Alexander’s Law of Evil and Stupidity: Of the two great negative forces in the world, stupidity will get you long before evil does.
If you work for a government agency, you might want to make sure you don’t post stuff on Facebook that would make you look stupid, or racist. You might also consider the people whose needs you serve. You might also try to get all your facts straight:
The 620,000 deaths includes the Confederate deaths.
(Total Confederate deaths equals about 258,000.)
For many years the Union deaths in the Civil War have been understood to be 360,222. This link shows some additional research, but I think we can all assume that if you really want to add up the number of individuals who died to free the slaves, you’d ignore the Confederate number.
Out of sensitivity to southern folks, I will point out that the soldiers of the south were not necessarily fighting for slavery, but it’s pretty hard to make the case they were fighting to free slaves.
The phrase “We’re now known as racists…” also creates a problem. Go ahead, use that phrase at a party. See if people start figuring you’re a racist.
Oh, and the people who should be thanked are already dead, so…there’s that.
Back to the Facebook post. It was by a commissioner of the Hoboken Housing Authority. You may safely facepalm now.
The Hoboken Housing Authority operates independently from the city and oversees the city’s 1,353 units of federally funded low-income and senior citizen housing. The day-to-day operations are managed by a paid executive director and staff, who are overseen by a seven-member volunteer Board of Commissioners. The board is appointed by local and state officials. [Soon to be a six-member board. — Dave]
[Hoboken Councilman Reuben] Ramos said “This individual oversees an agency with a large African-American and minority population which I represent [on the council].”
The council was discussing hate crimes, and somehow they wandered into this topic.
Stupid isn’t a crime.
The Artisan Craft Blog -- Dave Alexander & Company with David Edgren and Gus Bailey 
Also…those 360,222 were not all white people. There were many blacks (I don’t know exact numbers) in Union blue fighting to free slaves as well.
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About 40,000. A little over 11% of the Union deaths. At 179,000 soldiers, they were about 10% of the Union forces. The people that were actually freed, by the way, tended generally to be vocal in their appreciation of the Union soldiers, of whatever race, who fought to free them, and the President who led that effort.
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