By Thomas Zei
Although battles during The Civil War caused almost 250,000 deaths, twice as many soldiers died from the mysterious third army of the fight. It is estimated that about 500,000 men died from diseases during the four years of the conflict.
Poor sanitation conditions and drinking water contaminated with human waste killed countless soldiers. Dysentery and cholera were common in the army camps. The spread of diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, typhoid fever and other mosquito borne diseases were common in the Southern swamps. Men that grew up on isolated farms and in small towns were suddenly exposed to infectious diseases to which they had no immunity. Although many medical breakthroughs occurred during the war to stop the spread of infections, the knowledge came too late for many of the soldiers in hospitals.
One of the most frightening diseases in The Civil War was smallpox. The disease known for sores across the head and body was fatal 23% of the time for White soldiers. For Black soldiers, it was fatal 35% of the time. Almost 20,000 soldiers contracted smallpox during the war and it was prevalent on both the Union and Confederate sides.
During the 1700’s, doctors would scrape smallpox pustules from donors and rub it against open scrapes to inoculate the patient. It was hoped that this would only bring mild cases of smallpox. Unfortunately, inoculations would just spread the disease and often led to deaths. Several states outlawed the practice by the end of the century. In 1798, Edward Jenner of England noticed that those that were inflicted with cowpox disease seemed to be immune from the more fatal smallpox disease. He developed a serum that proved to be highly effective.
The disease was very much in control through the use of the vaccinations. Per Terry Reimer, the Director of Research at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland, by the 1840’s the population began to neglect getting the vaccination leading to an entire generation before the war unprepared for a smallpox outbreak. Reimer stated “Quarantine, vaccination, and the destruction of infected clothes and bedding were the primary tools used to control the spread of smallpox in the armies. Most hospitals had a separate ward, or even a separate hospital, in which to isolate smallpox patients since the disease was known to be contagious.”
Both armies took extreme steps to get their soldiers prepared for smallpox but the serum was in short supply. The Confederates were even paying children to be vaccinated multiple times using cowpox and then taking the resulting scabs to send to the front to inoculate the soldiers.
The Smallpox Burials
The Union army occupying Murfreesboro was not immune from smallpox outbreaks. The soldiers stationed at Fortress Rosecrans had to deal with the disease. Those that did not survive the ordeal in their quarantine were also separated in their burial in a smallpox cemetery.
Although battles during The Civil War caused almost 250,000 deaths, twice as many soldiers died from the mysterious third army of the fight. It is estimated that about 500,000 men died from diseases during the four years of the conflict.
Poor sanitation conditions and drinking water contaminated with human waste killed countless soldiers. Dysentery and cholera were common in the army camps. The spread of diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, typhoid fever and other mosquito borne diseases were common in the Southern swamps. Men that grew up on isolated farms and in small towns were suddenly exposed to infectious diseases to which they had no immunity. Although many medical breakthroughs occurred during the war to stop the spread of infections, the knowledge came too late for many of the soldiers in hospitals.
One of the most frightening diseases in The Civil War was smallpox. The disease known for sores across the head and body was fatal 23% of the time for White soldiers. For Black soldiers, it was fatal 35% of the time. Almost 20,000 soldiers contracted smallpox during the war and it was prevalent on both the Union and Confederate sides.
During the 1700’s, doctors would scrape smallpox pustules from donors and rub it against open scrapes to inoculate the patient. It was hoped that this would only bring mild cases of smallpox. Unfortunately, inoculations would just spread the disease and often led to deaths. Several states outlawed the practice by the end of the century. In 1798, Edward Jenner of England noticed that those that were inflicted with cowpox disease seemed to be immune from the more fatal smallpox disease. He developed a serum that proved to be highly effective.
The disease was very much in control through the use of the vaccinations. Per Terry Reimer, the Director of Research at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland, by the 1840’s the population began to neglect getting the vaccination leading to an entire generation before the war unprepared for a smallpox outbreak. Reimer stated “Quarantine, vaccination, and the destruction of infected clothes and bedding were the primary tools used to control the spread of smallpox in the armies. Most hospitals had a separate ward, or even a separate hospital, in which to isolate smallpox patients since the disease was known to be contagious.”
