William F. Fox, Lt. Col. U. S. V., Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865: A Treatise on the extent and nature of the mortuary losses in the Union regiments, with full and exhaustive statistics compiled from the official records on file in the state military bureaus and at Washington

Table C. Classification of deaths from minor causes (Table B, Column IV).

In Table B, Column I, it is shown that 199,720 died from disease alone, in camps, hospitals, or at home. An interesting question arises here as to what proportion of this loss was due to army life. What is the normal death rate? How many of these men would have died had they remained at home? The tables in use by the actuaries of the life insurance companies show that of a thousand healthy men at the age of twenty-three--selected risks--eight will die within a year. Assuming the average strength of the army to have been 1,000,000 men for four⁴ years, and the average age to have been twenty-three, it appears that 32,000 of these deaths would have occurred in time of peace, and that the excess was due solely to the fatal vicissitudes of a soldier's life.

In Table C, a subdivision is made of the number represented by Column IV, Table B. The 2,034 deaths in Column VII, Table C — Causes known but not classified — include those “resulting from quarrels, riots, and the like, and which are not definitely reported as murder; from being shot for insubordination, or by provost-guards or sentinels in attempting to escape, or pass the lines; from exhaustion or exposure; killed while depredating upon the property of citizens; and all other causes not embraced in the preceding columns.” ⁵

After accounting for all known causes of death, there still remain — Table C, Column VIII--12,121 cases of cause unknown. In these cases the name of the dead soldier is borne on the