"A National Reserve of Words, Images and Landscapes"

"If the words of the 1860s speak to the era’s particularity, the bleakly riveting data of the Civil War communicates its scale and horror—a portent of the industrial slaughter to come in the 20th century. Roughly 75 percent of eligible Southern men and more than 60 percent of eligible Northerners served, compared with a tiny fraction today, and more than one million were killed or wounded. Fighting in close formation, some regiments lost 80 percent of their men in a single battle. Three days at Gettysburg killed and wounded more Americans than nine years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq have. Nearly one in three Confederate soldiers died—a statistic that helps to explain the deep sense of loss that lasted in the South for over a century. In all, the death rate from combat and disease was so high that a comparable war today would claim six million American lives."

Tony Horwitz in The New York Times reflects upon the upcoming Civil War sesquicentennial.