Big Data

The average Union soldier had more girth than the average Rebel?

taller, slimmer, less like to be foreign born?

Recently I read about the importance of statistics and statisticians to the British government during World War II. Here’s some evidence that during the American Civil War a Northern NGO compiled and analyzed some data about Union and Confederate soldiers – their relative sizes and birth countries.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in January 1865:

NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN SOLDIERS. – Some curious facts have been disclosed by statistics furnished by the Sanitary Commission, which body has caused measurements to be made on an extensive scale in our armies, and among rebel prisoners. – It appears that Southern soldiers average one inch more in stature than Northern troops, but one inch less in girth. Five per cent. of the rebel prisoners were of foreign birth, and twenty per cent. of Union soldiers were foreigners.

Apparently the South had been using statistics to prove that the South had more than enough material wealth to carry on the war. I think I’m going to take some statistics with a grain of salt.

care and measurement (“The ever welcome Sanitary Commission” Library of Congress)