever said (Sherman) war is hell was right.
RL
Ray O'Hara
RL
=============================================================================
that 1 in 5 chance was of being wounded. not necessarily killed.
at gettysburg casualties were over 20,000 {28,000 est for ANV}for each but
the dead were under 6,000 each.
in a book by Paddy Griffith had a statistic that showed for every 6 hit, 1
was killed, 1 maimed for life and so on.
and that this ratio had remained pretty constant in all gunpower wars.
the survaval rate is higher now due to improvements in medicine and speed of
evacuation..
RayLopez99
>
> that 1 in 5 chance was of being wounded. not necessarily killed.
> at gettysburg casualties were over 20,000 {28,000 est for ANV}for each but
> the dead were under 6,000 each.
>
> in a book by Paddy Griffith had a statistic that showed for every 6 hit, 1
> was killed, 1 maimed for life and so on.
> and that this ratio had remained pretty constant in all gunpower wars.
> the survaval rate is higher now due to improvements in medicine and speed of
> evacuation..
Thanks for that clarification. It reminds me of tank wars in WWII
sometimes crews would be hit, the tank destroyed, but they would get
out, find a new tank, and be back in action relatively quickly. In
the case of the US Civil War if the wounded soldiers avoided
infection, as Holmes (nearly miraculously) did for his three serious
wounds, they would be back in action a few months later. I would not
be surprised if more people died of non-gunshot wounds than from
gunshot wounds (YES! twice as many see link below), given the many
diseases and the relatively few antibiotics (I think they may have had
"Listerine" as an antiseptic (NO! 1870s)... and I was right about
disease: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war-medicine.htm
).. Apparently amputation was the treatment of choice, and amazingly
75% of amputees lived, I guess after triage is performed so the really
sick ones died before treatment occurred.
RL