This is a multi-part question with the goal of getting a picture of
the scale of the destruction and upheaval caused by the U.S. Civil
War. First, we are interested in the following statistics on the
aftermath of the war: tallies of orphans and widows as a result of the
war, number of estimated amputees as a result of the war, estimated
dollar figures for destruction of southern property, including, if
possible, specific breakdowns like number of farms or homes burned.
Second, we are looking for a quote by an eyewitness who describes
Atlanta after it had been burnt by SHerman's forces.
Finally, we are trying to locate a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
in which he is said to have discussed how the character of the nation
had irrevocably changed as a result of the war.
Thanks so much!

Dear

Here is the best data I could locate through extensive research:


-- Number of Amputees --

According to official amputation records of the Union army, 29,980
amputations were performed on Union soldiers.  The second volume of
"The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, Part
III" (1883) documents that 29,980 amputations occurred among the Union
forces during the Civil War.  However, the volume notes that, since
few reports were made during the first 18 months of the conflict, "the
whole number of amputations performed for injuries received?would
undoubtedly exceed that number."
Of the number reported, 20,802 cases (69.3 percent) resulted in the
survival of the solider whereas 7,459 cases (24.8 percent) resulted in
death either from the procedure or from a resulting infection.  The
volume also indicates that the outcome of the remaining 1,719 cases
(5.7 percent) was not known.

Similar statistics for the Confederate army are not available because
the South kept no records on the wounded, but it is estimated that
about 25,000 wounded soldiers suffered amputations of arms and legs.

The total estimated number of Northern and Southern amputees adds up
to 45,802.


-- Number of War Orphans and Widows --

The number of women widowed as a result of the Civil War is estimated
200,000. The estimate for the number of children who have lost one or
both parents during the war is approximately 400,000. Considering the
fact that in 1910 about 300,000 persons who were widows, orphans, or
other dependants as a result of the Civil War, were still receiving
pensions and other payments from the federal treasury, the number is
realistic. The number of 200,000 widows also seems logical regarding
the total number of over 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who
died during the war.


-- Total physical Damage in the South --

Historians Claudia Goldin and Frank Lewis estimated the total value of
destroyed physical property in the South at 1.487 billion dollars,
based upon the dollar of 1860.

Please follow these links to learn more about the estimates on the
cost of the Civil War:

EH.net Encyclopedia: The Economics of the Civil War
http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/ransom.civil.war.us.php

Economic Causes of the Civil War - The economic cost of war, by Dr.
Matthew J. Koehler
http://mkoehler.educ.msu.edu/MattWeb/Courses/CEP_909_FA02/CivilWar/economic_cost_of_war.asp


-- An Eyewitness Account on destroyed Atlanta --

On 7 December 1864, W. P. Howard wrote an eyewitness account of the
extent of destruction of Atlanta to Joseph E. Brown, Governor of
Georgia, which you can see by following this link:

University of Georgia: Destruction of Atlanta
http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/atldestr.htm


-- A Quotation by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. --

This is the only point of the entire assignment that proved to be
impossible to answer. As a result of the Civil War, the United States
changed from a rather loose federation of almost independent states
and from a basically rural society to a dynamic, expansionist, modern
industrialized nation and a far more centralized country.
Knowing that, I expected to find a quotation by Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Jr. which expresses thoughts and conclusions along those lines. But
although I found many quotes by O.W. Holmes, none of them mirrored the
historical process of transformation of the nation's character.
The only quotation I found that at least vaguely resembles the theme
of change caused by the war derives from Oliver Wendell Holmes' famous
1884 Memorial Day Address. Though it rather describes how their
experiences shaped the conscience of the war generation, I decided to
include it here:

"But, nevertheless, the generation that carried on the war has been
set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our
youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn
at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we
are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to
undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own
eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor,
and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us. But,
above all, we have learned that whether a man accepts from Fortune her
spade, and will look downward and dig, or from Aspiration her axe and
cord, and will scale the ice, the one and only success which it is his
to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart."

I will, of course, continue to search additional sources for a Holmes
quote that describes his analysis of the change America experienced as
a result of the Civil War. Should my research prove successful, I will
add the quotation as a clarification to this answer.


