By:
Julie Walters (352) 392-1773 x 277Source(s):
Tom Nordlie tnordlie@ifas.ufl.edu, (352) 392-0400
Tom Fasulo fasulo@ufl.edu, (352) 392-1901
LAKE CITY, Fla. — When Civil War buffs commemorate the struggle between North and South at the Battle of Olustee re-enactment this weekend, a University of Florida expert will be on hand to demonstrate how Rebs and Yanks faced a common foe – insects.
Participants and spectators gathering Feb. 17-19 at the Olustee Battlefield Historic Site near Lake City can get an up-close look at weevils and lice and learn how pests affected soldiers, courtesy of Thomas Fasulo, an extension entomologist with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
Fasulo, who develops instructional materials on entomology for UF, said pests played a significant – and deadly – role in the Civil War. Diseases, often spread by insects, claimed twice as many lives as combat injuries.
“People have a fairly sanitized idea of what a soldier’s life was like during the Civil War,” he said. “Every soldier at the Battle of Olustee – 5,500 men on each side – was infested with body lice.”
Even dedicated re-enactors might balk at hosting the blood-sucking insects for the sake of historical accuracy, so Fasulo – a re-enactor with 12 years’ experience – will present a one-man show of sorts. Portraying a Union officer, he will wander the park displaying vials of lice and their eggs, known as nits, and tell visitors about the pests.
Soldiers inadvertently spread lice by sharing equipment – particularly blankets – to lighten their loads for long marches, he said. The pests did not pose a serious health threat during the Civil War, but they made life uncomfortable – one man could host more than 100 lice, each raising small, itchy bites on the soldier’s skin.
Men would temporarily rid themselves of lice by boiling their uniforms and bathing, or by kicking up anthills and dropping their clothes on top, letting the swarming ants pick out lice and nits, Fasulo said. But in the close quarters of camp, no soldier was ever louse-free for long. The pests were so common that soldiers bet on louse races for entertainment.
“Soldiers would each pick a louse off their uniform and drop it onto an army-issue tin plate,” he said. “The soldier whose louse reached the edge first would win tobacco, or food or a night off from guard duty.”
Union Army rations provided breeding grounds for another prevalent pest, a tiny brown beetle called the granary weevil, Fasulo said. At the Olustee re-enactment, he will spend part of his time in a simulated Union encampment, displaying weevils in hardtack, a cracker made from flour and water that was a staple of the Union soldier’s diet.
“In the war, men given moldy hardtack could usually redeem it the next time rations were doled out but they weren’t allowed to trade in the weevil-infested variety,” he said.
Weevils could be removed from hardtack by dropping it in a cup of boiling water or coffee and skimming the insects off the surface, Fasulo said.
Re-enactment spectators may not be familiar with lice and weevils, but they’ll probably recognize the insects that posed the greatest threat to soldiers – flies and mosquitoes.
Common house flies spread dysentery and diarrhea, which claimed as many as 100,000 lives during the four-year conflict, he said. Malaria, spread by mosquitoes, infected 1 million soldiers during the first two years of the war and claimed thousands of lives.
“It’s hard to imagine now, but doctors did not make the connection between mosquitoes and malaria until more than 30 years after the Battle of Olustee,” Fasulo said.
The vast numbers of men and animals involved in the war made insect problems inevitable, said Gary Miller, a research entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory in Beltsville, Md.
“Army camps were giant breeding and feeding grounds for insects,” Miller said. “For example, the Union Army of the Potomac began the Overland Campaign in spring of 1864 with more than 100,000 men, 8,000 to 10,000 head of cattle and over 56,000 horses and mules. There is little doubt the soldiers were surrounded by both animal and human refuse.”
The Battle of Olustee, fought Feb. 20, 1864, was the largest Civil War battle in Florida, Fasulo said. The Union Army, which entered the state through the port of Jacksonville, was sent to establish a government loyal to the Union and cut off supplies of beef and salt to the Confederate Army. The Union Army was forced to retreat after four hours of fighting, ending with almost 2,000 of 5,500 Union soldiers killed, wounded or captured.
More information about this year’s re-enactment can be found at Fasulo’s Battle of Olustee Web site, http://battleofolustee.org/ Miller has a Web page on insects and the Civil War, at http://scarab.msu.montana.edu/historybug/civilwar2/civilwar.htm.
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