The World Turned Upside Down

Before we go to sleep tonight, here is a little note on the Battle of Yorktown.  Today represents the anniversary of "The World Turned Upside Down".♠

From the article in The Washington Post, first link above:

Major combat operations in the American Revolution ended 229 years ago on Oct. 19, at Yorktown. For that we can thank the fortitude of American forces under George Washington, the siegecraft of French troops of Gen. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, the count of Rochambeau - and the relentless bloodthirstiness of female Anopheles quadrimaculatus mosquitoes.

Back in the old days, including the Civil War and the Spanish American War, disease was the big killer of service members, not the bullets and shrapnel of the other side.  And, if you were wounded, tetanus might well kill you, even if the wound was not, of and in itself, life threatening.  In the Civil War, those wounded left out in the open fared better than those taken into barns for protection from the elements.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The ballad played by the British Band as it marched off the field of battle.  Well, purists say we don't know that for certain, but I like the story and will continue to pass it on.