1863 — Smallpox, esp. DC/700, Camp Chase OH, Fort Delaware DE, Baltimore/IL/PA–2.3K-2,490
— >2,312-2,490 Blanchard tally based on State breakouts below.[1]
Summary of State Breakouts Below
Arkansas ( ?)
California ( >16) Los Angeles epidemic of 1862-1863.
Delaware (272-~450) Fort Delaware Prison for Confederate soldiers
District of Columbia ( ~700) Freed Slaves (Includes Winter 1862/1863)
Georgia ( 1)
Illinois ( ~366)
Maryland ( >268) Primarily Baltimore (263)
Ohio ( <500) Camp Chase Prison for Confederates (<500) Feb
Pennsylvania ( 171) Philadelphia
Virginia ( >15)
Washington Territory ( >3)
Totals: 2,312-2,490
Breakout of 1863 Smallpox Fatalities by State and Locality (where noted):
Arkansas ( ?)
–? Taylor’s Creek and Mount Vernon area. Confederate forces under Col. Archibald Dobbins.[2]
California ( >16)
— ? Los Angeles. Gunnell. “Sisters and Smallpox…Nineteenth-Century Los Angeles.” 2011.[3]
— 7 Los Angeles, Feb 7 rpt. Board of Health inspectors found total of 319 cases of smallpox.[4]
–>3 LA County. Our number based on LA County Medical Examiner-Coroner Dept. Hist.[5]
— 1 Mission San Luis Rey, Jan 14 (burial). Don Ysidro Maria Alvarado; died of smallpox.[6]
—>6 San Diego County. San Diego History Center. The Silver Dons, 1833-1865. “Chapter Fourteen.”[7]
Delaware (272-~450) Fort Delaware Prison for Confederate soldiers
–~450 Fort Delaware, Delaware City, esp. Sep-Nov. Gillispie. Andersonvilles of the North. 195.[8]
–~272 Fort Delaware. Wikipedia. “Fort Delaware,” 2019; cites Jamison 1997, pp. 91-94.
District of Columbia ( ~700) Freed Slaves
–~700 Winter 1862/1863 and Spring 1863. Freed former slaves. Downs. “Freed Slaves…”[9]
— ? NYT. “From Washington. The Small-Pox and…Contagious Diseases Prevalent.” 1-20-1863, p. 6.
Georgia ( 1)
— 1 Atlanta, Jan 24, Thomas Robinson, Co. “H,” GA 57th Infantry.[10]
Illinois ( ~366)
— 115 State. Illinois State Board of Health. 1883 p. 332.[11]
–Hundreds. Alton Prison. Bauser. “Alton Penitentiary/Civil War Prisoners.” Madison Co. ILGenWeb.[12]
— 119 Alton Prison. Kempland. “Confederate POW Burials on Smallpox Island, West Alton, IL.”[13]
— 38 Camp Douglas Prisoner of War Camp, Chicago. Kelly. A History of Camp Douglas…
— 115 Chicago. US Nat. Board of Health. Annual Rpt. of the National Board of Health, 1883.[14]
— 94 Rock Island Prisoner of War Camp, Dec. Sanders. While in the Hands of the Enemy. 172[15]
Maryland (>268)
–263 Baltimore. Quinan. Medical Annals of Baltimore… 1884, p. 42.
— 1 Point Lookout, Nov 17, William N. Bryant. Mesic. Cobb’s Legion Cavalry. 2009, p333.[16]
— 1 Point Lookout, Nov 18, William J. Wilmoth. Graham. Phillip’s Legion Infantry Battalion.
— 1 Point Lookout, Nov 27, John Wylie. Graham. Phillip’s Legion Infantry Battalion.
— 1 Point Lookout, Dec 2, Thomas J. Chatham. Mesic. Cobb’s Legion Cavalry. 2009, p. 333.
