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Civil War Casualtiesby Greg, Lincoln ElementaryIntroductionOne day I was talking to my friend, Joey, about "Great Blue" projects. Then, last year I remembered that he did a really neat project. His question was, "If every casualty in World War II was a 2 litter soda bottle, how far would that go?" I started thinking about doing something like that, but without copying him. After a while, this is the question I came up with, "If every casualty in the Civil War was a football field, how far would that go?" The reason I picked the Civil War was because I have always been interested in the Civil War. The reason I picked the football field for each casualty was because I am really interested in football. The reason I picked this kind of really hard math project was because I love math. I also like mixing math with geography. That is why I did this project. ProcedureI did a lot of things to answer my question, but first I had to meet with Mr. Jeff (our teacher). The conference was on February 25. The conference was about how to do the math, ie; converting football fields into mileage. Then we started to talk about how unreal my project seems if each casuality was a football field. I would impress people a lot more if the casualities were about average size for a human. Then, after a while, we decided to change the football fields into six foot humans, since we thought that was about the average height for a human. First of all, I met with Joey. He was the one who did a project like this last year. He gave me some ideas like setting the casualties on interstate roads and rivers. Then, I looked in books for how many people died in the civil war. I found one book called {The Civil War}. It told all of the casualties of every battle. The one problem in the book was that the author didn't know how many people died in a few battles. Another problem I encountered when I did this project is afterward, when I conferenced with Mr. Jeff, I found out that my results for "as the crow flys" was not accurate at all. I measured with an angle on some of the measurements, so it messed up my some results. Those were my main problems when I tried to answer my question. I used many different materials when I did this project. When I started out, I used a world map. Then I started to conference with Mr. Jeff. After I had just started to translate the casualties into miles, I decided I couldn't use a world map because the key was too small and there weren't so many six foot casualties that they would stretch to the other side of the world. So I decided to use a U.S.A. map. After that, I got to work. ResultsFirst of all, I converted the 183,148 casualties for the Union and the 122,482 casualities for the Confederate into mileage by taking the number of casualties and multiplying them by 6 (pretending they were each 6 feet tall). Then I divided the sum, 1,098,888 for the Union and 734,892 for the Confederate by 5,280 because that is the number of feet in a mile. Then, I got how many miles it would go (208 miles for the Union and 140 miles for the Confederate). So I took that number, and I got a ruler. The ruler was used to measure the exact length on the key of the map. These are the results for "as the crow flies" I got when I lined them up North, East, South and West, always starting from Madison, WI. Going straight North, all of the causalities in the Union lined up from head to toe would stretch to Lac du Flambeau, WI. Going straight West, the Union would stretch to Mason City, IA. Going straight South for the Union would stretch to Lincoln, ILL. Going straight East for the Union would stretch to Belding, MI. This part is for the Confederate. Going straight North for the Confederate would stretch to Merril, WI. Going straight East for the Confederate would stretch to the middle of Lake Michigan. Going straight South for the Confederate would stretch to Lacon, IL. Going West for the Confederate would stretch to New Hampton, IA. After I did this, I decided to see how far it would go if you stretched out the causalities on Interstate Highways and rivers. Here are my results for the Union. Going on Interstate 94 towards St. Paul, would go to Menominee, WI. If you went on Interstate 90 towards Chicago for the Union , would go to Michigan City, IN. If you started in Minneaplios and went on the Mississippi River for the Union, it would stretch to Prarie du Chien, WI. If you went on Interstate 94 towards St. Paul for the Confederate, it would stretch to Osseo, WI. If you went on Interstate 90 twards Chicago for the Confederate, it would stretch to Michigan City, IN. If you started in Minneaplos and followed the Mississippi river for the Confederate, it would stretch to La Crosse, WI. These are all of my results when I did this project. Interpreting ResultsI did not have an original hypothesis, so I can't say if my original hypothesis was right, but I did find some surprises in my inquiry. Here they are. I had no idea if you lined up all of the causalities in the Union, it would stretch all the way to northern Wisconsin. (And that's not even all of the causalities for the Union!) I am also surprised with the Confederate causalities for stretching so far. New DirectionsIf I could do this project all over again, I would start earlier because if I did that, I could see how far all of the causalities would stretch for one individual battle. Then I could get more data and that would be really interesting. I would also try to look in more Civil War books to compare the number of casualities and try to figure out an average. AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank all of the people that helped me on the way. Those people are Mr. Jeff, my teacher. I liked how he had conferences with me and helped me change a few things. I would also like to thank Joey Ghilardi. If he had not done what he did last year, I would not be doing this. Once again, thank-you.
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