Today's News:

[Reporting History]

The Fourth Wisconsin regiment, Col. H. E. Paine, with the 2d Massachusetts battery and Reading (Pa.) cavalry, have moved from Baltimore to the eastern shore of Maryland, and are to be stationed at Princess Anne, to operate in Accomac county and the eastern peninsular of Virginia, should occasion require. While the Wisconsin regiment was at the Relay House considerable sickness prevailed, chiefly typhoid and camp fevers, and no less than sixty-nine of the convalescent invalids were so prostrated by the voyage across the bay that it was necessary to send them back to the Baltimore Military Hospital.

Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago, IL

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

It is shocking to many people when they first learn how many soldiers died of diseases, not battle wounds, in our CW but there was little knowledge of the causes for disease back then. Today recruits are "shot" left and right and immunization is a standard. I am only aware of one vaccine available in 1861, the one for smallpox.

 

[Sheltowee]

It is shocking to many people when they first learn how many soldiers died of diseases, not battle wounds, in our CW but there was little knowledge of the causes for disease back then. Today recruits are "shot" left and right and immunization is a standard. I am only aware of one vaccine available in 1861, the one for smallpox.

It was for me. Example- the 7th Kentucky Infantry (US) lost 40 enlisted to combat, and 274 to illness. That's almost 7x as many died from sickness than from battle injuries.

And I suspect this the norm.

Maybe for a different thread, but wonder if regular army fared better? Better regulation of sanitation? Maybe better/ more medical staff?

Probably a thread out there. Wondering now.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

Those cited attributions of losses of the 7th. KY Infantry (US) seem to be untypical.

It's commonly thought that about two (2) in every three (3) CW soldier deaths were due to disease. (This ratio was fairly similar for both sides).

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

the 7th Kentucky Infantry (US) lost 40 enlisted to combat, and 274 to illness. That's almost 7x as many died from sickness than from battle injuries.

A guess on my part would be that where a unit was stationed could result in a high rate of death by disease. The siege of Vicksburg was deadly to the Union soldiers because of a host of regional diseases they were not familiar with or immune to. And soldiers from big cities seemed to die less often from disease than the country boys who had never before been far from home.

Diet limitations, and food preparation, north or south, surely played a role.

Food service standards date to Civil War - Inside CDCR

Poorly cooked food, a lack of basic standards, and food-borne illness led to a standardized food service manual for Civil War soldiers.

www.cdcr.ca.gov

 

[RedRover]

Maybe for a different thread, but wonder if regular army fared better? Better regulation of sanitation? Maybe better/ more medical staff?

Here's the total of regular army deaths.

 

[Sheltowee]

Here's the total of regular army deaths.

View attachment 528657

Thank you. After a quick scan of some volunteer infantry regiments from Indiana, Ohio and Illinois- their mortality rates more align with what you are showing for regulars.

Either the 7th Ky was a hard-luck unit…. Or the figures posted are in error.

 

[Sheltowee]

Here's the total of regular army deaths.

View attachment 528657

Thank you. After a quick scan of a few volunteer infantry regiments from Indiana, Ohio and Illinois- their mortality rates more align with what you are showing for regulars.

Either the 7th Ky was a hard-luck unit…. Or the figures posted are in error.

 

[Sheltowee]

Here's the total of regular army deaths.

View attachment 528657

Thank you. After a quick scan of a few volunteer infantry regiments from Indiana, Ohio and Illinois- their mortality rates more align with what you are showing for regulars.

Either the 7th Ky was a hard-luck unit…. Or the figures posted are in error.

 

[RedRover]

Thank you. After a quick scan of a few volunteer infantry regiments from Indiana, Ohio and Illinois- their mortality rates more align with what you are showing for regulars.

Either the 7th Ky was a hard-luck unit…. Or the figures posted are in error.

Illness was rampant among every corps in the armies of the time. Besides the deaths by disease, there were enormous numbers of men who received medical discharges for disability on account of either pre-existing or contracted illnesses.

The Volunteer regiments of both armies had to generally be brought to the full legal organization and number of personnel in order to be mustered into active national service. Many of the men enlisted for this purpose were not necessarily healthy, though outwardly free of defect, or in other words possessing all their limbs, etc.

