Photo by GEORGE OUELLETTE
Katherine Layton, of Essex Jct., represents the 18th Vermont and plays the role of a nurse assigned to the Union Hotel Hospital in Washington D.C. She is seen here during St. Albans Civil War Heritage Weekend 2013. Layton says that of the 600,000 to 700,000 who died in the Civil War only 35 percent did so of mortal wounds with the rest perishing to diseases. The troops suffered under deplorable sanitation and died from typhoid, malaria, tuberculosis, yellow fever and diarrhea, among other infections. A large number in the military were children that were not at home to work the farms because they or their families needed the $300 sign up bonus, she adds. This left a lasting effect on the economy as many farms failed because there was no one to work the land nor to take care of wives and families left behind who by today’s standards were children themselves, she adds.
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