"Surgeons Call" from "Life in Camp, Part 1" by Winslow Homer.
(Library of Congress)
Introduction
Illnesses and disease ravaged the ranks of the contending armies throughout the Civil War. Historians estimate that for every soldier who died in battle, two died from disease. Fighting illness often began before fighting the enemy. Camps of instruction, both North and South, struggled with limiting illnesses that we today usually consider childhood diseases and fortunately often receive immunizations at an early age to prevent or mitigate. However, for mid-19th century Americans diseases like mumps, measles, chicken pox, smallpox, and tuberculosis often proved fatal. Soldiers who were fortunate enough to survive these illnesses, or in rare cases received vaccinations for some of them, still had other health threats to contend with.
Waterborne diseases were particularly common among Civil War soldiers. It was the fortunate soldier who was able to fill his canteen from a clean well or farm spring. More often than not fighting men scooped up water wherever they found it. Whether their thirst relief came from a stream along the march, a stagnant pond, or a muddy ditch, soldiers were usually more concerned with finding it rather than worrying about its cleanliness or taste. After all, Civil War soldiers were not operating under the knowledge and fear of germ theory, which came later.
Diarrhea, dysentery, and typhoid all took their toll on soldiers’ bodies. Extreme dehydration caused by the body’s attempt to rid itself of the illness-inducing bacteria often created a vicious cycle of sickness that too often resulted in an extremely painful death. Dehydration also adversely affected soldiers’ mental health. Improper sanitation facilities, consuming undercooked meat, and the lack of personal hygiene resources created situations that contributed to thousands of deaths.
Sick Confederate soldiers in central Virginia who were not able to recover in their camps were often sent to convalescent hospitals like Chimborazo in Richmond, pictured here.
(Library of Congress)
If all of that was not enough, soldiers also encountered disease-carrying insects. Malaria, caused by mosquitoes, manifested in extreme fevers that too often reappeared throughout the victim’s life. Lice, fleas, and chiggers sometimes carried and spread typhus, which also produced fevers, chills, body aches, and vomiting. Insects like flies also helped spread camp diseases like diarrhea and dysentery.
And, then as now, the common cold created misery for tens of thousands of soldiers. But unlike today, where we can receive antibiotics if a cold graduates to something more life-threatening like pneumonia, Civil War soldiers had no proven remedy.
In this CVBT History Wire, we will explore some of the non-combat-related health issues that soldiers who served in central Virginia encountered and mentioned in their letters, diaries, and memoirs. Concerns about their health, sickness, and disease received almost as much mention by the soldiers in their correspondence as their worries about food and the weather. With much of the scholarly focus on Civil War medicine falling on wounds that soldiers received during combat, this aspect of soldiers’ military medical experiences is too often overlooked.
November and December 1862
"Fall in for Your Quinine"
Sketch by Charles Wellington Reed
"In response to this call, some who were whole and needed not a physician, as well as those who were [genuinely] sick, reported at the surgeon's tent for prescriptions."
(From Hardtack and Coffee, or the Unwritten Story of Army Life by John D. Billings,
published 1887)
Soon after arriving in Stafford County in November 1862, the 121st New York Infantry's assistant surgeon Daniel Holt wrote to his wife explaining his regiment’s thinned ranks. “Our regiment is growing less and less every day from a variety of causes,” Holt noted. Chief among them, “sickness has thinned the regiment very much.” He estimated that between the several hospitals “nearly one hundred and fifty” were seeking treatment for illnesses. Holt was not only concerned about his men’s health, but his own as well. A week later he wrote home again telling his wife he had dropped 15 pounds since he joined up. More troubling perhaps, Holt added, “I have not been able to get rid of that cough yet, and I fear unless we get into winter quarters soon . . . it will trouble [me] all winter.”
In a November 27, 1862, letter to his wife from “near Fredericksburg,” the 3rd South Carolina Infantry’s Alexander McNeill wrote, “The health of our army is about as when I wrote you. We understand that smallpox is prevailing in Richmond. Some two hundred cases was reported there a few days ago. The utmost consternation exist among the citizens. They keep to their houses as much as possible. The disease is as yet confined to military hospitals.” With army officers and supplies constantly coming and going from Richmond to Fredericksburg at the time, soldiers likely worried that the disease would spread.