Sources:

University of Virginia: Oliver Wendell Holmes' 1884 Memorial Day
Speech
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~mmd5f/memorial.htm

Indiana Medical History Museum: Amputation in Civil War Necessary to
Save Lives
www.imhm.org/Amputation%20in%20Civil%20War%20Necessary%20to%20Save%20Lives.doc

Indiana War Memorial Commission: Medical Lesson Plans (Acrobat Reader
file)
http://www.in.gov/iwm/pdfs/lessonmedical.pdf

The War for States' Rights: Casualties & Medical Care - Amputations
http://civilwar.bluegrass.net/CasualtiesAndMedicalCare/amputations.html

eHistory: Civil War Battlefield Surgery 
http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/features/medicine/cwsurgeon/amputations.cfm

Thin Gray Line: Confederate Veterans in the New South, by Richard K.
Kolb
http://users.erols.com/va-udc/confed_vets.html

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park: Women And The Civil War
http://civilwar.bizsuite.com/women.html

University of Brno: Civil War Statistics
http://www.phil.muni.cz/~vndrzl/amstudies/civilwar_stats.htm

FindArticles.com: Civil War History - "I do not suppose that Uncle Sam
looks at the Skin"
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2004/2_46/63583833/p1/article.jhtml?term=

Wofford College: Loosening the Sackcloth, but Wearing It a Long While
http://www.wofford.edu/southernseen/2001archive/20011008.htm

River Road Unitarian Church: And the War came, by Don Bunis
http://www.rruc.org/sermon59.htm


Search terms used:
1865 "civil war amputees"
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=1865+%22civil+war+amputees%22&meta=
"civil war" amputations 7902
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=%22civil+war%22+amputations+7902&meta=
"civil war" 1865 amputations
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=%22civil+war%22+1865+amputations&meta=
amputations 29980
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=amputations+29980&meta=
"civil war" 1865 south damage  "billion dollars"
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=%22civil+war%22+1865+south+damage++%22billion+dollars%22&meta=
goldin 1865 "civil war" "billion"
://www.google.de/search?q=goldin+1865+%22civil+war%22+%22billion%22&hl=de&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&start=0&sa=N
"confederate army" amputations
://www.google.de/search?q=%22confederate+army%22+amputations&hl=de&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&start=30&sa=N
"thousand widows" "civil war" 1865
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=%22thousand+widows%22+%22civil+war%22+1865&meta=
"civil war" widows 1865 million pensions
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=%22civil+war%22+widows+1865+million+pensions&meta=
"civil war" "million orphans"  1865
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=%22civil+war%22+%22million+orphans%22++1865&meta=
"civil war" "200000 widows"
://www.google.de/search?q=%22civil+war%22+%22200000+widows%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=de&meta=
eyewitness atlanta 1864
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=%22eyewitness%22+atlanta+1864&spell=1

Hope this is what you were looking for!
Best regards,
Scriptor

---

Request for Answer Clarification by narrative-ga on 01 Oct 2003 09:10 PDT

Hi Scriptor -- your answers are fantastic! This is the second time
you've answered a question of ours, and we're very impressed. If the
Oliver Wendell Holmes quote is hopeless, what we're really looking for
is just someone prominent expressing how much America had been changed
by the Civil War. It doesn't necessarily have to be Holmes, though we
thought he had said something of the sort.

Thanks again for your wonderful research -- you've been an
immeasurable help to us!

Narrative

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 01 Oct 2003 09:45 PDT

Dear narrative,

Thank you very much, it's good to know I was able to help you. I will
continue searching for a quotation by a prominent person that meets
your needs; I will also ask my US-based Fellow Researchers for ideas.

Very best regards,
Scriptor

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 01 Oct 2003 10:09 PDT

Dear narrative,

This quotation might be useful for you:

"The Civil War of '61 has made a great gulf between what happened
before it in our century and what has happened since, or what is
likely to happen hereafter. It does not seem to me as if I were living
in the country in which I was born or in which I received whatever I
got of political education and principles."

Professor George Ticknor, historian at Harvard University, in 1869.
Source: James M. McPherson, "Battle Cry of Freedom". Ballantine Books,
l988.

Regards,
Scriptor

---

Request for Answer Clarification by narrative-ga on 01 Oct 2003 10:50 PDT

Dear Scriptor,

What we're looking for in a quote is someone who expresses not just
that America had been changed, but something of the quality of that
change. Also, in terms of the statistic on widows and orphans, we
followed your searches back to the two sites that actually state that
number, and yet could not find the original source. Do you know what
it might be?

Thanks again for all your excellent work.

narrative

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 01 Oct 2003 11:33 PDT

I will do my best. I really hope that I find acceptable sources for
the numbers of widows and orphans, though I am a bit handicapped - I
am located in Europe and therefore do not have easy access to offline
sources in the USA.
Concerning the quotation, I will also continue my search.

Regards,
Scriptor

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 02 Oct 2003 14:57 PDT

Dear narrative,

Concerning the references for the numbers of widows and orphans: A
Fellow Researcher, mathtalk-ga, is currently helping me by doing
offline research on this. I will let you know the results.

