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  • Essay / civil war - 402

    The Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars of all time, and it was fought by people from the same country. It is astonishing to think that such a thing could have happened to this country. Approximately 260,000 Rebel soldiers and 373,000 Union soldiers were killed (Text, p. 378). The reason for such a high death toll is primarily because most of the war's battles involved around 200,000 soldiers. With so many people fighting at once, there is bound to be a large number of deaths. Another factor in the high death toll is that newer, more capable weapons were being developed. New technology has allowed guns to be more accurate and even more deadly. This, combined with lack of medical care, made death in combat more likely than survival. Many soldiers were unable to get to doctors in time, and even when they got there, many doctors were not adequately trained. It's sad to see, but they needed all the "doctors" they could get. According to Alger, Cahan, and Gold, success generally consisted of trading rags for respectability, not great wealth (Text, p. 472). Most stories of Algiers tended to be glorified. Few people have truly managed to succeed like the characters in Algiers. Cahan gives a more realistic story of this theory of wealth by showing the spiritual loss that accompanies material gain. Gold tells even darker stories of people who just can't make it. These are all different takes on the theory, but all have the truth behind them. Historians typically measured success by categorizing professions. They then ask random questions and see which nationalities were most successful based on job rankings. This is extremely inaccurate. First of all, it is not possible for every nationality to be fairly represented in these polls. Some countries, or even some people, at the micro level may judge success in different ways..