The impact of Venereal Diseases

Story

1st Lieutenant
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Aug 5, 2011
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SE PA
Came across a Maryland Public TV program on Prostitution
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/maryland-public-tv-the-dig-civil-war-medical-issues.138413/

Got my curious, since I've seen many Consolidated Military Service Records noting soldiers' incapacitation due to syphilis or other unpleasant social maladies.

Found this first -
According to the 1860 U.S. Census, Nashville was home to 198 white prostitutes and nine referred to as “mulatto.” The city’s red-light district was a two-block area known as “Smoky Row,” where women engaged in the sex trade entertained farmers and merchants in town on business.

By 1862, though, the number of “public women” in Nashville had increased to nearly 1,500, and they were always busy. Union troops a long way from home handed their meager paychecks over to brothel keepers and street walkers with abandon, and by the spring of 1863, Rosecrans and his staff were in a frenzy over the potential impact of all that cavorting. But Rosencrans, a Catholic, wasn’t worried about mortal sin. He was worried about disease.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-curious-case-of-nashvilles-frail-sisterhood-7766757/

Related pre-existing threads, for additional edification
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/the-nashville-experiment-prostitution.125069/#post-1343290
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/promiscuity-and-immorality-during-the-civil-war.123450/
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/ladies-of-the-night-during-the-american-civil-war.120742/
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/me...il-war-crimes-and-trials.126022/#post-1364898
 
Three women of the night...

3 hot ones.jpg
 
I can't say much for their taste in hats--probably borrowed from their clientele.

More like 'acquired, as they left in a hurry five paces in front of the Provost Guard"


*

hooker (n.) Expired Image Removed
"one who or that which hooks" in any sense, agent noun from hook (v.). Meaning "prostitute" (by 1845) often is traced to the disreputable morals of the Army of the Potomac (American Civil War) under the tenure of Gen. "Fighting Joe" Hooker (early 1863), and the word might have been popularized by this association at that time (though evidence is wanting).

More word-canoodling at http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hooker
 
I used to own the book The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell. I have also seen the History Channel. I'm sure the VD rate was high. The soldiers were only human, lonely and all that, so yeah they would gravitate to towards these women. They had trouble with this in WWII also. I know they had special wards for these men. I wonder who worked in them. I know they cure wasn't reliable. Probably used the mercury cure. These men had to carry this home with them. I wonder what the married men told their wives.
 
Oddly enough, I went through the entire roster of a Kentucky regiment and I don't recall a single instance of this. The regiment was in Lexington, Louisville and Memphis for various amounts of time. So I'm wondering if the doctor decided to not mention it or the men were just that lonely for those four years.
 
Oddly enough, I went through the entire roster of a Kentucky regiment and I don't recall a single instance of this. The regiment was in Lexington, Louisville and Memphis for various amounts of time. So I'm wondering if the doctor decided to not mention it or the men were just that lonely for those four years.

Option 3: records 'sanitized' in that the hospital would use one or more euphemisms for the afflicted, in order to protect the sensibilities of the folks back home.

Either that or they had access to lots of sheep & goat intestines.
 
Well, here is one letter writer who does not hold back on the details - Captain Don Carlos Newton of the 52nd Illinois, in a letter to his wife:

[Daniel P.] Hatch ¹ of Company C went home and found his wife with a young one three months old and he hadn't seen her for 2½ years, and after he got her home and agreed to live with her again, the bxxxx allowed herself to be coaxed away again and he got a divorce. In an offset Squires of Co. G got the clap and pox of a wxxxx on the way home and gave it to his wife and she is having a terrible time. She is said to be a very fine woman indeed. About 100 of the regiment got fixed out by the wxxxxx of Nashville and Louisville on the road home. Frank Skelton [of Co. D] is the only one of our company that I know of. Perhaps you remember a little whispering fellow in Company G? They say he has to die with the pox. For the most part, Company D behaved themselves like men. I am prouder than ever of them. The disease is so prevalent that it is called the veteran fever.

Source:
 
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The good news is that VD takes a fair amount of time to become extremely serious. The bad news is, there were no real effective treatments for most types of VD. I do wonder if this was a real problem for ex soldiers after the Civil War.
 
Prostitutes!
Posted on: February 15th, 2016

 
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