Typhus Kills Thousands in the American Civil War
Poet involved
What happened
During the American Civil War, typhus — spread by body lice — was among the many diseases that killed more soldiers on both sides than combat. Louse infestation was nearly universal among soldiers in the field, and the crowded, unsanitary conditions of both camps and prisons created ideal conditions for typhus and other louse-borne illnesses. Disease overall killed approximately twice as many Civil War soldiers as enemy action, and the louse was a major vector of this mortality.
Literary impact
Walt Whitman served as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War and wrote extensively about the suffering of the sick and wounded in his prose memoir Specimen Days and in his Drum-Taps poems. Whitman's willingness to engage intimately with bodies — including the diseased and vermin-ridden bodies of soldiers — was central to his poetic vision of democratic fellowship. The Civil War's epidemic diseases, including louse-borne typhus, pushed Whitman toward the bodily and compassionate poetics that distinguished him from his contemporaries.
Source: Wikipedia
