They also discovered the first of war’s horrors, the sort that affected both armies equally and would eventually claim two soldiers’ lives for every one lost on the battlefield: disease. Epidemics of mumps, measles, and smallpox swept through the valley army in the late spring and early summer, adding to the misery already caused by the inevitable, intractable camp illnesses: diarrhea, dysentery, malaria, and typhoid.