Union surgeon, William Watson of the 105th Pennsylvania was happy in early December 1862 that his hospital in Stafford County now had better facilities. He wrote his sister, “Before it was really distressing to see the poor sick fellows lying on the ground sheltered by the cold and inclement weather by only one old tattered [tent] fly.” Watson was also pleased that he would be receiving a fresh supply of medical supplies. Additionally, Watson thought, “One other source of congratulation is the riddance by discharge of a great many of my old chronic cases. They were constant inmates of the Hospital or regular attendants at the sick call every morning.” Watson does not say if their “discharge” meant they went back into the ranks or if they were sent to hospitals in Washington D.C, but from a following letter, perhaps, he meant both.
On December 10, in anticipation of the Battle of Fredericksburg, Watson received orders “to send all my sick in hospital to Genl. Hospital and to report for duty every man on the sick list able to march 10 miles or do one day’s duty.” Watson wrote that the surgeon for the 141st Pennsylvania “sent 169 [men] to Genl. Hospital, the other Regts. [of the brigade] in the same proportion.” Watson “sent but 29.” He did not have an easy time convincing some that they were able. “Many of them wish to remain behind, not caring to engage in [a] fight. Those I found playing off I of course reported for duty. They cursed me right smartly, I understand, after getting out of hearing,” Watson explained. He noted that it was pretty common for doctors, or as the soldiers often called them, “Old Quin,” for quinine, to get cussed, especially by those “who try their very best to play sick and so get off duty.”
"Playing the Old Soldier"
By Winslow Homer
While some soldiers bravely fulfilled their service obligations despite being sick, others tried to use medical issues to avoid unpleasant or dangerous duties.
(Public Domain)
Georgian Samuel Burney of Cobb’s Legion explained to his wife in late November 1862, his thoughts on why he believed he was fortunate to maintain good health: “I attribute my good health in a great measure to the manner in which I was raised; not being allowed to go in any kind of weather, being kept at home at night, thereby preventing late hours, dissipation & excess. I thank my parents for the good seeds sown so early, for now in an important period of my life, I am reaping good fruit therefrom.” Later in the letter Burney commented on the health of his regiment, calling it “very good” and that there were “only four on the sick list.” However, Burney noted that “Some of the boys have had the small pox,” but he had been vaccinated “& my arm is a little sore—[with the vaccination] just taking.”
Capt. Lewis Perrin Foster, 3rd South Carolina Infantry, penned a letter from his “Camp near Fredericksburg” on December 7, 1862. Foster started his letter by complaining about the cold weather. “I have been thawing my ink for some time, but find it rough business,” he scribbled. He’d already broken one vial, apparently trying to melt it. “I never felt much colder weather then we now have. The ground is covered with snow and froze perfectly hard,” Foster lamented. Hard times came with soldiering, but Capt. Foster related that, “Had a man told me before this war broke out that I could have endured at all what I endure with comfort I would have believed him a fool, a maniac or a columinator.” However, he felt, “I can not say that I have yet suffered in this war badly,” and believed, “I feel grateful for the fine health that I now enjoy.” Soldiers who developed symptoms associated with rheumatism and arthritis likely held different thoughts.
On December 10, William Cowan McClellan of the 9th Alabama reiterated the struggles of soldiering in a letter to his father that Foster hinted at. Writing from Fredericksburg, he mentioned again his need for footwear. He explained, “I am now compleatly bare footed. The snow two inches deep[,] raw hides have been issued to the troops to make [moccasins] which last about a weak or ten days. Please have a pair of boots maid and send them too as soon as possible.” Laboring under such circumstances, one wonders how any similarly ill-equipped soldier maintained any semblance of health.
Capt. Samuel Fiske of the 14th Connecticut Infantry was sidelined due to sickness and
missed the Battle of Fredericksburg.
(Library of Congress)
Writing under the pen name of “Dunn Browne” (a pun on something that is done well) to the Springfield, Massachusetts Republican newspaper, Capt. Samuel W. Fiske, 14th Connecticut Infantry, explained that he missed the battle of Fredericksburg because he was “Sick for two weeks from a fever and diarrhoea.” Getting permission from a surgeon, he left the field hospital in an attempt to get to his regiment before the battle by hitching a ride in a medical wagon. He did not reach his “post till the day after the battle.” Fiske, perhaps expressing some survivor's remorse, explained: “My heart is sick and sad. Blood and wounds and death are before my eyes; of those who are my friends, comrades, brothers; of those who have marched into the very mouth of destruction as cooly and cheerfully as to any ordinary duty. Another tremendous, terrible, murderous butchery of brave men had made Saturday, the 13th of December, a memorable day in the annals of this war.”