— 1 Point Lookout, date not given (captured July 2, 1863), Steve B. F. Townsend, 49th GA.[17]
Ohio (<500) Camp Chase (<500) Feb
–<500 Camp Chase, Columbus, Feb. Confederate prisoners of war.[18] Tenn. Dept. of State.[19]
Pennsylvania ( 171) Philadelphia
–171 Philadelphia. City of Philadelphia. Annual Report (Vol. III), 1907, p. 99.[20]
Virginia ( >15)
— 1 Carroll County, Jan 19, Pvt. William Reece, Co. F, 29th VA.[21]
— ? Danville Prison, as of Dec 35. 300 cases “among the Yankee prisoners at Danville.”[22]
— 1 Fairfax County, Clermont Smallpox Hospital, Sep 22, Louisa Johnson.[23]
— 1 Fort Monroe, Oct 30. U.S. steamer Dacotah crewman at Fort Monroe.[24]
— 1 Fredericksburg, Guinea Station Hospital, Feb 19, Micajah Whitley.[25]
— 1 Lynchburg, Jan 28, Joseph P. Pitts. Graham, Kurt. Phillip’s Legion Infantry Battalion, GA.
— 1 Petersburg, Jan 9, Pvt. Dean Josiah, Co. E, 29th VA.[26]
— 1 Petersburg, Jan 24, Pvt. Adam Noonkester, Co. E, 45th VA.[27]
— 1 Petersburg, March 8, Pvt. Zaddoc Combs, Co. E, 29th VA.[28]
–>3 Richmond, Belle Isle Prison Camp (soldiers).[29]
— 2 Richmond, Castle Thunder (prison), May 9.[30]
— 1 Richmond, Grove Hosp., March 10, William L. Galaway (Cobb’s Legion Cavalry, Ga).[31]
— 1 Richmond, Howard’s Grove, Jan 9, James Barnet, Co. “G,” GA 45th Infantry.[32]
— ? Richmond, Dec 12, 1862.[33]
Washington Territory ( >3)
— >3 Native Americans just south of Canadian border. Indian Agent reported a few fatal cases.[34]
Narrative Information
District of Columbia
Downs: “On Christmas Eve 1862, Julia Wilbur, a freedman’s aid worker in Washington, D.C., wrote to her family in upstate New York: ‘Small pox ambulances may be seen in every part of the city. I think it is all over & all around us. The 19th Conn Regt is encamped a little west of us. An officer…told Mr. W[hipple] last night that 90 of their men had black measles, but we know when they talk about black measles, that it is very likely to be small pox….’
“In an 1863 report to the Rochester (N.Y.) Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, Wilbur wrote, ‘During the winter and spring, the small pox made dreadful ravages among the freed people. No measures were taken at first to prevent it, and it spread all over the city….Of the contrabands,[35] we think about 700 died of the disease.”….
“…a smallpox epidemic…decimated the newly freed people. It began in Washington in the winter of 1862, spread to the Upper South in 1863-64, culminated in the Lower South and Mississippi Valley in 1865, and eventually seeped into the Western territories in 1867-68, infecting Native Americans….
“Smallpox broke out in 1862 in the nation’s capital, where wartime upheaval was promoting conditions for transmitting the virus, which spreads through air exhaled by an infected person and by contact with an infected person, bedding or clothing. The Union troops were assembled in makeshift quarters, and freed slaves were flooding into squalid settlements known as “contraband camps.” The city was in a panic. While wealthy Washingtonians were vaccinated two to three times to ward off being infected with the full-blown deadly virus, city officials scrambled to develop a procedure to vaccinate all the city’s school-age children. Some freed slaves dosed their bodies with tar to ward off possible infection. The metropolitan police requested that the army remove the bodies of former slaves who died of smallpox and were left on city streets. Letter-writers from the capital warned travelers and passersby to avoid the area at all costs, and yellow flags were hung throughout the city to signal the presence of the “deadly scourge.”
“Ironically, smallpox was a virus that local governments and doctors had been battling since the 18th century, yet when it broke out among emancipated slaves, federal officials failed to follow the protocols and procedures—vaccination, and quarantine where necessary—that doctors and communities had implemented for decades. They seemed to regard the outbreak among freed people as a “natural outcome” of emancipation, which only reinforced theories that newly freed black people were on the verge of extinction….
