Entomological Lucubrations: The 19th Century Spirited Conflict Concerning the Natural History of the Armyworm, Pseudaletia unipuncta (Haworth) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

TWO WARS TRANSPIRE At the close of 1861, Union and Confederate forces in North America were combatants in what would become a long and terrible civil war, having already endured momentous battles at Fort Sumter (South Carolina) and Bull Run (Manassas, Virginia). Coincidentally, an entomological war was being waged on the pages of United States farm journals, and John Hancock Klippart and Benjamin Dann Walsh (see Appendix) were engaged in these hostilities. Their conflict began when Walsh (1861a) attacked Klippart’s understanding of insect reproductive biology, provoking a contentious letter from Klippart (1861a) that ended indignantly: