title: The Illustrious Dead: The Terrifying Story of How Typhus Killed Napoleon's Greatest Army
author:  Stephan Talty 
description: When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, typhus ravaged his army, killing hundreds of thousands and ensuring his defeat, according to this breathless combination of military and medical history. After summarizing the havoc this disease wreaked on earlier armies and sketching Napoleons career, the book describes his invasion of Russia with more than 600,000 men. Almost immediately typhus struck. Infected lice excrete the microbe in their feces, and victims acquire the disease by scratching the itchy bite. Talty (<i>Mulatto America</i>) describes the effects in graphic detail: severe headache, high fever, delirium, generalized pain and a spotty rash. Death may take weeks, and fatalities approached 100% among Napoleons increasingly debilitated, filthy, half-starved soldiers. Talty makes a good case that it was typhus, not General Winter, that crushed Napoleon. Readers should look elsewhere for authoritative histories of Napoleons wars and of infectious diseases, but Talty delivers a breezy, popular account of a gruesome campaign, emphasizing the equally gruesome epidemic that accompanied it. 12 maps. <i>(June)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  A DEBT TO DELIA
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Barbara Metzger
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1
  
  He was a dead man, or as near as made no difference. His horse was already
  gone, put out of its misery, mercifully, with the major’s last pistol shot.
  The officer could undoubtedly have found more ammunition somewhere on this
  blood-soaked, benighted field that was full of his fallen comrades, but his
  good right arm was shaking too badly to reload. He still had his saber, but if
  he took his sword hand off his slashed left shoulder, he’d likely bleed to
  death. No, a quick glimpse told him, he’d definitely bleed to death.
  
  Bad enough that he was unhorsed, nearly unarmed, and dripping his life onto a
  scrap of foreign soil no one cared about but the natives. Worse, his uniform
  was still clean except for the spreading bloodstain, a scarlet beacon to any
  Frenchman peering through the churned-up dust. Worst still, Major Lord
  Tyverne—Ty to his friends, of which there were many, and his family, of which
  there were few—h