“According to the Medical Society of Washington, building barracks to house former slaves would have prevented the outbreak of smallpox in the first place. In their report on health conditions during the war, published in 1864, local physicians condemned military officials for not building barracks for freed people on the outskirts of town or in the city’s vacant lots, forcing them instead to congregate in overcrowded camps in the center of town, which was filled with trash, excrement and rotten food. ‘It is generally admitted,’ the physicians posited, ‘that small-pox is one of the diseases due to domiciliary circumstances, and is at all times a preventable disease. It has been stated over and over again by eminent authorities, that there need not be a single case of small-pox in any city; if the authorities will but take the proper steps to check it.’….” (Downs, Jim. “Freed Slaves Battle Small Pox and Other Diseases,” Historynet.com, originally published in Civil War Times, June 2013, adapted from his book: Sick From Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction. Oxford University Press, 2012.)
NYT, Jan 20: “Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 20. The Police Commissioners of Washington represent to Congress the prevalence of the small pox in the city, in almost every neighborhood, in consequence of the presence of such numbers of strangers, discharged soldiers and camp-followers. They testify to the inadequacy of the accommodations for its victims, and ask for the adoption of some general provisions to prevent its…spread.
“The Mayor of Washington has called the attention of the City Councils to the existence of ‘contagious diseases,’ and their rapid increase, and has asked for a speedy and liberal appropriation for the increase of hospital facilities, and the adoption of every practical means to check the further spread of such diseases.” (New York Times. “From Washington. The Small-Pox and other Contagious Diseases Prevalent.” 1-20-1863, p. 6.)
NYT, Feb 19: “Albany, Thursday, Feb. 19, 1863….There is on the Assembly files a bill entitled, “An Act to prevent Small-pox,” which requires that every person in this State, who has not already had the small-pox or varioloid, to be vaccinated within six months after the passage of the act; that all persons not complying with this provision, on being sick with the small-pox, shall be liable to be removed to any hospital or place designated by the Board of Supervisors; that no child not vaccinated shall he admitted to any public school; that vaccination shall be repeated every five years, until the age of twenty-one years. It is provided that hotel and boarding-house keepers shall give notice of small-pox cases, and for violations penalties are provided.” (New York Times. “From the State Capital…An Act to Prevent Small Pox…” 2-20-1863, p. 5.)
Ohio
Ohio History Connection: “….In 1861, the federal government authorized the creation of Camp Chase. Organized in Columbus, it eventually replaced Camp Jackson as a recruitment and training center for the Union Army. Camp Chase also served as a prison camp. Civilians loyal to the Confederacy and Southern soldiers were held inside the prison stockade….During 1863, the number of prisoners housed at Camp Chase at one time was more than eight thousand men….
“Living conditions at Camp Chase prison camp were harsh. While Union authorities never intentionally starved the prisoners, the primary goal of Northern officials was to feed and equip the men serving in their own army. This commonly resulted in shortages for the prisoners. The large number of men in close quarters also led to outbreaks of disease. During the winter of 1863-1864, hundreds of prisoners died in a smallpox epidemic….
“During the course of the Civil War, over two thousand Confederate prisoners died at Camp Chase.
“The Union military closed Camp Chase at the end of the Civil War….” (Ohio History Central. “Camp Chase.” Ohiohistorycentral.org.)
Virginia
Jan 5: “This loathsome disease has not abated its ravages. Yesterday five of the inmates of Castle Thunder were seized with it, and taken to the Howard Grove Hospital.” (Richmond Dispatch, VA. “The Small-Pox.” 1-5-1863, p. 1.)
Jan 12: “A separate Hospital has been opened n Howard’s Grove for negro patients, (free or slave,) by order of the City Council. It is now ready for the reception of patients. The ambulance for conveying them will be found at the old small-pox hospital, near Poor Hours Burying Ground.” (Richmond Dispatch, VA. “City Small-pox Hospital for Negroes.” 1-12-1863.)
