I learned today that there were only 8,000 American combat casualties in the revolutionary war but over 100,000 for each side in the Civil War. Why was the scale of combat so different?

by The_Dwight_Schrute

The wars were similar in length (~5 years). I know that tactics had evolved to a more trench style combat with early machine guns later in the civil war but that still seems like a huge discrepancy

Here is the source: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war

DBHT14

Well to answer one Wiki article with another. The population of the US in the 1770's was about 2 million, but by the 1860's it was over 30 million.

The armies were also much larger both in number and as a proportion of the population, along with being made of troops who were there for multiple years, not just militias for a few months is most cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States#Historical_population

Learned_Hand_01

It is a lot easier to transport people by trains than it is by wooden sailing ships.

The Civil War involved two populations that were neighbors on the same continent and who were industrializing. The revolutionary war required the British to ship troops across the sea in tiny little sailing ships.

Logistics dictate almost everything about war. The revolutionary war had abysmal logistics for the British to prosecute a war. The Civil War featured men taking the train to war.