Giving play to the real point

I'm a bit of a history buff, firmly believing if we don't learn from historical lessons we're doomed to repeat them (same goes for marketing lessons). So I am intrigued by this "Civil War" video (...btw, how can a war be civil?). It gives a second for every week of the war between North and South and someone sure spent a good amount of time on it (thank you).

The problem? The MOST IMPORTANT point of the entire piece isn't given enough play. The casualty counter in the below right-hand corner is barely legible. Yet the casualties are the key lesson--and what we really lose--from all these wars, civil or otherwise. Such a shame as it could be so powerful being, in this war we lost more American lives than all other wars COMBINED (see why I still can't understand the "civil" part?).

Sure, wars are a battle over ideas and power but it's the people who endure the true battles. A simple thing like making that casualty counter twice as large would help to hit that point home. Maybe it won't stop a war; but maybe it will make us think twice--and make the audience learn the most valuable lesson of all.

Plus, people deserve to be as big as that map. It's a country's people, not its land, that make them so great. I'm not knocking the producer of this piece, he or she did an amazing job...but I think we marketers can learn from it.

The lesson? In an age of "show not tell" let's not forget to show what's truly core.

Can someone kindly tell me what the total loss of life was? I can't read it and I feel badly for not knowing it. You don't need to divide it into north and south, they were all people and they were all lost. On a positive note, if we got through that dark time we can get through anything (so long as we repeat less, progress more).

Here it is @4 minutes (RSS readers, jump here). Update: the owner of this video doesn't allow embeds, so just click here to watch it (sorry)...and it was recorded at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum (the casualty counter might be much larger there, don't know but hope so).

Comments

[Cam Beck]

I can't tell you exactly, but from previous reading I can say that it was approximately 600,000 from fighting, sickness, and disease. I'll find some data and send it to you over email.

[CK]

Hey Cam: I just checked Wikipedia...here's what it says, "The war produced about 970,000 casualties (3% of the population), including approximately 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease."

Thanks so much for helping me out on that stat. Hate that I didn't know that off-hand.

[Cam Beck]

Here's that link, in case anyone else is interested:

http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm

[Ryan Karpeles]

This video is actually from the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois (which is actually really cool and quite high-tech). The video is projected onto a massive wall where tons of people can watch. The wall is about 20 feet wide and 10 feet high.

In other words, the maker of the original video probably didn't think about the size of the "casualty count graphic" as it would translate to YouTube (since it's already rather large in person). Hopefully that clears things up a little :)

I must say that seeing it in person is pretty neat. And a little scary...

[CK]

@Thanks Ryan! I do want to see it in person because I can't "see it" on film like this. I wonder if there's a way to better emulate it for YouTube since I've been squinting at that casualty count all day. I can imagine how hard it was to decrease the size of it for YouTube...but it loses something in the translation. Maybe if I could make it full screen sans losing resolution?

[p0ps]

This is a wonderful way to view history. Very sad, of course, the death represented this way. Was it worth it? I don't think so. Sure slavery must be stopped, but major modern warfare, not the only way it could have been attacked.

This was an awful, awful war.

The blood-lust it brought out of the population continued for twenty years as US Army, ex-soldiers and others killed Indians by genociding the buffalo.

[Ryan Karpeles]

You're most welcome CK. If you're interested, I found a tiny little write-up of the display. It includes a picture of the video projection and mentions the "odometer of death." Scary stuff indeed.

http://www.alplm.org/museum/black_troops.html

(The pic/description is halfway down on the right)

[Lewis Green]

Here is the data from Civil War Home (http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm), a web site dedicated to the war's history:

The Union armies had from 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men. Their losses, by the best estimates:

Battle deaths: 110,070
Disease, etc.: 250,152
Total 360,222

The Confederate strength, known less accurately because of missing records, was from 750,000 to 1,250,000. Its estimated losses:

Battle deaths: 94,000
Disease, etc.: 164,000
Total 258,000

[Adam Kayce : Monk At Work]

The question I grabbed on to was, "...btw, how can a war be civil?"

It's not civil, as in "opposite of rude," but as in:

civil (as in "civil") adj. : of or occurring within the state or between or among citizens of the state; "civil affairs"; "civil strife"; "civil disobediece"; "civil branches of government"

We weren't fending off Britain; we were fighting amongst ourselves.