What was the most costly war in US history?

Question

I know the answer but i'm interested to see your answers

Answer 1

The 2nd american revolution. Also known as the Civil War.

Cost of the War

620,000 dead

25% of all white males in the south between the ages of 20 and 40 years of age were killed.

Normalizing for populations the war would be equal to 5 million American deaths in combat in 4 years. Approximately 100 times the number that died in Vietnam over a 10 year period.

40% of the southern economy was destroyed and the lost commerce and taxes cost the entire nation at least 5 years of wealth accumulation.

The biggest cost of the war was the loss of states rights. The loss of states rights meant that the people, as citizens of their respective states, would no longer be sovereign; the federal government would be. The federal government became the master, rather than the servant of the people. Military conscription and income tax are the evidence.

The death of states rights ultimately meant that Americans were forced to effectively give up the idea of government by consent. In its place the idea that citizens owe obedience to the central state.

RE Lee 1866

I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only are essential to the adjustment and balance of the General system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.

Some say the final cost of that war has yet to be paid.

Answer 2

War Between the States.

Answer 3

King Philip's War was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies from 1675–1676. Nearly one in twenty persons overall among Native Americans and English were wounded or killed. To this day it remains the most devastating war PER CAPITA in the history of the United States.

Answer 4

The civil war was definitely the most costly in human lives. And its hard to imagine the social and political healing that was required.

Answer 5

The Vietnam War?

Answer 6

The Global War on Terrorism.

Answer 7

i think it was the civil war, seeing as both of the sides fighting were americans - you know, the north versus the south, union vs confederate

is this the answer?- im no history buff : ]

Answer 8

The Civil War. We had brothers fighting against each other. To me it should have never happened!

Answer 9

Well, anyone who say Iraq is showing that they didn't pay attention in History class.

At least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and some experts say the toll reached 700,000. The number that is most often quoted is 620,000. At any rate, these casualties exceed the nation's loss in all its other wars, from the Revolution through Vietnam.
The Union armies had from 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men. Their losses, by the best estimates:

Battle deaths: 110,070
Disease, etc.: 250,152
Total 360,222

The Confederate strength, known less accurately because of missing records, was from 750,000 to 1,250,000. Its estimated losses:

Battle deaths: 94,000
Disease, etc.: 164,000
Total 258,000

The leading authority on casualties of the war, Thomas L. Livermore, admitting the handicap of poor records in some cases, studied 48 of the war's battles and concluded:
Of every 1,000 Federals in battle, 112 were wounded.
Of every 1,000 Confederates, 150 were hit.
Mortality was greater among Confederate wounded, because of inferior medical service.

So far, since April 2003 we have lost about 3,000 people in Iraq, (about the same number that died on 9-11). At Gettysburg
Date: July 1-3, 1863 the casualties were 51,112 (23,049 Union and 28,063 Confederate) . About the same number who died in the entire Vietnam war.

The single worst day in American History remains September 17th, 1862, the Battle of Antietam, Casualties: 26,134 (12,410 Union and 13,724 Confederate) .

Now, just to make things interesting, we need to remeber that the total population of the USA in 1860 was about 1/10 of what it is now.

Total Free Population 27,489,561
Total Slave Population 3,953,760
Grand Total 31,443,321

So loosing almost 700,000 people out of 31,500,000 would be closer to loosing 7,000,000 out of the current USA. Rougly equal to the entire population of Chicago and Los Angeles.

Before somebody runs off and starts showing their ignorance by talking about "billions of dollars" spent in Iraq, consider two things. First, inflation. A 2007 dollar is worth less than a 1970 dollar, which is worth even less than a 1940 dollar. Second, think about how much larger the US Economy is now than it was in the past. Not only does a Billion dollars not buy what it used to, we have a lot more billions to spend; so dropping several billion on something is a lot more affordable than it used to be.

An excellent site for this is

http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/other/stats/warcost.htm

You can go HERE

http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html

and inflation adjust out the costs.

WW2 comes to $3,380,728,645,922.96 if I did the math right.
(more if you do it on a per capita basis, which is probably a better number.)

The anti-war groups (so take their statistics with a grain of salt) say the war COULD cost something in the range of $365,000,000,000. About 1/10 of the cost of WW2 in current dollars.

Even more importantly, in every war since the Civil War the USA has managed to get someone else to generiously provide the battlefield. This protects us from the vast majority of war related costs. Wars tend to have a rather bad effect on the local real estate, and having to clean up after them is no easy task. The Civil War and the Revolution were probably harder on the US infrastruture... there was a lot more infrastructre around in the Civil War so it is hard to make a good comparison.

So for cost in terms of $$$ WW2 is our most expensive war, to date.

For cost in terms of lives, The Civil War.

In terms of how much mess we have to clean up, either the Civil War or the Revolution.

All in all the USA has been incredibly lucky in terms of wars, esp. in the 20th Centrury.

For all the whining from the Left, the entire Iraq war would have been a minor campaign in either WW2, or the Civil War. ... or (for the British, French, Russians, Germans, or Austirans) WW1 for that matter.

Consider...

On 1 July 1916 the British lost 58,000 troops (one third of them killed) on the first day of the battle.

At Cannae in the summer of 216 B.C. the Roman Republic lost between 50,000 and 60,000 men killed in a single afternoon.

Not to say that loosing 3,000 people in almost 4 years is a good thing... but one needs to consider that in the perspective of how bad it COULD be, and how bad it has been in the past.

Answer 10

Vietnam