Mortal Statistics

August 2026

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July/August 1987

15 years ago By admin

Volume

38

Issue

5

I am utterly shocked that in “The Time Machine” for April you give the figures for the dead at the Battle of Shiloh as thirteen thousand Union men and ten thousand Confederates. Such froth 1 would expect from Time, Newsweek , and their like, but from American Heritage ? Shame, shame. The numbers given are probably total casualty figures—killed, wounded, and missing.

Mr. Klose is right. The numbers given were total casualty figures. The correct figures are: Union dead, 1,754; Confederate dead, 1,723.

Stories published from "July/August 1987"

FDR The Last Photo

Authored by: The Editors

A picture taken the day before President Roosevelt’s death has been hidden away in an artist’s file until now

The New Sherman Letters

Authored by: Joseph H. Ewing

Extraordinary correspondence, never published before, takes us inside the mind of a military genius. Here is William Tecumseh Sherman in the heat of action inventing modern warfare, grieving the death of his little boy, struggling to hold Kentucky with levies, rolling invincibly across Georgia, and—always—battling the newspapermen whose stories, he believes, are killing his soldiers.

The Unknown Photographer

Authored by: The Editors

During the Depression, itinerant photographers hawked their services from town to town. All we know about this one is that he passed through Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1934. And that he was very good indeed.

The French and Indian War in Pittsburgh: A Memoir

Authored by: Annie Dillard

She played the war, learning to creep through the woods without leaving footprints or snapping twigs. She read and dreamed about the war, lying on her bed, limp with horror and delight. The history of the war was a drug and she was an addict.

Raiders Of The Lost City

Authored by: Alfred M. Bingham

In July 1911 the author’s father climbed a remote ridge in Peru to discover, amid an almost impenetrable jungle, the fabled lost city of Machu Picchu, last capital of the Inca Empire. Or so the story goes.

The Defense Of Wake

Authored by: Peter Andrews

Their High Command abandoned them. Their enemy thought they wouldn’t fight. But a few days after Pearl Harbor, a handful of weary Americans gave the world a preview of what the Axis was up against.

Pleasure In Creation

Authored by: Fred Strebeigh

Born in response to the shoddy, machine-made goods available in the marketplace, the Arts and Crafts movement in America began in isolated workshops and spread to the public at large, preaching the virtues of the simple, the useful, and the handmade

How Did Our Prisons Get That Way?

Authored by: Roger T. Pray

The penitentiary was invented in the United States as a more rational and humane way of punishing. It quickly ran into problems that still overwhelm us.

Mortal Statistics

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