About 620,000 Americans, or 2% of the population, died in the American Civil War. That's proportionally equivalent to 6 million people today.
The US Civil War took place between the Northern states (Union) and the Southern states (Confederacy) between 1861 and 1865. The victory of the North ended slavery and formed the American states into a unified nation. The price however, was the lives of 620,000 people. This was 2% of the American population. as there were a little over 31 million US residents at the time.
The American Civil War was the conflict with the highest death toll in the world after the 1815 Napoleonic Wars and until World War I in 1914. It is also the American war with the highest number of military deaths, followed by 405,399 deaths in World War II.
More about the US Civil War:
- The Confederate army attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay, South Carolina on April 12, 1861, triggering the start of the American Civil War.
- The highest death toll during the American Civil War belongs to the Battle of Gettysburg in which 51,000 people died.
- Aside from the 620,000 people killed, 476,000 were wounded and another 400,000 people were captured or went missing during the US Civil War.