When the first shot of the Civil War was fired at four thirty in the morning on April 12, 1861, many believed that it would be a short conflict. Even though Fort Sumter had to endure thirty-four hours of Confederate bombardment before the Union surrendered it, the Union enjoyed a number of significant advantages over the Confederacy. Yet, by the time Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, some four years later, about 620,000 soldiers had died on the battlefields, more than American battle deaths in all other wars from the Revolution through the Vietnam War. How does this paragraph from The Dark Game best support the central idea that the Civil War was a long war?

a
It shares the detail that the war lasted four years.
b
It gives an example of a battle that lasted almost two days.
c
It states what people believed about the war at the time.
d
It tells how many soldiers actually died in the war.