U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee - Larry E. Craig, Chairman - Jade West, Staff Director
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September 21, 2001

World Trade Center - Pentagon, Pearl Harbor, Antietam

Americans Who Died On American Soil

This would have been a good week to remember the boys in blue and gray who died along Antietam Creek on September 17, 1862. On that day, two American armies comprising 100,000 soldiers collided in some of the most vicious fighting of that long and bloody war.

Antietam was the bloodiest single day of the American Civil War. With its 26,000 total casualties, it may have been the bloodiest single day in the history of American warfare. When the cannon smoke had cleared and the creek no longer ran red with American blood, 4,800 soldiers lay dead.

The terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last week killed some 7,000 Americans. Almost all of them were civilians.

In 1862, it took tens of thousands of Americans fighting against their countrymen from dawn to dusk to kill 5,000 Americans. Last week, some 7,000 Americans were murdered in a matter of minutes by an enemy who committed not 20 "soldiers" of his own. The difference owes much to the technologies of the modern age; but the chief difference is that the enemy who struck last week has no scruples against cutting up female flight attendants with razor blades so that he can commandeer their airliners and fly them into the heart of an unsuspecting civilian population.

At Antietam we fought against ourselves, thereby doubling the casualties. At Pearl Harbor, we were attacked by a foreign power.

December 7, 1941 was a day of infamy, but at least that attack was launched against military assets. The Imperial Japanese Navy attacked warships that were manned by American sailors; it did not target civilians. Nor did the Japanese use civilian aircraft packed with non-combatants. Before the war's end, the Japanese did use kamikazes as an instrument of air power, but it took the Prince of Terror - whoever he may be - to conceive of using civilian airliners as flying bombs against peaceful populations.

The attack of September 11, 2001, was singularly murderous and diabolical. It is the kind of attack that would awaken a slumbering giant.

The chart below summarizes the casualties from Antietam, Pearl Harbor, and September 11, 2001. The chart does not show the ratios of casualties per side, but it is instructive to observe that at Antietam the larger army had to sustain 12,410 casualties (47 percent of the total) to inflict 13,724 casualties on the South. With the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were able to inflict 3,581 casualties while sustaining only 129 of their own (55 airmen and 74 submariners). Last week, just 19 terrorists killed and wounded about 9,354 innocent victims - which explains why the United States must prosecute a war against terrorism and bring it to a victorious conclusion.

Casualties on American Soil:
Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862
Battle of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941
Terrorist Attack on World Trade Center and Pentagon, September 11, 2001

Antietam Pearl Harbor World Trade Center/Pentagon
(preliminary)
Deaths North: 2,108 2,403 In World Trade Center: 241
South: 2,700 In Pentagon: 189
In Four Airliners: 265
695
Wounded North: 9,549 1,178 World Trade Center: 2,250
South: 9,024 Pentagon: 76
2,326
Missing or Captured North: 753 World Trade Center: 6,333
South: 2,000
Total Casualties 26,134 3,581 9,354
(Total Deaths) (4,808) (2,403) (7,028)

Sources: For Antietam, A. Trulock, In the Hands of Providence: Joshua L. Chamberlain and the American Civil War 417 n. 22 (1992), citing T. Livermore, Numbers and Losses in the Civil War 92-93 (1957). (The website of Antietam National Battlefield shows different numbers.) For Pearl Harbor, G. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor 539 (rev. ed. 1991) (number of deaths includes those missing and those who died of their wounds). About 1,100 of the dead at Pearl Harbor were aboard the U.S.S. Arizona. Some remain there still. The source for the Japanese casualties is M. Clodfelter, II Warfare and Armed Conflicts, A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1618-1991 at 901 (1992). For September 11, 2001, the USA Today website (viewed Sept. 21, 2001). The casualty figures for the World Trade Center are preliminary and are being updated regularly. Many non-Americans lost their lives at the World Trade Center.

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