Walt Whitman on War

The quotes that authors elect to head their chapters with are almost universally more interesting than the chapters themselves. Take this quote from Walt Whitman found atop "The Argument (and Its Limits) in Brief" in J. R. McNeill's Mosquito Empires:

[The] whole damn war business is about nine hundred and ninety-nine parts diarrhea to one part glory.

Whitman was being generous.