Not all soldiers’ illnesses manifested signs usually associated with physiological sickness. On the day before the Battle of Fredericksburg, Col. William J. Bolton of the 51st Pennsylvania noted the tragic suicide death of their quartermaster sergeant, William Jones. Bolton wrote, “Having been for several days in a depressed state of mind he was left back in camp when the regiment was ordered to cross the river. The act was done in rear of his tent.”
During the Battle of Fredericksburg, assistant surgeon Daniel Holt remained in the 121st New York's Stafford County camp to attend to 32 of their sick soldiers. Left without help or proper provisions, the frustrated Holt vented to his wife in a long letter, “I have thus had to act as physician without medicines, surgeon without instruments, hospital steward without supplies, Quartermaster without means, baggage wagon without horses, and a mule team without harness.” A couple of days before, Holt had to bury a soldier who “died of chronic diarrhoea,” and eulogized him in his letter: “Poor fellow, he has made his last march; he has traveled his last weary step, and now, upon the other side of the river, he is borne on Angel’s wings to join his God in glory.” Holt also commented on his personal health. Despite the recent trials, Holt felt he was personally “getting along better than I expected I should.” Yet, he still complained of “soreness of lungs and oppression of breathing” as well as “rheumatism in my hips and legs,” but most troublesome was his insomnia. He explained nights seemed “long and tedious” as “I lie and listen to every cough that break the stillness.”
Among those who fell during the Battle of Fredericksburg was Lt. Charles Wilson Duke, who also had the unfortunate distinction of being the 90th Pennsylvania Infantry’s first officer killed in battle. Despite obtaining a leave to remain at home for an unknown sickness, Lt. Duke returned to his regiment when battle appeared imminent and performed his duty. His selfless act inspired William Fayette, a drummer in the regiment’s Co. C, to pen “A Tribute in Memory of Captain Charles W. Duke.” It reads in part:
Rest warrior though thy slumbers,
Ne’er shall waken here,
There are true friends without number,
Holding they memory dear.
Hastening from a couch of sickness,
Girding on his sword,
Showing all who looked for weakness,
That he was no coward.
Heeding no the bullet’s whistle
Sounding his death knell;
Till at last a rebel missile
Struck! And poor “Duke” fell.
Become a member today and help save history. CVBT members enjoy our popular magazine, "On the Front Line," and other exclusive opportunities.
Your membership also helps fund educational initiatives
such as this CVBT History Wire!
Exposure to the elements in camp and on marches like the ill-fated "Mud March" in January 1863, only increased the soldiers' chances of becoming sick or worsening an illness.
Sketch by Alfred Waud.
(Library of Congress)
The day after Christmas 1862, Pvt. Edward King Wightman wrote to his brother from his camp near Falmouth. In his missive Wightman mentioned that a comrade recently died. “On the 16th we buried one man from the company who had long been ill with fever. It was Rosenbery [Pvt. Thomas H. Roseberry], one of my first tentmates. I wrote to his mother last night, by the Captain’s request, to communicate the tidings. . . .,” he explained.
A couple of weeks after the Battle of Fredericksburg, not only were Union soldiers feeling in the dumps about their recent defeat, but according to Union artillerist Capt. Thomas Ward Osborn, the recent weather added to the poor morale. “The condition of the Army in camp is at present very bad. For two weeks past the thermometer has registered below zero, wood is scarce, open shelter tents, one blanket for each man, clothing badly worn, wounded men frozen to death, half rations for the artillery, horses, etc., etc.,” he wrote. Exposure to the extreme elements during this period likely added to the army's sick lists.
A day later, but on the Confederate side, Samuel Pickens of the 5th Alabama noted in his diary that that “eveng went to Dr. Tom Hill & got some turpentine to rub breast & a powder of morphine to make me sleep. Have severe pains in breast every night & can’t sleep much—” On December 28 Pickens noted that he went on the sick list. He jotted that he “Didn’t sleep off effects of Morph. & got up to Roll call sick at stomach & feeling badly." Pickens’s heath continued to trouble him the following day. “I had to go on the sick list again this morning and I have severe pains in my breast,” he wrote. He could not sleep at night. The regiment’s assistant surgeon, Dr. Hill, told Pickens he “has no cough remedies & nothing but the coarsest & strongest remedies.” Pickens believed he “took the bad cold & bro[ugh]t on pains in my breast I think by stripping & washing in [a creek] bout 2 wks. ago—on a very cold day.”
