Measles:

Blessmag

Captain
Joined
Jun 19, 2010
Location
Minnesota
This could be a topic for a specific illness, specific town in Tennessee, or even should someone who contracted a disease in the war be counted among CW casualties?
Found this in a family history:

“Augustus Hall

…he was a farmer and enlisted as a private in the 106th Ill. Vol. Inf. He was a member of Co. K along with some of his other Hall kin. He was 24 at enlistment.

His pension application made in 1880 is an excellent record of the exposure experienced by men in the Civil War that led to ill health in their post-war years. Augustus, ill with measles while on detached duty at Rutherford Station, Tenn. (1863) was subjected to over two days of soaking rain without shelter and was shuttled by box car to their permanent camp and given casual medical treatment. He suffered from a chronic lung ailment the remainder of his life. “

The Hall-Overstreet Family 1725 – 1981, Carrol Carman Hall, Public Library, Petersburg Il.
 
Measles in adults was horrific. One in three adults who caught it died from complications, most commonly measles-associated pneumonia. Looks like your relative had that and he survived it, but likely suffered lung abscesses or pleural effusion, conditions that can cause chronic lung issues and were not treatable back then.

The story does add up. Really.
 
even should someone who contracted a disease in the war be counted among CW casualties?
I think they should be as it took men out of the ranks and as mentioned above, many soldiers to their graves.

"From the records during the Civil War, we know that two thirds of the soldiers died from infectious diseases. In the Union army over 67,000 men had measles and more than 4,000 died. During the first year of the war alone, there were 21,676 reported cases of measles and 551 deaths of Union soldiers mainly from respiratory and cerebral brain involvement."
http://teachers.yale.edu/curriculum/viewer/initiative_10.06.02_u#h1num-3
 
Measles in adults was horrific. One in three adults who caught it died from complications, most commonly measles-associated pneumonia. Looks like your relative had that and he survived it, but likely suffered lung abscesses or pleural effusion, conditions that can cause chronic lung issues and were not treatable back then.

The story does add up. Really.

Just to add clarity, he was not a relative. A soldier in my current regimental history.
 
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