By the time a regiment was fully trained in camp, and shaken down on the march, etc., they were often reduced to half-strength or less.

For example, from Confederate records, which were themselves somewhat incomplete, the number of cases of wounds or illness treated averaged between the number of CS troops on the rolls, suggested the average reb was treated or hospitalized about six times during the war.

Men of less than good health were in trouble.


Mr. Fox calculated the Union regiments with the highest combat related deaths during the war.

....

Fox calculated deaths by disease as not quite double that of combat related deaths.

 

[Library Lady]

For some reason, Accomac county sounds familiar. Were those units facing off with Pickett there by any chance?

 

[SSVilla]

I'll always remember that W.T. Sherman's oldest son contracted a yellow ever ADN died so quickly that it was almost unbelievable. Part of the difficulty with his grief was that on top of the loss, him and hiw wife blamed themselves for bringing him to Vicksburg in the first place.

Longstreet losing three of his kids to some fever right after the other was shocking to me when I found it out…

I have read that the city boys of the AoP were the ones more likely to die in actual battle. Out west the boys in blue were struck with diseases.

Lee famously said something to the effect of the Southern illnesses would take care of all the Yankees around Vicksburg for them.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

Lee famously said something to the effect of the Southern illnesses would take care of all the Yankees around Vicksburg for them.

I think it safe to say a large portion of the Vicksburg population was hoping disease would carry off all the Yankees, especially after their occupation of the city. However "Beast" Butler managed that surprisingly well….

Instead, (Butler) began his own investigation into the disease. He tracked down scientists and doctors in New Orleans and educated himself on yellow fever, its history in New Orleans, and the two warring theories about the disease's origin: was it coming in from outside, up the river; or was it borne of the filthy "miasmas" of New Orleans?

His course of action ignored the argument and combined both strict quarantine and extreme sanitation measures. Seventy miles below New Orleans, all vessels were stopped and detained for forty days under threat of firepower, while crews were observed for signs of yellow fever. On the other end, Butler sent two thousand men into the city streets to scrub them clean for an entire month, placing special focus on the French Market, which he found particularly disgusting….

New Orleans, possibly cleaner than it ever had been, suffered only a handful of deaths for several years after that.

Source:

The Saffron Scourge in New Orleans

Between 1796 and 1905, sixty-seven yellow summers transpired in New Orleans, during which roughly fifty thousand people died.

countryroadsmagazine.com

 

[LisaJ]

In the low country of South Carolina the troops feared mosquito-born diseases. Some, at least, were given quinine by the captains of the companies.Here are mentions in the Jeffers family letters:

From Henry Jeffers on 26 July 1862: "I am quite well, and hope to remain so. I will commence in the morning to take Quinine every day. I think it is a good preventative against the fever. There is no sickness at all in our Company compared with others that have not been using quinine. Capt Trenholm has enough to give each man daily a pill of three grains from now until frost."

And from brother Spann Jeffers on 17 July 1863: "We are in good health, take Quinine pills every morning, and hope to pass the summer without taking the fever."

A third brother Thomas Jeffers returned to SC after three years in Virginia. He hated the biting insects of South Carolina so much he almost wanted to go back to the battlefields of Virginia. He wrote from a low country camp on 19 September 1864: "In regard to affairs in our Camp I am sorry to be under the necessity of making rather a gloomy report, as it presents more the appearance of a Hospital than anything else at this time. The sick list is daily on the increase and the majority of the cases are assuming a more malignant form, whereas they have heretofore been very mild. The men however are now compelled to take Quinine daily, in large quantities, and we hope soon to be able to notice an improvement. Besides, we will doubtless very soon be blessed with frost which will in a great measure check the distemper to which this climate seems to be adapted during the summer season. Even now, the nights are decidedly cooler and the days are becoming more pleasant. The countless hosts of musquitoes, sand flies, and other insects which infest the country and which have proved to be our chief terror are also diminishing."

 

[Nathan Stuart]

It is shocking to many people when they first learn how many soldiers died of diseases, not battle wounds,

Agree. Such illness-related deaths can still be legitimately viewed and counted in CW casualty figures (being deaths directly attributable to hostilities) - though perhaps, the described circumstances of demise are probably not as dramatic to general consumers of information as those recordings showing KIA or MW in battlefield accounts.