January through May 1863
"An Army Graveyard. Winter Camp near Stoneman's Switch, Falmouth, Va."
Sketch by Edwin Forbes
Disease took its toll on the Army of the Potomac camps in Stafford County.
(Library of Congress)
South Carolinian Alexander McNeill wrote to his wife on January 3, 1863, explaining, “I regret to say that my health has not been quite so good as formerly. I am again hindered with symptoms of my old disease [diarrhea], but I hope that I will be well again in a few days. As yet, I am able for all duties, but I am so well acquainted with this disease that I fear it.” McNeill also brought up the threat of smallpox again. He noted, it “is getting a foothold among the citizens of the town and surrounding country.” However, he admitted, “I have never seen a case yet and do not think it exists to any extent in our army.”
Assistant Surgeon Daniel Holt confirmed such suspicions in early January 1862. “The health of the regiment [121st New York] is bad. Death is upon our track, and almost every day sees its victims taken to the grave. Yesterday two, and to-day two more were consigned to their last resting place, and still the avenger presses harder and harder claiming as his victim the best and fairest of men.” 121st New York soldier Sgt. William Remmel concurred with Holt: “There are a great many sick in our regiment and more or less are constantly dying. Hardly half of the boys that started with us are here now. Many have died and many more are lying in hospitals.”
A perfect example comes from the January 10, 1863, letter from Pvt. Alonzo Bump, 77th New York Infantry. Camped in Stafford County, Pvt. Bump wrote to his wife Mary that he was not feeling well, but hoped that she was. Not having been paid recently, Bump asked Mary to send him an account book. “You can by one Big enough for 25 cents,” he explained. Bump was also looking for an expected box from home, that probably contained at least some food items. “I think we will get it in a few days or i hope so at least.” Alonzo told Mary not to go without anything that she needed, but at the same time he asked her, “if you can spare me one Dollar or t[w]o i would like it.” He felt that having some spare money increased his chance of surviving. He penned, “i finde that when a man is sick hear with out money he minte as well make up his mind to Die for if he has money he can By something that he can eat when hee cant eat hardtacks.”
Much of the Army of the Potomac's Sixth Corps camped during the winter of 1862-63 near White Oak Church in Stafford County. It still stands today. As evidenced by this photograph, the United States Christian Commission, a religious soldiers' relief organization that attempted to meet both their spiritual and physical needs, worked out of the church for a time.
(Library of Congress)
From his camp near White Oak Church, in Stafford County Lucien A. Vorhees and his 15th New Jersey comrades experienced trouble with camp disease in mid-January 1863. “The sick are getting numerous in the regiment, and funeral escorts are quite frequent,” Vorhees wrote to his home newspaper. He blamed the suffering on what he called “Camp Fever,” (probably typhoid) and explained that it “seizes upon the vitals of existence and lays the victim prostrate with scarcely a moment’s warning.” Vorhees noted that they had two cases in his company, “who [were] in the vigor of health one day, [and] were laid prostrate and nearly beyond hope of recovery the next; and so it is throughout the army—men dying daily from the ravaging effects of this fever.”
Although they did not fight at Fredericksburg, Corp. Rice Bull and comrades arrived in Stafford County around January 20, 1863. They occupied a camp previously held by the 26th Wisconsin of the Eleventh Corps. As Bull recalled, “It was unfortunate that we moved into this old camp, it proved to be a most unhealthy place.” Apparently, the water source had been polluted by the previous inhabitants. “Typhoid fever soon developed in our Regiment and many men were ill. There were some who died, three from our Company,” Bull explained. He was not immune either. “I remember how miserable I felt, feverish, faint, weak and with no desire for food,” Bull remembered. Unwilling to miss duty, he fell sicker while on picket. Somehow surviving, he made it back to camp where he was attended to by Dr. Richard Connelly, the regimental assistant surgeon who gave Bull some medicine and explained he “would have a run of fever.” After recuperating for a few days Corp. Bull returned to full duty.
During the winter of 1863, a pseudonymed soldier in the 83rd New York Infantry going by the tag "Ferris," wrote to the New York Sunday Mercury explaining, “No one knows how we suffer out here.” As an example, he noted, “If one is sick, he must remain out here; if he gets well, it is a miracle.” Sickness and disease were taking a toll according to Ferris: “[N]o less than forty men have died at the General Hospital at Acquia Creek in a single day,” he jotted.