Jan 13: “By order of the City Council, a hospital has been opened in Howard’s Grove for negro patients (free or slave) belonging to the city of Richmond. County cases not admitted. The old hospital, near Shockoe Burying Ground, has been reserved for whites. The ambulance for both will be found at the old hospital.” (Richmond Enquirer, VA. [Negro Small Pox Hospital] 1-13-1863.)
May 11: “C. C. Mattox and L. Davis, prisoners at Castle Thunder [Richmond], died at the small pox hospital on Saturday [9th].” (Richmond Enquirer, VA. “Deaths at the Castle.” 5-11-1863.)
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Bauser, Bev. “Alton Penitentiary/Civil War Prisoners. Madison County ILGenWeb. Accessed 1-19-2015 at: http://madison.illinoisgenweb.org/prison.html
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Dennee, Tim, and the Friends of Freeedmen’s Cemetery. African-American Civilians and Soldiers Treated at Claremont Smallpox Hospital, Fairfax County, Virginia 1862-1865. 11-24-2011 modification. Accessed 1-21-2015 at: http://www.freedmenscemetery.org/resources/documents/claremont.pdf
Downs, Jim. “Freed Slaves Battle Small Pox and Other Diseases,” Historynet.com, originally published in Civil War Times, June 2013, adapted from his book: Sick From Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction. Oxford University Press, 2012. Accessed 11-17-2019 at: https://www.historynet.com/dying-to-be-free.htm
GAGenWeb. Irwin County, Company F, 49th GA Regiment. Accessed 1-20-2015 at: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gairwin/Mil_CW_CoF.htm
Gillispie, James M. Andersonvilles of the North: Myths and Realities of Northern Treatment of Civil War Confederate Prisoners. Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2008. Google digital preview at: https://books.google.com/books?id=O6Ki-EOl6A8C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Graham, Kurt. Phillip’s Legion Infantry Battalion [GA] – Wartime Deaths/Burials. Accessed 1-20-2015 at: http://www.angelfire.com/tx/RandysTexas/page202.html
Illinois State Board of Health. Fifth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Illinois. Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker State Printer and Binder, 1883. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=rR-086nb37cC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true
Gunnell, Kristine Ashton. “Sisters and Smallpox: The Daughters of Charity as Advocates For the Sick Poor in Nineteenth-Century Los Angeles.” Vincentian Heritage Journal, Vol. 30, Issue 2, Article 1, Spring 2011. Accessed 11-17-2019 at: http://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1371&context=vhj
Jamison, Jocelyn P., They Died at Fort Delaware 1861-1865: Confederate, Union and Civilian. Delaware City, DE: Fort Delaware Society, 1997.
Kelly, Dennis. A History of Camp Douglas, Illinois, Union Prison, 1861-1865. National Park Service, Southeast Region, 1989.
Kempland. Phil. “Confederate POW Burials on Smallpox Island, West Alton, IL.” Usgwarchives.net. Accessed 11-17-2019 at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/mo/civilwar/smallpox.htm
Lancaster. Guy. Encyclopedia of Arkansas, 11-8-2017 update. Accessed 11-17-2019 at: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/smallpox-5314/
Lange, Greg. “Smallpox Epidemic of 1862 among Northwest Coast and Puget Sound Indians,” HistoryLing.org Essay 5171, 2-4-2003.
Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner. “Department History.” Accessed 11-17-2019 at: https://mec.lacounty.gov/department-history/
Los Angeles Star. “Board of Health.” 2-7-1863, p. 1. Accessed 11-17-2019 at: https://ladailymirror.com/2013/02/05/smallpox-epidemic-los-angeles-feb-7-1863/
McAdams, Eileen Babb. “134 Confederate Soldiers from Baldwin Co. who died in Civil War.” 2002. Accessed 1-20-2015 at: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gabaldw2/civilwardeaths.html
Mesic, Harriet Bey. Cobb’s Legion Cavalry; A History and Roster of the Ninth Georgia Volunteers. Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2009. Google digital preview accessed 1-20-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=_o1fcKGusTAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
New York Times. “From Washington. The Small-Pox and other Contagious Diseases Prevalent.” 1-20-1863, p. 6. Accessed 11-17-2019 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1863/01/20/80270382.html?pageNumber=6
New York Times. “From the State Capital…An Act to Prevent Small Pox…” 2-20-1863, p. 5. Accessed 11-17-2019 at: https://www.nytimes.com/1863/02/20/archives/from-the-state-capital-the-proposed-hospital-for-disabled.html
New York Times. “News From Fortress Monroe.” 11-1-1863, p. 8. Accessed 11-17-2019 at: https://www.nytimes.com/1863/11/01/archives/news-from-fortress-monroe-sick-soldiers-for-newyork-smallpox-on-the.html
New York Times. “Southern News…Small Pox Among Union Prisoners at Danville…” 12-30-1863, p. 1. Accessed 11-17-2019 at: https://www.nytimes.com/1863/12/30/archives/southern-news-longstreets-men-barefooted-the-guerrilla-morgan-small.html
Ohio History Central. “Camp Chase.” Ohiohistorycentral.org. Accessed 11-16-2019 at: https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Camp_Chase
Quinan, John R., M.D. Medical Annals of Baltimore From 1608-1880, Including Events, Men and Literature, to Which is Added A Subject Index and Record of Public Services. Baltimore: Press of Isaac Friedenwald, 1884. Google digitized. Accessed 1-14-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=xNcRAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Richmond Dispatch, VA. “City Small-pox Hospital for Negroes.” 1-12-1863. Accessed from Civil War Richmond Inc., 1-20-2015, at: http://www.mdgorman.com/Written_Accounts/Dispatch/1863/richmond_dispatch,_1_12_18631.htm
Richmond Dispatch, VA. “The Small-Pox.” 1-5-1863, p. 1. Accessed from Civil War Richmond Inc., 1-20-2015, at: http://www.mdgorman.com/Written_Accounts/Dispatch/1863/richmond_dispatch,_1_5_18631.htm
Richmond Enquirer, VA. “Deaths at the Castle.” 5-11-1863. Accessed from Civil War Richmond Inc., 1-20-2015, at: http://www.mdgorman.com/Written_Accounts/Examiner/1863/richmond_examiner_5111863.htm
Richmond Enquirer, VA. [Negro Small Pox Hospital] 1-13-1863. Accessed from Civil War Richmond Inc., 1-20-2015, at: http://www.mdgorman.com/Written_Accounts/Enquirer/1863/richmond_enquirer_11363a.htm
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Sanders, Charles W. Jr. While in the Hands of the Enemy: Military Prisons of the Civil War. Louisiana State University Press, 2005. Google digital preview accessed 1-19-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=DC9_Hufn9FwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=smallpox&f=false
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Wikipedia. “Fort Delaware,” 11-3-2019 edit. Accessed 11-16-2019 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Delaware#cite_note-33
[1] Developed by B. Wayne Blanchard, Nov 2017 for inclusion in website: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com
[2] “At the 1863 Skirmish at Taylor’s Creek, the spread of smallpox in Confederate ranks prevented Colonel Archibald Dobbins from completely routing the Federal forces he had on the run.” (Lancaster. Guy. Encyclopedia of Arkansas, 11-8-2017 update.)
[3] “…the Daughters of Charity volunteered to staff the pest house, or quarantine hospital, during the smallpox epidemics of 1862-1863, 1868-1869, 1876-1877, 1884, and 1887.” (p. 15.) “In 1863 and 1869, smallpox disproportionately affected the Mexican and Native American populations in Los Angeles…” Usually where there are cases there are fatalities.
[4] At the smallpox hospital. Los Angeles Star. “Board of Health.” 2-7-1863, p. 1.
[5] In order to contribute in a minor way to our tally we translate the following statement into “at least three.” “A smallpox epidemic in 1863-64 decimated the Native American population of Los Angeles County, which had no natural immunity to the disease.” We suspect that the 1863 death toll would have been large.
