Passage: Reconstruction played out against an economy in ruin. The Confederacy in 1861 had 297 towns and cities with a total population of 835,000 people; of these 162 with 681,000 people were at one point occupied by Union forces. Eleven were destroyed or severely damaged by war action, including Atlanta (with an 1860 population of 9,600), Charleston, Columbia, and Richmond (with prewar populations of 40,500, 8,100, and 37,900, respectively); the eleven contained 115,900 people in the 1860 census, or 14% of the urban South. The number of people who lived in the destroyed towns represented just over 1% of the Confederacys combined urban and rural populations. The rate of damage in smaller towns was much lower—only 45 courthouses were burned out of a total of 830.
How many Confederate courthouses were not burned? How many Confederate towns were not occupied by Union forces at any point? How many courthouses were not burned by war action? How many more people lived in Richmond than in Columbia, prewar? How many more people lived in prewar Atlanta than Columbia? How many more persons lived in Charleston than Richmond prewar? How many of the 297 Confederacy towns and cities were never burned or severely damaged? How many of the 297 Confederacy towns and cities were not destroyed or severely damaged? How many of the 830 courthouses were not burned? How many of the towns were not occupied by Union forces? Which town had the highest prewar population: Charleston, Columbia, or Richmond?