Letters from alumni about James McPherson and the Civil War. The following readers reported a mathematical error that appeared in the print version of the story, but, which has been corrected in the online version. It was an editing error on PAW's part, and not Professor McPherson's.

One exception, the letter from Jamie Spencer ’66 addresses something else in the article.

March 28, 2003

I just finished yet another great issue of PAW. However, there is an error in The Crossroads of History article re Prof. McPherson.

On page 14, it says that the 6,000 man death toll at Antienam "amounted to 2 percent of the population." That is incorrect, by several orders of magnitude. It may be true that it was 2 percent of those in uniform at the time, but the combined population of the North and the Confederacy was over 20 million (I'm sure that Prof. McPherson could give you the right figure!).

Bob Dupire-Nelson *80
San Francisco, Calif.

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March 12, 2003

Caroline Moseley's February 12 article on Professor James McPherson contains a glaring error on the first page. In calling Antietam "the bloodiest single day in American history" because 6,000 men perished, Professor McPherson "notes that the death toll amounted to 2 percent of the population."

In fact, the 1860 census puts the U.S. population at 31,000,000 not 310,000. Somebody divided by 10 instead of multiplying (or verse visa) when coming up with the wild figure of 2 percent. The equivalent death toll today would be something like 55,000 not 5.5 million. A little care about arithmetic would enhance Prof. McPherson's otherwise scrupulous research by removing the blot of exaggeration from this sobering factoid.

Do any math majors take history courses these days?

Martin Schell '74
Klaten, Indonesia

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February 28, 2003

I trust James McPherson is a better historian than mathematician, since in the report entitled "The Crossroads of History," the claim is made that "more than 6,000 men were killed or mortally wounded [at Antietam]...the death toll amounted to 2 percent of the population." Surely the two halves of the U.S. in 1862 had a population of more than 300,000 people (of which 2 percent is the specified 6,000). 

Bart Marsh '58
London, England

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February 25, 2003

History Professor James McPherson’s remarkable accomplishments and fame are sources of pride for all Tigers. But I do have a bone to pick about the adulation he is accorded for his “extensive research in primary documents …[which] allows participants to tell their own tales.”

My whine may seem odd coming from a member of the Princetoniana Committee, whose central goal is the acquisition and publicizing of just such minutiae, though merely on a collegiate level. Like McPherson, we find it fascinating fun to find out what the little folks — students, professors, staff — were thinking, even during unremarkable junctures of College (later University) history.

But McPherson’s focus is quite different; he is dealing with not-so-little folks at indisputably crucial moments in national history, a far vaster canvas. Look at the quotes Caroline Moseley cites, quotations which we assume are employed to support reflect McPherson’s argument that the 1862 Battle of Antietam was a decisive Civil War turning point. These “civilian” nuggets actually serve, it seems to me, one of two negligible purposes. They either add a modicum of further illumination to the characters of the chief dramatis personae (“Oh, mother, Uncle Jeff. is miserable” a niece of the Confederate President sighs to her mom) or they simply show that famous folks’ relatives indulge, just like the rest of us little folks, in irresponsible and gullible gossip. (Mrs. McClellan tells the wife of a northern judge that “the war may well be over” by July 4 of that year.) These human touches contribute mightily to our entertainment, sure, and that may make for superior “social studies.” But to my mind they add little or nothing to our understanding of history.

Jamie Spencer ‘66
St. Louis, Mo.

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February 24, 2003

Referring to the article in the February 12 issue "The Crossroads of History," James M. McPherson is certainly to be honored as an outstanding Civil War author and authority. However, the reference to the 6,000 deaths at Antietam indicates his talents are not in the mathematical area. 6,000 deaths related to the United States population in 1860 (31 million) and the present population as of 2000 (281 million) converts to an equivalent of 57,000 people not 5.5 million. The 6,000 deaths is still an impressive figure in that it almost equals the total battle deaths in al three prior wars; the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and the Mexican War. Please call this error to Mr. McPherson's attention.

Robert N. Rich '48
Stamford, Conn.

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February 21, 2003

The article on The Crossroads of History explains the important contributions Professor McPherson has made explaining the Civil War.  However, you may have done him an injustice in the placement of a decimal point. You reported that the death toll at Antietam was 2 per cent of the population. The number of casualties at Antietam was about 22,700. The 1860 census recorded a total population in the US of 31,183,582. Thus, the casualty percent was approximately 0.07 percent of the population and the death toll using 6,000 killed would be 0.02 per cent of the population. Antietam was the bloodiest day in American history but fortunately not on the scale that you presented.

Stephen Jones ’68
Lufkin, Tex.

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February 21, 2003

I enjoyed the article "The Crossroads of History" by Caroline Moseley about Professor of History James M. McPherson. However, in stating that the death toll at the Battle of Antietam (6000 men killed) amounted to 2 percent of the population, the article is off by a factor of a hundred. The population of the United States (north and south together) at the time was actually more than 30 million, so the correct figure would be about 0.02% of the population. So the equivalent in today's population would be about 55,000, not 5.5 million. Still, it shows what an extraordinarily bloody battle it was

Jim Paulson ’72 *77
Oshkosh, Wis.