[6] We know of this death because the owner of the land on which the cemetery was located, wanted no more victims of smallpox buried on his land and sent a small party to prevent the burial and one member of the burial party was shot and killed as a consequence. Smallpox was said to be “infesting our community.” (Crawford, Richard. “Fatal Funeral: Rancher Recounts 1863 Killing Over Fear of Smallpox.” Los Angeles Times, 10-29-1992.)
[7] In January [1863] a police force was organized for San Diego City to be under the sheriff, and all ‘Indians and Cholos’ were ordered to leave the town. A frame building at the San Diego Mission was converted into a receiving hospital for smallpox victims, and funds were requested from the state to hire nurses and attendants. Sentinels were posted at the ranchos to keep anyone from approaching without notice. The Ysidro Alvarado family was stricken. Both he and his wife succumbed….One of those who died of the smallpox was Juan Antonio, the captain-general of the Cahuillas, who had ambushed the leaders of the Indians who had threatened to ravage the white settlements. A correspondent writing for the Los Angeles Star, reported on Feb. 28, 1863: ‘Ole Juan Antonio and four other Indian chiefs have died of smallpox and I have been informed that the bodies have not been buried and that they are being mutilated by hogs and dogs…” The smallpox ran its course by late spring…”
[8] Gillispie: “Another factor in the higher mortality in late 1863 at Fort Delaware was a smallpox epidemic. Smallpox was the second-leading killer at the prison and during the late fall of 1863 the disease was raging, taking most of the 472 Southerners who would ultimately die from it there. In November Shoepf told [Col. William] Hoffman that since he had assumed command of the fort smallpox has ‘been prevailing more or less constantly.” That same month he reported that ‘vaccine and instruments have been furnished to the Confederate surgeons, and they have been sent to the barracks to vaccinate all they can.’…By the end of 1863 Fort Delaware officials got a handle on the situation and smallpox rarely appeared again in inspection reports. But during the height of the epidemic, September to November 1863, 860 prisoners died, 39.10% of the total recorded from September 1863 to June 1865.”
[9] This article by Jim Downs entitled “Freed Slaves Battle Small Pox and Other Diseases,” Historynet.com, was originally published in Civil War Times, June 2013, is adapted from his book: Sick From Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction. Oxford University Press, 2012.
[10] McAdams, Eileen Babb. “134 Confederate Soldiers from Baldwin Co. who died in Civil War.” 2002.
[11] We highlight in yellow to denote we do not use in tally. This is the same number used by US Board of Health which specifically notes 115 Chicago smallpox deaths.
[12] Highlighted in yellow to denote we do not use in tally. From Kempland’s listing one can count over 200 deaths, but this is for a time-frame of August 1863 well into 1865.
[13] Kempland provides, apparently from a monument on “Smallpox Island” a list “of the officers, enlisted men and conscripts of the armies of the Confederate States of America who died of smallpox near this spot between Aug 1, 1863 and Mar. 31, 1865. These soldiers had each contracted the disease while being held as prisoners of war at the federal military prison located across the Mississippi River in Alton, Illinois. Once infected with this highly contagious disease, prisoners were transported to a temporary hospital located on a small island formerly located immediately upstream of this monument…” The number 119 is our tally from counting the names of individuals who were buried 1n 1863.
[14] “Table of mortality from small-pox in the city of Chicago from 1851 to 1882, inclusive.” P. 134.
[15] “On 3 December, 5,592 prisoners – a combination of transfers from Camp Douglas and recently captured Confederates from Grant’s victories at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge – arrived at Rock Island. The facility was blanketed in two feet of snow, and the temperature hovered at a bone-chilling thirty-two degrees below zero. Only three surgeons had been assigned to the prison, and as they frantically worked to treat dozens of cases of frostbite and pneumonia, they made a terrible discovery: ninety-four of the arrivals were infected with smallpox. The surgeons feared that many other men had been exposed to the disease during the long hours in the cramped railroad cars that had transported them to the camp – fears that proved justified when an additional thirty-eight cases were soon diagnosed….Soon smallpox was raging throughout the camp. Temple attempted to stem the contagion by initiating a vigorous program of inoculation, but this proved largely ineffective because the vaccine supplied by the Union medical department was inferior. By the end of December, ninety-four of the infected prisoners had died, and Temple’s makeshift wards were crowded with 245 desperately ill patients. The number of new smallpox cases diagnosed increased daily, ensuring that deaths at the new prison would soon be counted in hundreds per month.”
