Posted on 02/17/2006 11:31:39 PM PST by Marius3188
WASHINGTON - Twice as many Civil War soldiers died from insect-related disease than direct combat - an obscure fact Gary Miller has discovered in his unique, decades-long hobby.
Since the 1970s, Miller, 48, of Laurel, Md., has pored over books, soldiers' letters and regimental histories for insect references. He found that mosquitoes, body lice and flies were a constant nuisance to Union and Confederate soldiers. Roughly 60,000 soldiers died from malaria on the Union side alone, he said.
"I think the beauty of looking at the insects is it's a topic that we all can relate to," he said. "Few of us can relate to combat."
Miller is a professional entomologist who describes new species for the United States Department of Agriculture. His blend of bug expertise with the War Between the States is strictly a hobby, he said.
The bugs-and-war fascination started in college, he said, when research for a Civil War course paper on "soldier life" led to an unexpected trend.
"Here were all these references to insects," he said. "You find out insects played a role in every part of soldiering."
Civil War soldiers were encamped in conditions that were awful for humans, but great for insects.
"One of the things that most people aren't aware of when they think of the Civil War is the number of people and associated animals," Miller said. "(Armies) weren't mechanized. They had to rely on horses and mules."
Soldiers would sometimes travel with 8,000 to 10,000 head of cattle, providing plenty of food for flies, he said. Soldiers already wracked by diarrhea or dysentery often had to deal with mosquito-borne malaria as well. If that wasn't bad enough, he said, soldiers' food was usually infested.
Miller owns an original letter by a soldier after the fall of Vicksburg, who wrote there were insects in "every biteful of food."
Desperation led to quirky delousing methods. Soldiers practiced "skirmishing," squishing bugs and lice with their thumb and forefinger on their bodies. Often, they boiled their clothes.
Historians say the Civil War was the last major war fought before scientists realized microbes carried disease, so treatment was limited, Miller said. Quinine imported from South America was the best treatment for malaria, but the Union blockade on the coast led to price gouging.
In 1862, an ounce of quinine cost about $5, Miller said. By the end of the war, the going price in some places was $500 to $600 per ounce. The average Union private made $16 per month.
Miller will share his research Friday evening in a public presentation titled "Insects and the Civil War" at the Locust Grove Nature Center in Bethesda, Md.
In his presentation, Miller will show Civil War-era photographs that depict these harsh conditions. Viewers must look closely to notice the details, but the suffering of battle will be evident.
"I try not to sugarcoat things," Miller said. "I'm not overly graphic with the info, but the topic is war and it's not fun and games."
Geri Drymalski, a naturalist with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, saw Miller present his research to the Maryland Entomological Society 10 years ago. She had him present his work at Locust Grove then, and now Miller is back. "Well I think it's really amazing," she said. "We are so ignorant of how directly and indirectly insects are part of our lives. There's so much more to this whole drama of fighting a war than guns and bullets."
"It's a connection to the past and that's what you build upon," Miller said. "When I can bring natural history into our national history, the picture becomes more colorful."
Thank god we have winter in the US.
I'd be curious to see if his study was broken down by states and if the insect realated deaths were higher in the warmer, Southern States.
I can believe it.
Similarly, the flu epidemic that went around at the end of World War I killed far more people than the bloody war had.
I'd be interested to see more facts showing how many of those deaths were in prison camps, where the death toll from disease was staggering.
Until then, I am wary of his conclusions.
Of course general health was worse in long term camps.
thats a given.
Geri (the naturalist)is amazed
See My adjusted tagline...
That probably worsens the situation with regards to lice and fleas due to having to wear layers of clothing for extended periods of time and having to rely on bulky bedding, but this an was interesting article and I appreciate you posting it.
Good point. I was thinking the cold would kill the muzzies and their larva.
Just wearing those layers of cotton back then was hard enough. Can you imagine the heat problems those guys had?
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An interesting book that carries this topic back to ancient history is "Rats, Lice and History," by Zinzer. It is 30 or 40 years old. one of the problems we'll have if our climate gets much warmer is more tropical diseases. I heard a report a couple of years ago that they were worried about dengue fever in Florida. This disease is also called "breakbone fever" because it is very painful. Then there are the fire ants and Africanized bees. I sure hope the global warming people are wrong.
Yes, it sure would, but there is a down side to pretty well everything.;-)
I can't relate to the conditions these guys faced very well, but coming from Calgary, Alberta, I did marvel many, many times how man could have survived those harsh, - 40 winters there before the advent of modern clothing, particularly footwear!
72 years ago. Gary Miller is a little late.
" there were insects in "every biteful of food."
my great granddaddy was a Reb soldier at Vicksburg. I really
pity him havin to eat food like that .
A time traveler with an AR-15, a case of ammo, and a can of OFF would've been a bad man.
MM
This is true, but it's hardly news.
World War I was the first war in which combat deaths exceeded deaths from disease.
Dr. Walter Reed's work on the mosquito transmission of Yellow Fever grew out of the ravages of the disease on American troops in the Spanish-American War.
In his great and extensive history of the Civil War Shelby Foote breaks the 600,000 deaths down and finds that only about 170,000 were from wounds, while all the others were from disease. Indeed, of the deaths from wounds, many were actually from disease due the the infections caused by bacteria getting into wounds.
The article calls the toll by disease in the Civil War an "obscure fact". To any Civil War historian, this fact is hardly obscure. Just recently there was an article in a top CW magazine about how tapeworms helped kill off Union prisoners at Andersonville, GA. And beyond the deaths, disease put many more soldiers on "short term disability" than bullets. Fun fact--Union soldiers called body lice "graybacks"--their term for Confederate soldiers.
I have the diary and letters from my great-great-grandfather, who was a Union soldier from Iowa. I don't know his exact diagnosis, whether his illness was caused by insects or bad water, but he died of this sort of thing ("wracked by diarrhea"). He died in Yazoo City, Mississippi.
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