Writing his sister on February 1, 1863, Richard S. Thompson, an officer in the 12th New Jersey Infantry, mentioned that he had lost two of his enlisted men to disease recently, “one Francis Husted by inflammation of the brain, and W. D. Hendrickson a very fine young man of 20, by typhoid fever. Thompson noted, “Henrickson’s death is a very sad case. He leaves a widowed mother who depended entirely upon him for support.” Despite these loses, Thompson wrote that “There is very little sickness in our Regiment compared with those around us; some bury two or three everyday. . . .” As Thompson mentioned, not only did disease thin the army's manpower, it also grieved loved ones at home who often depended on their soldier's income to meet financial obligations.
Eating uncooked or undercooked food often caused gastrointestinal complications for soldiers.
Drawing by Allen C. Redwood.
(Battles and Leaders of the Civil War)
With few other alternatives, Alabamian Samuel Pickens bathed again in a creek about three weeks before the Battle of Chancellorsville. That evening he complained to his diary that he was unable to finish a letter because he came down with the chills. The following day he mentioned having “a miserable night of it[,] after the chill went off, a hot followed & lasted a long time.” He tried to take some of his clothes off and threw off his blanket, which helped but complained ,“It seemed the longest night to me I had ever seen.” That morning he was visited by the regimental assistant surgeon who “gave me a blue mass pill.” Blue mass pills were compounded partly of mercury and often served as a cure-all. Still not feeling well, he received more medication from Dr. Hill which came in the form of a “dose Salts wh[ich] took in Red pepper tea & 12 Gr[ains] Quinine which I made into 3 pills & took during the day.” Pickens’s illness made him think of home: “Suppose Dear Mama who is so very careful with us & solicitous about us when sick could look in & see me lying wrapped in my blankets on the ground & the rain beating in the tent door. . .wouldn’t she be uneasy & think I would be sure to have the chill.”
On May 5, 1863, First Sgt. John F. L. Hartwell jotted in his diary, “now it rains in torrents & we are wet for all of our tents. Water pours through many of our tents like a flood[,] driving out its occupants. Now we have to lay down in the mud & go to sleep.” The following day it was more of the same, “It has rained all night & rains again today . . . It Is cold[,] wet[,] & gloomy.” That evening at 6:00 p.m., Hartwell noted yet more bad weather, “Still rains[,] is very muddy & cold. Our clothes & blankets are nearly all wet so we have a poor sight for a comfortable nights rest.” Even more rain fell on May 7 and on May 8 Hartwell mentioned, “We are all very tierd.” It is no surprise then that on May 10 he wrote his family, “I have been sick all the forenoon. . .”
As mentioned before, too often we overlook the impact combat had on some soldiers’ mental health. Writing to his wife following the Battle of Chancellorsville, Pvt. John Futch (3rd North Carolina Infantry) explained that “I am yet spared I was not hurt . . . .” But his regiment saw hard service on May 2, 1863, when “our Regiment commenced fighting . . . A Bout 4 o’clock and fought until 8 that night.” Thrown into battle again on May 3, they fought from 7:00 am to 10 or 11:00 am, in his estimation. On picket duty at U.S. Ford at the time of his letter, Futch was “Expecting to leave here every day.” However, all was not well: “After the fight I was unnerved and went to the hospital and remained there three days & nights then I returned Back to my Company oh I seen a great [d]eal of trouble since you left me I want to see you worse then I Ever did Before,” Futch penned. Futch met his breaking point soon after Gettysburg, where he saw his brother killed beside him. He and a group of comrades decided to desert. Soon caught, they were eventually executed on September 5, 1863.
The physically challenging and emotionally draining nature of soldiering left some men with
mental illnesses that lasted long beyond their years in service.
Sketch by Alfred Waud.
(Library of Congress)
Like most of the enlisted men and non-commissioned officers mentioned above. Numerous officers also suffered from various illnesses. Some historians believe that Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was suffering from a minor illness before his May 2, 1863, mortal wounding at Chancellorsville. Robert K. Krick writes, “Pneumonia killed Stonewall Jackson on May 10. The fatal malady’s etiology likely lay in an upper-respiratory infection that predated the wounds.” It was his Chancellorsville wounds and subsequent injuries during his battlefield evacuation that “impaired his body’s ability to fight its battle against pneumonia, which almost certainly would not have developed, or at least proved fatal, without the injuries, Krick explains. Dr. Matthew Lively, documents that Jackson’s physician, Hunter Holmes McGuire, said that Jackson had a “cold” before the battle. Lively writes, “the most likely conclusion—as his physicians maintained at the time—is that pneumonia was the initial disease triggering the sepsis that led to his death.”
