Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1909-09-17
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Reptile and Insect Enemies.

If the Union armies had had no
| larger task set before them than to
overcome the armies of the Southern
| Confederacy, l do not think the war
would have lasted as many years as it
| did.
Their labor was very much larger
than that. They fought not only arm
| ed enemies, but also nature herself,
who interposed vast mountain ranges
and deep, swift rivers between them
and the Confederacy. They fought
especially those who went to the far
| South-a facilitating climate and a
| length of torrid weather to which
they were not accustomed. And they
contended against myriads of winged
and swarming things, to which their
adversaries were used but which to
the Northern boys were dreadful tor
ment
The man who, in measuring the
work achieved, does not take these ex-
traordinary agencies into account, has
only summed up half the truth.
Where shall we beginf
lard named Muscoro discovered the
Delta of the Mississippi, some centu-
ries ago; and that. finding clouds of
| winged insects with sharp stings in
those Iow-lying lands, he gave them a
name derived from his own and call
ed them mosquitoes
We think they are pest in our
| comparatively cool northern ATTITUDES.
Let the reader follow the track Of our
! armies contiguous to the Gulf of Mex
leo, and, after suffering enough to I'M
derstand the situation, let him try to
estimate how much good Union blood
was drawn down there during the war,
in other ways than by the sword.
The lower part Of Louisiana, ira
versed with streams, covered with
lakes and swamps, with frequent re-
| gions of pestiferous deposit, bred the
things by millions. In these unhealthy
lands thousands of soldiers not only
contended with the enemy but battled
with fever and malaria, and were tor
mented with the bites of winged and
| creeping things. It cost much blood
to open the Mississippi; but for every
soldier killed there were three sent to
the hospital, poisoned by the malaria
or the insects.
And flies / could realize something
about the plaques Of Egypt after see
ing them. They were about as blood
| thirsty as the mosquitoes. In the
trenches before Port Hudson we used
to destroy them by tha thousand, with
powder scattered around and ignited.
| They attacked everything eatable; the
fresh meat which was sent up to us
was hy-blown and spoiled before 1t
reached US.
Did the reader ever hear of a wood
tick? Did he ever happen to have one
introduced into his leg? They are
| plenty In Dixie. The soldiers couldn't
always sleep at the st. Charles Hotel;
and in sleeping on the ground they
were apt to make too close an &C
| Quaintance with this little villain.
He Is red bug who, like some dis
! t1ngu1shed actors, always performs in
two parts. After he has bored his
way into you, you attempt to pull him
| out. His after part comes; but the
forward part has entered the stay. He
makes himself very painful, and fire.
quently you will have to go to the doc
! tor to get him dug out
AS g. matter of course, snakes
abounded. l suppose there were poi
| sonous ones among them; whether so
or not, 1t was apt to give soldier
a creepy sensation to get up in the
| morning and shake two or three out of
! his blankets.
There were some mysterious casual
| ties which were enough to put every
body in state of apprehension. We
were led to expect danger from every
| quarter in a land so swarming with
vegetable and reptile growths as this,
| our life being continually out of doors
and exposed to every attack. On
one of our marches in Western Louisi-
| ana John Cleveland, Of my company,
had his face either bitten by an insect
or poisoned by vine. The doctors
were at loss to tell Just what was
the trouble, though they thought there
! WdS SOD0 hIuO O1 nS
mans face swelled to twice its natural
size, and he died In few hours.
AS for the alligators, it must be ad-
! mitted that hideous as they looked,
| they seemed to be comparatively harm
| less. The negroes assured US that they
| always bathed in the streams infested
| by them land no stream in Louisiana
was too small to have alligators) with
out fear, and that the gators never
| touched them. With some reluctance
the soldiers followed the advice of the
negroes; and whe1 soldier of Mas
sachusetts regiment, bathing In Ber-
wick Bay, had the calf Of one Of his
legs neatly removed by the bite OF
something, panic arose OF the sub
| ject OF bathing. The negroes explain
ed this mishap by saying that 1t was
not the bite of an alligator; 1t was