Most destructive battle in history in lives?

By the way setanta sir, I dont nurse any grudges or hold anything against you. In that thread of that you speak, YOU SPENT A HUUGE AMOUNT OF SPACE OPENING AND UNLOADING ON ME. For some cockemamy reason that I forget why. Oh yeh, you stated something like I wasnt smart enough to catch irony, even when that wasnt what you were pitching.
In this thread, everyone was going along ok until you popped in with your dismissive attitude. Im just like that, I try to prick on those who wanna be the most disrespectful of others. You sir, most often fit that profile.
Now pleeeeze fella, no more 80 line posts .

By the way setanta sir, I dont nurse any grudges or hold anything against you. In that thread of that you speak, YOU SPENT A HUUGE AMOUNT OF SPACE OPENING AND UNLOADING ON ME. For some cockemamy reason that I forget why. Oh yeh, you stated something like I wasnt smart enough to catch irony, even when that wasnt what you were pitching.
In this thread, everyone was going along ok until you popped in with your dismissive attitude. Im just like that, I try to prick on those who wanna be the most disrespectful of others. You sir, most often fit that profile.
Now pleeeeze fella, no more 80 line posts .

You're a riot, Farmerlad, you crack me up . . . When Pemberton surrendered on July 3 to Grant, and Holmes' "army" was destroyed the following day, Lincoln responded with very good reason by saying that "the Father of Waters flows again unvexed to the sea." That the war was important to those west of the river is not to be doubted. That it was insane with brigandage, with vendetta, Indian insurrections, thugs mascarading as soldiers and all manner of criminal activity is not to be doubted. That what went on there was ever of more than marginal significance to the war is not to be doubted either. When Vicksburg fell the last possibility of the Confederates west of the river making any meaningful contribution to the war effort in Richmond ended. When the Missouri State Guard was destroyed on Graveyard Hill, the last possiblity of a disciplined force-to-be-reckoned-with ended. Although of very serious interest to those obliged to live with the madness at that time, and of arcane interest since those days, the events in the Transmississippi were never of great importance in that war. But you keep tellin' yerself you've got a better handle on this than i, as i don't doubt you believe.

The length of my posts is not determined by your whim or fiat. In the thread to which we both refer, you began your "contribution" in the typically condescending manner you have displayed here, with an also very typically clumsily written attempt to literarily critique what i'd written. That you contend there was no irony is evidence that you still don't get it--i didn't question your intelligence, just your ability to appreciate that which is more subtle than a wooden club. You need to look in the mirror when you speak of those who are disrespectful of others. For all that you have skills and knowledge in your chosen field of which you may be justifiably proud, you displayed in that thread, for those to whom it was not already painfully obvious, your complete lack of the skills of writing and comprehending all which is not patently obvious. In this thread, you've displayed the shallowness of your ability to analyze historical events.

I haven't responded to you with anger, but if it will comfort you to think so, you help yourself.

Ive never denied my lack of skill as a writer. Ive been submersed in technical writing for years and I find it mostly artless and full of jargon. ive said so many times here in a2k so believe me, Im not angered. BUT, where you and I differ, I dont fantasize that Im a good writer. You could actually become a decent writer by redacting about half of your normal sized posts and stick with a case that is more honed. Speaking of truncheons, you the mastah.

Still backpedalling eh? The war in the west was unimportant? by your beliefs alone sir.Many historians disagree with you. Your surrender of Vicksburg quote was about 2 weeks after Gettysburg, yet the western war continued for another 2 years and the last surrender of any sizable force occured their a month after Appomatox. Your attempt at trying to put a finer and finer point on this doesnt demonstrate any profound deep understanding (except maybe in your mind), you still have reinforced the fact that my original statement was a basic truth, there were 3 separate armies of the CSA out ther and only one surrendered at Appomatox. The other 2 required "separate peace " negotiations and surrenders.
As far as your pet subject of writing, thank you for your sensitive critiques of others.Ive never denied my lack of skill as a writer. Ive been submersed inthe production of technical writing for years and I find this application artless and full of jargon. ive said so many times here in a2k so believe me, Im not angered you aint telling me something I dont already know full well. I think that there are some fabulous writers on a2k, precise, concise, really witty9 however since were being honest, you are not one of em in my book).

I see where you and I differ about writing skills, I dont fantasize that Im a good writer. speaking of truncheons.sublety is not achieved by "much speaking"
a little about me so we dont end up in some neverending snitfest. Im a passionate student of history of the Americas. I am blown away by the industry and capture of a continent by the subsequent cultures of Amerinds and others of later settlement. The dismissal of the transmiss by you is a somewhat reasoned denial of the efforts that were played by the native Americans in their many allegiances and futile uneasy truces. They hoped for a stake in the post war world and they were unfortunate in that they backed the wrong horse. the resultant art and "sagas" of the Plains Indians were a result of this bad allegiance and followon Indian Wars were increasingly borne of impatience and brutality by th reconstructionist mentality.
To sit there and drag up some irrelevant surrender of Pemberton as having any effect onthe west,or Stand Watie and the tribes , I find particularly revisionist. " lets plow under the memory of over 35000 men who were futilely trying to secure their own world"and lets forget that the CSA was trying to hold together their own west. beginning in Taos in 1861 , there was, in effect, a separate conflict, that, absent a ft Sumter, would have probably gone on anyway. I believe that tempered the further settlement and growth of the west into the 20th century.
In effect, Im a paleo Indian nut who looks for the connections of the natives to the "progress" of this nation. Your dismissive attitude has offended me personally (as probably it did for a large bunch of real historians)

