"The Civil War left the South a graveyard of ashes and poverty. Clouds of smoke clung to smoldering cities while people in rags foraged for food in the country-side, drifting down dirt roads lined with the bloated carcasses of farm animals the Yankees had shot to starve the Confederates. The war wounded so many people that in 1866 one-fifth of Mississippi's total income was spent on artificial arms and legs."
from The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, by Philip Hoose page 29.

" In pioneer days. it was said that there were so many trees in Ohio that a squirrel could travel from the Ohio River to Lake Erie without ever touching the ground. The settlers made up their minds to rid the land not only of fierce beasts like bears and wolves, but of any other animal that might eat their crops."
"In 1807 Ohio passed a law requiring each taxpayer to turn in between one and one hundred squirrel scalps each year along with his taxes."
from The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, by Philip Hoose page 30