And concerning the quotation on the changes the USA saw after the
Civil War: Would a Pulitzer Prize winner be reputable enough? If so,
please have a look at this brief analysis of how the character of the
nation changed as a result of the war:

"In the process of preserving the Union of 1776 while purging it of
slavery, the Civil War also transformed this nation. Before 1861, the
words United States were a plural noun. The United States have a
republican form of government. Since 1865, the United States is a
singular noun. The United States has a republican form of government.
The North went to war to preserve the Union. It ended by creating a
nation. This transformation can be traced in Lincoln's most important
wartime addresses. His first inaugural address contained the word
"union" twenty times and the word "nation" not once. In Lincoln's
first message to Congress on July 4, 1861, he used union thirty-two
times and nation only three times. In his famous public letter to
Horace Greeley of August 22, 1862, concerning slavery and the war,
Lincoln spoke of the union eight times but the nation not at all. But
fifteen months later in the Gettysburg Address he did not refer to the
union at all but used the word nation--in that short address of 272
words--five times. In the second inaugural address, looking back over
the trauma of the past four years, Lincoln spoke of one side seeking
to dissolve the union in 1861 and the other side accepting the
challenge of war to preserve the nation.

The decentralized antebellum republic, in which the Post Office was
the only agency of national government that touched the average
citizen, was transformed by the crucible of that war into a
centralized nation that taxed people directly and created an internal
revenue bureau to collect the taxes. It expanded the jurisdiction of
federal courts, created a national currency and a federally chartered
banking system, drafted men into the army, and created the Freedmen's
Bureau as the first national agency for social welfare. Eleven of the
first twelve amendments to the U.S. Constitution had limited the
powers of the national government. Six of the next seven, starting
with the thirteenth, vastly expanded the powers of the national
government. The first three of these post-war amendments transformed
four million slaves into citizens and voters within five years. This
was the most fundamental social transformation in our history, even if
the nation did backslide on part of that commitment for three
generations after 1877.

The Civil War also settled another major question that had remained in
dispute during the first seventy years of the republic. Which form of
economy, social relations, and culture would emerge triumphant from
the contest between two distinct ways of life? Would it be the
southern rural agrarian plantation society dominated by a country
gentry, commanding slave labor and professing values of hierarchy,
deference and noblesse oblige patriarchy? Or, would it be the dynamic
northern urbanizing, egalitarian, restless, free labor, commercial,
and industrializing system of capitalism? The latter prevailed, of
course, and after the Civil War, the northern model of free labor
capitalism became the American way. The southern way of life was gone
with the wind. But as we have heard today, not entirely. It lingered
on in the nostalgia of the lost cause and especially in the form of
racial subordination that emerged after Reconstruction and persisted
until the years of the Civil War's centennial observations, the
1960s."

James M. McPherson, historian, in his book "Battle Cry of Freedom".

Very best regards,
Scriptor

---

Request for Answer Clarification by narrative-ga on 02 Oct 2003 16:56 PDT

Dear Scriptor,

Thank you so much for your hard work. The quotation you found is
fascinating, and will, in fact, be extremely useful to us, but what
we're looking for is a contemporary observer. We posted a comment
below which shows exactly what we had in mind -- sorry if it wasn't as
clear as it should have been. The quote we want might not exist, but
if you've come across anything like it, we'd love to see it. Again, we
appreciate all your hard work.

Narrative

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 03 Oct 2003 06:37 PDT

Dear narrative,

I am very sorry I misunderstood what you were looking for. On Monday,
I will try to find an adequate quotation in the library. I promise to
do my very best, but I do really not know whether my efforts will lead
to success.

Regards,
Scriptor

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 07 Oct 2003 09:42 PDT

Dear Narrative,

Thank you so very much for both your kind words and the indeed
generous tip. I am still not really satisfied with the results of my
work and I will do further research on a private basis. Should I get
any interesting results, I will add them to this question as comments.

Again, thank you!
Very best regards,
Scriptor

Thanks so much, Scriptor, for all your hard work and for enlisting the
help of colleagues. We appreciate all the comments as well. Although
we're still hoping to find the quote we're looking for, this was a
fantastic answer, and we'd definitely use Google Answers again. Thanks
again, Narrative

Adding 29980 and 25000 equals 54980.


"Of the approximately 175,000 wounds to the extremities received among
Federal troops, about 30,000 led to amputation; roughly the same
proportion occurred in the Confederacy. One witness described a common
surgeon's tent this way: "Tables about breast high had been erected
upon which the screaming victims were having legs and arms cut off.
The surgeons and their assistants, stripped to the waist and
bespattered with blood, stood around, some holding the poor fellows
while others, armed with long, bloody knives and saws, cut and sawed
away with frightful rapidity, throwing the mangled limbs on a pile
nearby as soon as removed."
       Contrary to popular myth, most amputees did not experience the
surgery without anesthetic. Ample doses of chloroform were
administered beforehand; the screams heard were usually from soldiers
just informed that they would lose a limb or who were witness to the
plight of other soldiers under the knife."