[16] Point Lookout was a prison for Confederate prisoners of war in Saint Mary’s County.
[17] GAGenWeb. Irwin County, Company F, 49th GA Regiment.
[18] “Camp Chase opened in May 1861 as a training camp for Ohio army volunteers and as a camp for Confederate prisoners of war…Close quarters sped outbreaks of disease – nearly 500 prisoners died in February 1863 during a smallpox epidemic.” [Cites Medical and Surgical History, Vol. I, Part III, 30, 46; United States War Department. War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, DC: GPO, 1894; reprinted Harrisburg, PA: Telegraph Press, 1971) Series II, Volume 8, 1039-41; Dale Fetzer and Bruce Mowday. Unlikely Allies: Fort Delaware’s Prison Community in the Civil War (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000), pp. 115-119.
[19] “Close quarters sped outbreaks of disease — nearly 500 prisoners died in February 1863 during a smallpox epidemic. The ‘speckled monster,’ carried by Confederate captives, began infecting several Northern cities.”
[20] Table entitled “Deaths from Smallpox from 1807 to 1907, inclusive, and Rate per 1,000 of Population.” Notes death rate of 0.30 per 1,000 population. 1962 rate was 0.46.
[21] Alderman, John Perry. Carroll Co Men Who Died in Civil War. VAGenweb.
[22] New York Times. “Southern News…Small Pox Among Union Prisoners at Danville…” 12-30-1863, p. 1.
[23] On south bank Cameron Run overlooking Alexandria, VA, 2½ miles to the east-northeast. (Dennee, 30.)
[24] New York Times. “News From Fortress Monroe.” 11-1-1863, p. 8.
[25] GAGenWeb. Irwin County, Company F, 49th GA Regiment.
[26] Alderman, John Perry. Carroll Co Men Who Died in Civil War. VAGenweb.
[27] Alderman, John Perry. Carroll Co Men Who Died in Civil War. VAGenweb.
[28] Alderman, John Perry. Carroll Co Men Who Died in Civil War. VAGenweb.
[29] Our stand-in number based on statement: “…Disease broke out, including a deadly smallpox epidemic in late 1863….” (Washington Times (DC). “Belle Isle a rival to Andersonville.” 8-31-2002.) Smallpox Belle Isle housed thousands of prisoners in conditions which would lower disease resistance. The number could well have been in the dozens, scores, or even hundreds, but we have not yet located a source which is more helpful.
[30] Richmond Enquirer, VA. “Deaths at the Castle.” 5-11-1863.
[31] Mesic, Harriet Bey. Cobb’s Legion Cavalry; A History and Roster of the Ninth Georgia Volunteers. 2009.
[32] McAdams, Eileen Babb. “134 Confederate Soldiers from Baldwin Co. who died in Civil War.” 2002.
[33] “The Richmond Examiner of the 12th states that the small pox prevails there as an epidemic.” (Whig of Seventy-Six, Beaver Dam, WI. “Telegraphic News.” 1-3-1863, p. 5.)
[34] “According to Indian Agent S. D. Howe, there were a few fatal cases of smallpox among the Noot Sacks (Nooksacks), located just south of the U.S. boundary. He stated that Indians from the Noot Sacks to the Tulalip Reservation were ‘fast being depleted in numbers by sickness of various kings. A later report by F. C. Purdy noted that the Skallam (S’Klallam), located along the north shore of the Olympia Peninsula, were ‘fast diminishing.’ He did not give the causes (Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the year 1863).” Greg Lange. “Smallpox Epidemic of 1862 among Northwest Coast and Puget Sound Indians,” HistoryLing.org Essay 5171, 2-4-2003. For the purpose of contributing to a tally we translate “a few fatal cases” into “at least three.”
[35] Term used during the war for freed or escaped slaves.