American War of Independance

[The Flying Dutchman]

Are there any figures on the casualties suffered during the American War of Independance?

[Duckster]

Yes.

Oh, are you looking for these numbers?

[tomndebb]

As evidence of a bit of American chauvinism, most of the internet sites tend to focus on American casualties. (OTOH, a search for British military records tends to show a bit of a bias in that they seem to often ignore the whole business).

The Answers.com article on the Revolutionary War does include information on Hessian casualties, but still omits British and Indian casualties. (The same info is repeated on several sites.)

Then, finally on http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wars18c.htm I found the following:

Louis Duncan, Medical Men in the American Revolution (1931) 
	US: 
		KIA and mortally wounded: 7,000 
		Disease: 63,000 
		TOTAL: 70,000
	UK: 
		KIA and mortally wounded: 4,000 
		Disease: 27,000 
		TOTAL: 31,000
	Hessians: 
		KIA and mortally wounded: 1,800 
		Disease: 6,000 
		TOTAL: 7,800
	TOTAL: 108,800
Oscar Reiss, Medicine and the American Revolution (1998) 
	US deaths: 
		KIA: 6,500 
		Disease: 10,000 
		Deaths among POWs: 8,500 
	TOTAL: 25,000
Clodfelter 
	US dead, citing Peckham, The Toll of Independence 
		KIA: 6,824, incl. naval 
		POW deaths: 8,500 
		Disease, etc.: 10,000
	British side: 15,000 KIA+DOW, incl... 
		Lost at sea: 3,000 
		Tories and Canadians: 3,000 
		German mercenaries: 3,000 
		NAm Indians: 500
	American allies: 
		French: 10,000 battle dead, 75% at sea. 
		Spain: 5,000 
		Netherlands: 500
Thomas Purvis, A Dictionary of American History (1995) 
	US deaths: 
		KIA on land: 6,090 
		KIA at sea: 1,084 
		Disease: 10,000 
		Deaths among POWs: 8,000 
		[TOTAL: 25,174]
The 1991 Information Please Almanac: 4,435 US KIA 
The World Almanac and Book of Facts (1985): 6,824 KIA + 18,500 other = 25,324 deaths 
Robin May, The British Army in North America 1775-1783 (1997): perhaps 12,000 Americans killed, not very different to the number of British killed. 
Levy: 34,000 
Eckhardt: 20,000 military 
Elizabeth Fenn, Pox Americana: the great smallpox epidemic of 1775-82 
	Estimated minimal mortality across North America, 1775-82: 130,658, incl. the following deaths associated with the Revolutionary War, as the armies spread the virus around the English colonies: 
		Military 
			Quebec: 538 
			Retreat from Canada: 700 
			Ethiopian Reg.: 480 
			Alexandria: 20 
			[TOTAL: ca. 1,738, probably incl. in all the military estimates above.]
		Civilian 
			Boston: 287 
			Nova Scotia: 153 
			Iroquois: 170 
			Hudson R.: 58 
			NC Moravians: 13 
			SC black loyalists: 2,000 
			Wilmington NC: 5 
			VA black loyalists: 3,500 of smallpox 
				T Jefferson est.: of 30,000 Virginia slaves who joined the British, 27,000 died of smallpox and camp fever.
			[TOTAL: ca. 6,186 war-related smallpox deaths, plus maybe (?) another 23,500 d. of "camp fever".]

[Derleth]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

The Answers.com article on the Revolutionary War

To be precise, it's the Wikipedia article mirrored at Answers.com. Credit where credit is due.

[Reeder]

Ethiopians fought for the Brits??

[tomndebb]

Ethiopians fought for the Brits??

A number of freed slaves were organized into the Royal Ethiopian Regiment. The Revolution's black soldiers.

[Reeder]

So..Ethiopian=black.

Thanks.

[Slithy Tove]

Yes, funny how "Eithiopian," as a Bibilical term, was often used as a polite euphemism for Blacks (most of whom were actually West, not East Africans) and, coincidentaly, Eithiopia was unique in resisting European conquest.

Although the British didn't import "Eithiopians" into their colonial war in North America, the French did; from the deserts of the Sudan, thinking them well-adapted to fighting in the deserts of Mexico

http://www.egy.com/historica/94-06-25.shtml

Which makes one speculate that if the American War of Independence's outbreak had been delayed by one generation, the British would have overrun the colonies with larger, cheaper armies of Sepoys from India.

Also, we Americans were not immune from these claptrap theories: in WWI, all the Black units sent to France were volunteer "for the duration" outfits; all the old regular-Army all-Black units were kept in their pre-war garrisons on the Philippines for which they were initially recruited since, as a "tropical race," they were deemed more suitable for such postings (show me a mosquito that can tell a Bantu from a Swede!)