You neither know of what you speak on the subject of writing (and i've not claimed great skills there, only that i entertain myself), nor in the significance of the Transmississippi--and there was no backpedalling, i've just been obliged to make the same point to you again and again, as it appears not to sink in with you. Since you are so obviously unable to weigh the importance of persons, places and events in that war, it is not worth my while to continue with you.

That episode of Star Trek: TNG, where the Dowd admits to destroying a race of billions with a simple thought out of revenge for the death of his wife...oh wait, TV not real.

heeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

Damned reality . . .

Just as a semi-related side note, the Latin-Greek secretary of the Emperor Justinian, Procopius Arbiter, said in his Secret History that the Emperor had killed 100 trillion people during his reign. Call me crazy but I would call that a slightly inflated figure. The Emperor was said to have depopulated Italy. If true, which is unlikely, that would have been a sad commentary on the fate of man in general, not just the western Romans.

That figure does seem a little high. Figures from those days tend to be somewhat unreliable, because of several factors of which historians and historiographers need always to be aware. Annalists tend not to take notice of their own defeats and defects, so in a situation in which they are obliged to take notice of a defeat or a military fiasco, they tend to inflate the numbers of the enemy, and often to understate the size of their own forces. Exactly the same dynamic applied when their home team is victorious. Also, with a few notable ancient exceptions, until quite recently, only clerics and secretaries recorded such events, and they were not likely to have had the expertise to have made reasonable estimates. In The Conquest of New Spain, Bernal Diaz gives estimates of the sizes of various Toltec forces which may seem to have been inflated, but he had served with Cordoba in northern Italy, and had sufficient military experience to make him an exception which proves the rule--a reliable military man needs to be able to quickly estimate the size of an enemy force, and report it with out undue excitement or delay. Arab historians who report on the last seige of Vienna almost universally report the size of their army as 25,000, of whom 15,000 were absent sick; they then report that there were 40,000 christians, who received 40,000 reinforcements, and refer to all of them as "Germans." When Jan Sobieski arrives with his mixed German-Polish force, they then conflate the numbers to 80,000 Germans, reinforcing 40,000 defenders, for a total of 120,000 christians. But the records of the Osmanli Turks which have survived show that there were about 40,000 to 45,000 Turks, of whom 15,000 were absent sick, leaving about 25,000 to 30,000 for a seige force and a mobile army. That they opposed about 40,000 "Germans" would have been accurate, in that the besieged did not leave the city to attack the Turkish lines until Sobieski's army had the mobile Turkish force on the run. It's easier to excuse one's failures if the odds look longer.

You should see some of the inflated numbers for battles in the Bible.

WW-I Boasts the Bloodiest Battle in World History
The Battle of the Somme is the bloodiest battle in world history especially when one considers the total number of casualties inflicted on both sides exceeded 1,000,000. Although my numbers may not be exact, it is estimated that the British suffered about 430,000 casualties, the French 250,000, and the Germans 500,000 in the World War I battle. Field Marshall Douglas Haig was in charge of the British forces. Recently there was a group of British citizens calling for the removal of his statue (located somewhere in England) due to the great number of lives that were lost under his command. I think that the battle was successful from a British point of view, because one of their objectives was to inflict heavy losses on the German army. But the means in which he achieved this end, with the colossal sacrifice of human lives, made the Battle of the Somme a terrible tragedy in Britain's history. Nonetheless, due to the significant loss of life on the German side, I think this was the very battle that actually won the war because the German army lost their soldiering superiority on the battlefield, as they could no longer replace the frontlines with same caliber warriors. Frankly, I think it is sad the late Haig is getting such a bad rap today!

DH, that may well qualify as the "bloodiest battle" in history, but by no means was it a clincher for the war. There were years to go, and millions to die before the end would come. The battle of the Somme was just another useless slaughter, as was the battle for Verdun.

The one that pierces my heart the most was The Rape of Nanking. This happened in China. Japanese soldiers invaded Nanking, and not only did they take away sooo many lives, they commited unthinkable and atrocious war crimes. They murdered, raped, and humiliated these people. The soldiers would often make fathers rape their daughters and sons rape their mothers. They would rape Chinese woman, dead or alive, young or old... They would capture people are experiment on them.. For example... they would cut a man open without any anesthesia and let him lie there, dying, just see how long it would take for him to die. And the worse part is, is that Japenes people do not apologize, or even ADMIT to this happening unlike the Germans who are taught about Hitler and etc.