GDG- Foote

[Chet Diestel]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Baniszewski" <jdbano2001 at yahoo.com>
To: <gettysburg at arthes.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 10:51 AM
Subject: GDG- Foote


> Esteemed GDG Member John Baniszewski Contributes in reply to another 
> member:

   john: Without appearing to dimwitted, if that's possible, wouldn't the 
death rate from the war itself skew the averages for that generation?

   Yes it would, but not by as much as you would think.  Although the number 
of deaths in the Civil War was  horrific, statistically they represented 
app. 2% of  the population, so impact on life expectancy of the entire 
country is watered down.

   I could not find data for the US, but the following gives  life 
expectancy in Sweden in the 1860's, as well as today.  The biggest factor in 
the longer life expectancy of people today versus 1860 is infant mortality 
rate.

As of age   0   50   65                           1861-1870            Years 
to live             43              19              10
Age at death             43              69              75     2006 
Years to live             79              30              18
Age at death             79              80              83
    I once asked someone in the Census Bureau what impact the Civil War had 
on total US population - would it be much higher today had the war not 
occurred.  She answered not by much, because the number of deaths among 
women is the most important factor.
   John Baniszewski

   Any study of the population growth in the nation must, of course, take in 
the young men lost to battle or disease during the war, but that was 
certainly offset even at the time in the North by the rate of immigration 
which only continued to grow by leaps and bounds in the post-war years and 
in all the decades leading up to World War I.
  But that leads to another question: Was there the post-Civil War 
equivalent of the post World War II Baby Boom as hundreds of thousands of 
young men returned home to their wives or got married in the years right 
after the war and started families?
   With regards,
     Chet