Memorial Day: America’s 7 costliest wars

6. American Revolution

The conflict that led to the founding of the United States remains one of the deadliest wars in American history.

Approximately 25,500 Americans died during the American Revolution, although only about 27% of those deaths resulted directly from combat. Disease was the leading cause of death among soldiers.

While the death toll was far lower than in later conflicts, History.com reported that the deaths occurred when the population of the thirteen colonies was only about 2.5 million.

“About one percent of the population died in the war,” Michael Patrick Cullinane, a history professor at Dickinson State University in North Dakota, told History.com. “That would be the equivalent of losing three-and-a-half-million people in a war today.”