Of the 620,000 soldiers who perished during the American Civil War, the overwhelming majority died not from gunshot wounds or saber cuts, but from disease. In this ground-breaking medical history, Andrew McIlwaine Bell explores the impact of two terrifying mosquito-borne maladies--malaria and yellow fever--on the major political and military events of the 1860s, revealing how deadly microorganisms carried by a tiny insect helped shape the course of the Civil War.

Introduction -- Aedes, Anopheles, and the scourges of the South -- The glory of gangrene and "gallinippers" -- Mosquito coasts -- "The land of flowers, magnolias, and chills" -- "The pestilent marshes of the peninsula" -- "The roughest times any set of soldiers ever encountered" -- Biological warfare -- Epilogue -- Appendix 1: Incidence of mosquito-borne disease, 1861-1865 -- Appendix 2: Common diagnoses among Union troops, 1861-1866 -- Appendix 3: Civil War chronology.