Approximately 260,000 Confederate soldiers died during the Civil War. This traditional estimate includes deaths from combat, disease, wounds, imprisonment, and other wartime causes, not merely soldiers killed on battlefields.
Confederate records were incomplete and many were lost during the Confederacy’s collapse in 1865, so the figure cannot be known with absolute precision. Older historical estimates commonly paired about 260,000 Confederate deaths with roughly 360,000 Union deaths.
The number is best treated as a standard approximation rather than a final census. Modern demographic research has revised the overall Civil War death toll upward, and historians continue to refine how military deaths are classified. Still, 260,000 remains the conventional answer in general-interest history references and trivia.
A common mix-up is confusing deaths with total casualties. Confederate military casualties, including wounded and captured soldiers, were far higher than the death count. Civilian deaths, which were also substantial, are generally counted separately.