This is from Ken Burns’ op-ed in today’s New York Times, commemorating  the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War.

620,000 Americans, more than 2 percent of our population, died of gunshot and disease, starvation and massacre in places like Shiloh and Antietam and Cold Harbor, Fort Pillow and Fort Wagner and Palmito Ranch, Andersonville and Chickamauga and Ford’s Theater.

A proportional war with with today’s population would cost over six million lives.  Can you imagine?   In comparison, the attacks of 9/11 took about 3,000 lives, about .00001%  of the population.

Full article here.