Colonel Effingham's Raid

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham: My people have always been soldiers. My grandfather fell at Chickamauga; his grandfather at Saratoga. When Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter, my own father, unfortunately was only nine.

Earl Hoats: That WAS a little YOUNG.

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham: I, myself, was wounded at San Juan Hill. I was at the seige of Panama. For fifty years, mister editor, the forces of civilization had been held at bay on the Isthmus... unable to join the waters of two great oceans. And do you know what blocked them? Gatling guns? Mini-balls? Superior forces? Guerilla bands?

[shakes his head "no]

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham: Mosquitoes.

Earl Hoats: Well, perhaps one of my boys could fix up a little story for Sunday...

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham: Stegomyia faciata.

[scientific name of mosquito]

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham: For half a century, the enemy - less than a quarter of an inch in stature - blocked the economic march of a nation of a hundred million people. It was insupportable.

Earl Hoats: Well, Colonel...

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham: We blockaded General Stegomyia, to wit: the mosquito. We cut him off from reinforcements. We hammered his communications.

Earl Hoats: So you're back in Fredericksville for good, now, Colonel?

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham: We sprayed his concentrations with oil. We screened his wells. We put fifth columns of fish in the water to attack his ammunition dumps. But, more of that another day.