Medical Care, Battle Wounds, and Disease
http://www.civilwarhome.com/civilwarmedicine.htm


Also, regarding the number of Confederate wounded, the Offical Records
provided the editors of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 vols.)
numbers of killed, wounded, and missing in both the Union and
Confederate forces for the major engagements.

hlabadie-ga

Dear hlabadie,

You are absolutely right: Adding 29,980 and 25,000 equals 54,980.

But adding 20,802 - which is the number of surviving Union amputees -
and 25,000 equals without any doubt 45,802. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Have a nice day,
Scriptor

Hi, narrative-ga:

Scriptor-ga has obviously done a great deal of work to prepare his
answer for you.  I have only a tangential comment to make about the
quotation search.

While future-Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was
serving (and was thrice wounded) in the Civil War, his famous essayist
father Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a piece called Bread and the
Newspaper, a play upon the Roman "bread and circuses".  It describes
the emotional and intellectual impact of the war on daily life and
says in part:

"Whatever miseries this war brings upon us, it is making us wiser,
and, we trust, better. Wiser, for we are learning our weakness, our
narrowness, our selfishness, our ignorance, in lessons of sorrow and
shame. Better, because all that is noble in men and women is demanded
by the time, and our people are rising to the standard the time calls
for. For this is the question the hour is putting to each of us: Are
you ready, if need be, to sacrifice all that you have and hope for in
this world, that the generations to follow you may inherit a whole
country whose natural conditions shall be peace, and not a broken
province which must live under the perpetual threat, if not in the
constant presence, of war and all that war brings with it? If we are
all ready for this sacrifice, battles may be lost, but the campaign
and its grand object must be won."

[Bartleby Famous Quotes]
http://www.bartleby.com/109/12.html 

regards, mathtalk-ga

You are suggesting, then, that a greater number of Confederate
servicemen survived amputations than did their Union counterparts. If
true, this would present a very curious statistical and medical
anomaly that would require some further explanation, considering the
relative sizes of the forces and the rough equivalency of medical
skill and the care provided.


With regard to a quotation concerning the change in the United States
brought about by the Civil War, the point was made cogently by several
historians, Shelby Foote most prominently, in Ken Burns' documentary
film, The Civil War, that the Revolutionary War created a country, but
that the Civil War created a nation. This was demonstrated by the
historical change in language that was used to refer to the United
States by people of that era: prior to the war, people wrote about the
country (Lee, for instance spoke of fighting for his country, i.e.,
Virginia), but after the war, people wrote about the American nation.
Lincoln was one of those who spoke of the nation, rather than the
country (e.g., Second Inaugural). One of the veterans who was quoted
in the documentary, Sam Watkins, spoke of how the old men of both
sides had forgotten the notions that had divided them into North and
South in their youth, and regarded themselves only as Americans.

hlabadie-ga

Thank you, both, for your suggestions. The kind of quotation we're
looking for is more concerned with the fact that Americans had seen
more than they bargained for in the Civil War, and that they lost some
of the innocence the young country had before the war. In a sense, it
was a maturing experience for the nation, for both good and ill, and
we are looking for someone prominent who expressed the sense that
though much had been gained, something had been lost, as well. We had
seen one reference to such a comment by Oliver Wendel Holmes Jr. in
the book The Metaphysical Club, but it has no reference. It could be
that he didn't express that, but we thought someone likely did, since
it was clearly felt at the time. So that's what we're looking for.

Thanks again for all your help.

Regarding the numbers of pensioned widows and orphans, and mothers,
President Lincoln in his State of the Union message to Congress,
December 6, 1864, reported that there were 25,433 pensioners of this
class on the rolls of the Army and 793 on the rolls of the Navy.

Lincoln, Abraham, The Collected Works of, vol. VIII, pg. 147, Rutgers
University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1953

hlabadie-ga

"War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude
and its duration, is one of the most terrible. It has deranged
business, totally in many localities, and partially in all localities.
It has destroyed property, and ruined homes; it has produced a
national debt and taxation unprecedented, at least in this country. It
has carried mourning to almost every home, until it can almost be said
that the "heavens are hung in black.""

Ibid, vol. VII, pg. 394, from "Speech at Great Central Sanitary Fair,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania", June 16, 1864, as reported in the
Philadelphia Press and Philadelphia Inquirer.