Disease Killed Two of Every Three Civil War Dead

A soldier's day ran on bugle calls, and so does this story. REVEILLE — Who filled the ranks: farm boys, store clerks, Irish and German immigrants, boys lying about their age, paid substitutes, and from 1863 the United States Colored Troops, paid less than white soldiers until 1864. MESS CALL — Hardtack tapped against the cup, salt pork, and coffee strong enough to float an egg. DRILL — The nine motions of loading a rifled musket, a weapon that tripled the killing ground while the tactics stayed the same. SICK CALL — Measles, dysentery, typhoid, and surgeons working before anyone understood germs. MAIL CALL — Letters home, cards thrown into the weeds before a fight, songs traded across the lines at night. TATTOO — Prison camps North and South, after the exchange system collapsed. TAPS — One Iowa regiment from muster to muster-out, what the war was fought over in the words of 1861, and what came home: empty sleeves, pensions and monuments. #CivilWar