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a war is fought by soldiers

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young soldiers

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when people went off to the Civil War, they often sat for photographs, daguerreotypes

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gave it to their families or loved ones

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probably three million people fought in the Civil War at one time or another

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when you study the details, it's hard to romanticize about war

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more Americans were killed in the Civil War than in the World War I and World War II combined

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the Civil War can be rightfully argued to be the biggest tragedy of American history

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700,000 dead out of a North/South population of a little over 30 million

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today we have a population of a little over 300 million, multiply that out

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it would be as if we had a civil war today in which 7 million people died

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some call it "the first modern war"

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but modern is not a precise term

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it was modern in that it was a total war

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fought by mass armies

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both sides fighting for an absolute value

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this made total victory inevitable

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it was impossible for a war like this to end with anything other than the destruction of one side or the other

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there was no ground for compromise

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it was not modern in terms of

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medical care

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terribly primitive

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far more soldiers died from disease and the results of wounds than died on the battle field as a result of direct combat

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weapons were relatively primitive compared to wars today

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mass casualties were not unknown in this era

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Paraguayan War (War of the Triple Alliance)

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Latin America

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when Civil War ended, 1864–1870

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between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay

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led to a higher percentage of deaths among Paraguayans than in the American Civil War

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what was new and modern about American Civil War

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wielding the weapons that were being created by the Industrial Revolution

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led to tremendous casualties

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war of society against society

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can't just capture the capital of the enemy territory

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even the Mexican War (1846) didn't end when the United States occupied Mexico City

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you have to destroy the economy of the enemy, so they cannot fight or destroy the will to fight

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one of the first wars fought in a democracy

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therefore the goal of the war became more to destroy the will of the people to fight