A Confederate Veteran’s War Story submitted by Dan Hall
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 29-11-2016
2
Lice
This is from the book ” The Life of Johnny Rebel” It tells of an Alabama soldier writing home in 1863 that ” there is not a man in the army, officer or private that doesn’t have a battalion to a brigade of Body lice on him.” When the wife of another soldier from the same state suggested visiting camp with their two children, he wrote back ” If you was here the Body lice would eat up both of the children in one night in spite of all we do, you don’t have any idea what sort of animal they are.” Another Confederate soldier was heard complaining that ” I get vixed at them and commence killing them, but I believe forty come to every funeral, I have given it up as a bad job.” It was said that Rebel soldiers claimed the body louse was such a part of their army that the big “gray backs” wore the letters C. S. for Confederate State……
Submitted to hesterbooks.com by Dan Hall
Taken from: The Rebel Yell Published by Southern Press, 629 Kirk Road, Gordo, AL 35466
That was a war in and of itself, huh? I enjoyed the story and I am glad you allowed me to publish it on this site. Thanks, Pete
“forty came to every funeral”! It sounds like my experience with house flies in Alabama during the summer. It’s too bad there weren’t nice chemist around to invent good things like DDT and the other chlorinated pesticides to get rid of the vermin. It may have givin the soldiers cancer, but 30 years were required to do that. In the meantime, their misery would have largely disappeared.
The soldiers did have their problems. Lice would have been a terrible thing.