click the article linked below. it struck a chord for me.

i think this article is spot on. i have been trying to find out about my ancestors and running into difficulty due to the deaths. my ggggrandfather T. C. McDaniel volunteered for alabama, i think the 30th, and died pretty quickly of something; dysentery most likely; probably would have been better to leave the fighting to the younger men and minded the farm. his son, my gggrandfather, Robert N. McDaniel got very sick in vicksburg and since the 23rd regiment's records are incomplete, i don't know if he got wounded later or not (someone told me records show that he was disabled but i have not seen that) but i reckon he died after marrying in 1866 and having a son in 1867. either of the sickness he got during the war or wounds, whichever. i know his wife was remarried by 1871. his brother Joel, also the 23rd, is listed as a disabled also, although not enough to prevent him from growing older and having a family. so yes i think the fatilities during and after the war were much more severe than recorded, just seeing what it did to this one family.