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February 20, 2003

In Caroline Moseley's piece on Professor James M. McPherson in the February 12 issue, she notes that 6,000 men were killed or mortally wounded at Sharpsburg. She the attributes to Professor McPherson the factoid that "the death toll amounted to two percent of the population, which would be equivalent to about 5.5 million people today." I doubt Professor McPherson would have made any such a statement. The U.S. census of 1860 enumerated a population in excess of 30 million, making the death toll more like two hundredths of one percent of the population, a somewhat less startling statistic.

Jeffrey B. Power '73
Grand Rapids, Mich.

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February 18, 2003

Caroline Mosely, in her article "The Crossroads of History," writes that according to Prof. McPherson 2 percent of the US population died in the Battle of Antietam, and states that this loss would be the equivalent of 5.5 million people today. If this were true, then the entire population of the US in 1862 would be only 300,000, and the current population would be nearly a thousand times larger.

It doesn't take much knowledge of American history to recognize the absurdity of this statement. In fact, the state of Maryland alone had over twice that number of people in 1862.

Lewis Johnson '78
Marina del Rey, Calif.

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February 17, 2003

The article on the Battle of Antietam in the PAW of Feb. 12 contains a statistical blooper. The article states the the 6,000 battle deaths equalled 2 percent of the U.S. population, the equivalent losing 5.5 million people out of today's population. By that math, the country's entire population at that time would only be 300,000. Clearly, somebody has slipped a couple of decimal points! The census of 1860 indicated a total U.S. population of about 31,000,000, so the toll at Antietam, although appalling, was only 0.02 percent of the population, the statistical equivalent of about 55,000 people today.

I presume it was the PAW, and not Prof. McPherson, who made the faulty computation!

Chris Godfrey '72
Wellesley, Mass.

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February 15, 2003

Good evening!

In Caroline Mosely's essay, "The Crossroads of History," (PAW, February 12, 2003) James McPherson is quoted on p. 14 as saying that "more than 6,000 men were killed or mortally wounded" at Antietam. He is then quoted parenthetically as saying that this number "amounted to 2 percent of the population, which would be equivalent to about 5.5 million people today."

I don't think that's true. The U.S. population in 1862 was a little over 30 million, of which six thousand is two-tenths of 1 percent, not 2 percent. The modern equivalent would be not five million but half a million, still an overwhelming number.

Jim Perry '57
Tampa, Fla.

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February 15, 2003

In an article on historian James McPherson, Caroline Moseley writes (PAW Feb 12, p. 14) that in the Battle of Antietam in 1862, more than 6,000 men were killed or mortally wounded, and "that the death toll amounted to 2 percent of the population." In the 1860 census, the US population was 31,443,321. So the number killed as a result of Antietam amounted to more like .02% of the US population — far less than 2%, though still a shocking figure.

Marc Lange '85
Seattle, Wash.

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February 14, 2003

There is a serious mathematical error in this article in the Feb. 12 issue of PAW. The author cites 6,000 men killed or mortally wounded in the battle of Antietam as being 2 percent of the population and then relates this to an equivalent loss of 5.5 million today. Since the population was something over 30 million in the 1860s, the loss of 6,000 men was about 0.02 percent of the population, corresponding to about 55,000 for today's population--a large loss indeed, but not nearly so shocking as the article implied.

Thomas Evans *50
Anacortes, Wash.

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February 14, 2003

I have been a James McPherson fan for many years. My wife, Connie, and I had the pleasure of attending the Alumni College on Grant's western campaign described in the article on McPherson in the Feb. 12 PAW. "Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam" is both thorough and thought provoking — a typical McPherson book. In your article I think Ms. Moseley may have misunderstood McPherson. While the death of 6,000+ men at Antietam was tragic, it represented only 0.2 percent (not 2 percent) of the population of some 31 million. Thus today's equivalent would be 550,000, not 5.5 million.

Bob Eby '52
Pittsboro, N.C.

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February 12, 2003

I am a fan of James M. McPherson and his writings and would like to point out an error that slipped into his article in the February 12, 2003, issue of PAW. It states that 6,000 were killed or were mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam. During the course of the Civil War approximately 600,000 Americans died as a result of battle wounds and disease. This is 2% of the total of 30 million population of our country at that time. This does not minimize the horror or waste of that day.

Gary J. Williams '69
Owego, N.Y.

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February 11, 2003

I suspect that Professor James M. McPherson was ill-served by an editor when the following sentence appeared in the print version of the story (The Crossroads of History, February 12) right after a reference to the casualties at the Battle of Antietam:

"(He notes that the death toll amounted to 2 percent of the population, which would be equivalent to about 5.5 million people today.)"

There were 6,000 deaths in the battle, which would put the population of the U.S. at 300,000, when it was actually about 30,000,000 at the time. What the professor presumably meant was that the deaths (in battle and from disease) on both sides during the entire Civil War came to about .02 percent of the population. That concept would be about right, and it illuminates the tragedy of that conflict.

David S. North ’51
Arlington, Va.

Editor's Note:
Mr. North is correct. McPherson was referring to the death toll of the Civil War. We apologize for the error. We fixed the error in the online version.

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