Deadliest U.S. Wars

It is now believed - the death toll revised by the professor I was lucky enough to study under, J. David Hacker - that almost 750,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and it has become the new accepted statistic.

2 Unrelated Points: The Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 are NOT really linked. There was over 20-years in between, and part of that time - during Washington's 2nd Term and during the Adams Administration - the US nearly went to war with France. The War of 1812 was based on a dumb decision by James Madison.

And World War I and World War II are not the same war, as while there WAS fighting in many places around the world during WWI, the fighting was mostly limited to Europe. WWII had an entire Pacific Theater that WWI did not have. Hitler and the Nazis came to power playing off the anger over losing WWI, but Japan did not invade China or attack us in Pearl Harbor and the Philippines because of WWI. Germany's actions can be looked at through a WWI lens, but Japan's can't.

Correction on my previous post: there were nearly 30-years between the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783 and the start of the War of 1812.

Americans in 1812 felt residual anger towards the British that was intensified by Britain's contempt for Americans, but the British were still battling Napoleon and didn't care about events in North America, and there was no real reason to fight them. In fact, Madison's war was so unpopular in New England that the states there considered secession.

The fight was between Americans and Canadians in the North, and against Native American tribes allied with Britain and Spain in the south and west. Americans naively expected the Canadians to join the American union, and were shocked when they faced resistance...the American troops captured and burned the Canadian capital of York (today Toronto), and the Red Coats later burned DC; the war wound up a stalemate and its main importance historically is that it launched the career of Andrew Jackson.

I kept typing in "Gulf War" and "Perisan Gulf War", but I never looked at the year. It was Vietnam....

What about the first Gulf War, aka Desert Storm?

Lotta foreign policy experts on Jetpunk. Who knew?

So your quiz inspired me to do some reading...turns out the Philippine-American war was only officially from 1899-1902, and had at least 4000 American casualties as listed in your quiz. However, the Moro Rebellion is what lasted until 1913 as your quiz shows, but had much fewer American casualties.

got them all with 2 min left...

Damn my laziness, I put Afghan and when it didn't work I didn't bother typing out the whole word.

I tried the Filipino War...D'oh! That was the only one I missed

Wondering why the War on Terror isn't included. Too general?

@tswalla You're username suggests you're Muslim which would explain your slanted view. I'm not denying the US government may have been involved in some unethical things but Muslims love to blame their problems on others instead of taking responsibility constantly playing the victim card. This despite the fact that long before the US and Israel existed tribal hostilities existed in Arab and Muslim culture and today is no exception. The Muslim invasion of India where you sold off their women and enslaved those who didn't convert, the Arab slave trade in Africa spanning at least 800 years where you castrated the men and used the women as sex slaves, the Barbary pirates, the Taliban who turned on the US who formed from the US aided Mujahideen in their fight against communism, all the dictatorships in Muslim countries, and many more. I could go on but you get the idea, you don't exactly have a great track record or reputation and you're a hypocrite for talking about wars and violence.

I wouldn't put Iraq or Afghanistan on this list.

I know this isn't the popular conception. But the popular conception frankly makes no sense and is unprecedented in history.

The Iraq War lasted from March 2003 to April 2003. That's how long it took for the Americans to conquer Baghdad and the government of Saddam Hussein to fall. The Iraqi military was disbanded shortly thereafter. After this point, the war was finished and the occupation of Iraq began. Total casualties during the war were about 200.

The war in Afghanistan lasted from October through December 2001, when the Taleban lost control of Kandahar their final stronghold. During this period, there were 7 US casualties. After December the war was over and the occupation of Afghanistan began.

I think for Afghanistan, War on Terror(ism) should be accepted.

The Gulf War wasn't even on this quiz because it was too easy.

Americans killing each other - more American casualties in the US Civil War than in WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan and Iraq COMBINED.

The war in the Philippines was really part of the Spanish American War.

Hmm. I entered "Mr. Madison's War" which I thought was a correct answer. Apparently not?

How did I miss Afghanistan?

Got them all with 2:15 remaining at 11:13:07 AM on March 17, 2019. I am now at 1057 points. Easy quiz!

What about the Cola Wars? We lost a lot of good men out there.

How do we have such an accurate death count for the Mexican-American war but not the, later, Civil War.

All of them, but I think I missed a couple when I took this quiz a year ago or something :/

Shouldn't the French and Indian war be on here?

"War of 1812"? That's the least helpful name for a war I've ever heard.

Time to update! Afghanistan War is over.

Since the Philippines was a U.S. territory at the time (according to the Americans), maybe we should count all of the casualties on the Filipino side of the war, too? The same way that you count both Union and Confederate casualties for the Civil War. That would put the total number significantly higher. At least 3x as much if not way more than that if you count non-combat deaths on the Filipino side.

What about the Indian Wars? Would be 4th on the list in terms of direct casualties.

Could you please accept "American War for Independence", or just "War for Independence", since that's that proper name for the war.

can the Gulf war be accepted for Iraq

Bruh I got everything but the American Revolution

The return rates are interesting. So much won from the cost of the Revolutionary War, and Mexican.

Humanity has been pretty lucky to have a government as generous as the USA as the sole superpower for the last .. 80+ years. It's denialism to say anything else, when the alternative is the USSR/Russia, or China.

God bless the USA as they say. Hopefully they focus more on exceeding, and less on being weighed down by the muck of the ROW in the coming century. I want to see men on Mars.

Lots of commentary that 'The War on Terror' is just a political slogan.

A 2021 report from the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people, though only around 15,000 - 20,000 were American casualties.

That should still give this 'slogan' sufficient credibility to appear on this list.

I have heard of the Philippine conflict actually; but this is the first I have heard of it be referred to it as the Philippine American War; I had heard that it was called the Philippine Insurrection

WW1 started in 1916, not 1917 and WW2 started in 1939. You added when Pearl harbor was bombed and when the U.S.A joined the war. It really started when Germany Invaded Poland.

What is KIA?