re: September 18-20, 1863 - The Battle of Chickamauga | 160th Anniversary

quote:

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The butcher's bill was appalling:

Confederate
2,312 killed
14,674 wounded
1,468 captured or missing

Union
1,657 killed
9,756 wounded
4,757 captured or missing

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Seeing these casualty figures really illustrates the leaps and bounds military technology took in such a short span of time between the American Civil War and WWI. For perspective, the timespan between these two wars was roughly the same amount of time between the Vietnam War and the later stages of the War on Terror, in the ballpark of 50 years. But the advances in technology between 1863 and 1914 meant such a battle as Chickamauga came with casualties ten times (or more) as high in 1914. What’s sad about all this is that that while technology advanced by leaps and bounds, infantry tactics did not. Soldiers attacked in virtually the same way in 1914 as they did in 1863.