In late May, after escorting Jackson’s body to Richmond and then Lexington for burial, one of the general’s staff members, Alexander “Sandie” Pendleton, experienced his own bout with illness, dysentery. The inconvenient bowel disease troubled tens of thousands of soldiers during the Civil War and was considered a serious illness. When his father Gen. William Nelson Pendleton learned of his son’s affliction, he attempted to find a convenient place for Sandie to recover. Apparently, a nearby home, the domicile of “a 76-year-old [woman], vulgar, & worthless as humanity can be without degrading vice,” would not allow Sandie to stay with her, probably believing that she might contract the disease. Unable to find comfortable quarters, Gen. Pendleton turned to the Chandler family where Jackson spent his last days, hoping their hospitality toward Confederate officers would continue. Under the care of Ms. Chandler, Sandie recovered enough within about 48 hours to return to the army. While there he stayed in the same room and bed that Jackson occupied.
Conclusion
"Aquia Creek Landing"
(Library of Congress)
While in the Fredericksburg area during 1862-63, the worst cases of disease in the Army of the Potomac often went from the camp hospitals to Aquia Landing and then by boat to better facilities in
Washington D.C. and Alexandria. Virginia.
A couple of weeks after Chancellorsville, Georgian William Stilwell began a letter to his wife Molly from his “Camp [with]in sight of Fredericksburg” explaining that he was not feeling well. “I am quite sick and have been for over a week though I am better this morning than I have been in several days,” Stilwell explained. He thought it was a cold, that it was improving, and would continue to do so “If we don’t have to march. . . .” Later, at the letter’s end, Stilwell hoped Molly would “not be uneasy.” He added, “You know I never deceive you. If I was in danger from my sickness I would tell you. Of course I am sick or at least not well but I think it is nothing more than a cold.” Although Stilwell saw his fair share of dangers through the remainder of the war he survived to return home.
Many others, as the evidence above shows, were not as fortunate as Pvt. Stilwell. Tens of thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers from diseases and sicknesses that ranged from the common cold to smallpox to mental illness. With medical knowledge being what it was at the time, the surgeons attempted to treat their charges as best they could. Sometimes their efforts succeeded and often they did not. Like combat wounds, the knowledge that doctors gained from the disease cases they observed and documented during the Civil War helped advance medical science. However, for those who fell victim to the ravages of illness, as well as those who grieved them at home, future advances proved of small consolation to losing one's life or that of a loved one in service.
Some Sources and Suggested Reading
Alfred Jay Bollet, M.D. Civil War Medicine: Challenges and Triumphs. Galen Press, 2002.
Peter S. Carmichael. The War for the Common Soldier: How Men Thought, Fought, and Survived in Civil War Armies. The University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
James M. Greiner, Janet L. Coryell, and James R. Smither. A Surgeon's Civil War: The Letters and Diary of Daniel M. Holt, M.D. Kent State University Press, 1994.
Paul Fatout. editor. Letters of a Civil War Surgeon. Purdue University Press, 1996.
John Herbert Roper, editor. Repairing the March of Mars: The Civil War Diaries of John Samuel Apperson, Hospital Steward in the Stonewall Brigade, 1861-1865. Mercer University Press, 2001.
Parting Shot
(Pun not intended)
Civil War Vaccination Kit
(In the collection of the Mutter Museum, Philadelphia,
photo by J.D. Howell, McMaster University)
“The small pox has had but few victims. The disease, I am happy to state, does not take hold in the army, and the cases reported are those of men who have been absent from camp. On their return, the small pox had broken out upon them. They are at once sent to the Small Pox Hospital, near Fredericksburg. The whole army has been vaccinated, and by order of General Lee, every officer, private, attache and servant, have been revaccinated”
Excerpt from a letter written by "Tivoli," on January 20, 1863, from "Near Fredericksburg" and published in the Atlanta Southern Confederacy newspaper on January 28, 1863.
If you know someone who would enjoy this email, please feel free to share it.
For additional past "CVBT History Wire" and informative articles, visit the blog section of the CVBT website.
Comments