Both armies took extreme steps to get their soldiers prepared for smallpox but the serum was in short supply. The Confederates were even paying children to be vaccinated multiple times using cowpox and then taking the resulting scabs to send to the front to inoculate the soldiers.
The Smallpox Burials
The Union army occupying Murfreesboro was not immune from smallpox outbreaks. The soldiers stationed at Fortress Rosecrans had to deal with the disease. Those that did not survive the ordeal in their quarantine were also separated in their burial in a smallpox cemetery.
Photo of Sgt. Samuel Mason Crawford of the 84th Illinois Volunteer Regiment. The unit fought at Stones River, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Kenesaw, Franklin and Nashville. Sgt. Crawford died of smallpox in Nashville in January of 1865 and is buried in the Nashville National Cemetery. (Photo from the Library of Congress Collection.)
The 200 Victims
Chaplain William Earnshaw oversaw the burials at the newly created Stones River National Cemetery starting in 1865. In his final report in October 1866 before moving to start the cemetery in Nashville, Earnshaw wrote:
“I am free to say, that within these limits, not more than fifty (50) Union soldiers still sleep outside of our beautiful cemetery, with the exception of about two hundred (200) who died of small-pox, but will be carefully removed during the coming winter. The labor will not cease until the last one is laid peacefully at rest here. When all are found, supplementary reports of their names, etc., will be rendered.”
The emphasized statement shows how feared smallpox was at the time. Despite all of the other contagious diseases, a plan was developed to wait until the bodies were frozen before moving them to the new national cemetery.
A study of the maps of the cemetery reveals a problem. We know that all of the graves in Earnshaw’s original scope for the national cemetery are numbered by the row of graves. The last burials were mainly from the Tullahoma area in this scope. The scope concluded with Earnshaw’s final report in October, 1866. The smallpox victims and any other subsequent discoveries of the missing fifty bodies would be included in a supplementary report.
The following year, the decision was made to move the graves from The Rose Hill Cemetery in Columbia, TN to Stones River National Cemetery. Once these remains were placed in the cemetery, their graves are numbered in columns, not rows. There is a clear-cut separation between the original burial phase and the supplementary burials.
Based on Earnshaw’s plan for the smallpox burials, it is expected to find about 200 graves from Murfreesboro between the Tullahoma burials and those coming from Rose Hill. But they aren’t there. So where did they go?
The easy conclusion is that the smallpox graves were never moved. Chaplain Earnshaw was reassigned to Nashville and the plan to move the graves could have been overlooked by the subsequent superintendent. Or it is possible that the decision was made to avoid the potential hazard to the workers and even to subsequent visitors to the cemetery by leaving the bodies buried in the Murfreesboro smallpox cemetery continuing their eternal quarantine.
Further Investigation
After the creation of the national cemeteries, The War Department published books called The Roll of Honor that contained each cemetery’s final report of the burials by state in each sacred ground. The book also looks at each unit’s casualty reports to list known deaths that probably are buried in unknown graves.
The book that has Earnshaw’s final report in October, 1866 contained an anomaly. For the list of Indiana’s known burials in unknown graves, the heading contained a note that those marked with an asterisk are buried in the smallpox cemetery. Seven names were marked with an asterisk. For Ohio, a similar header note was made but no names were marked with an asterisk. No other states or units had the asterisk comment. But if Earnshaw stated that about 200 died from the disease, you would expect to have a more widespread listing of burials in the smallpox cemetery waiting a move to the national cemetery.
The answer lies with the government’s report of deaths in the General Hospital in Murfreesboro. This is a comprehensive list of hospitalized soldiers and the cause of death for each one. There were many deaths caused by typhoid fever, diarrhea, consumption, gunshots, etc. But a review of each page found only ten names with smallpox listed as the cause of death.
If Chaplain Earnshaw reported 200 smallpox burials but hospital records showed only ten deaths due to the disease, what caused the disconnect? It is possible that Earnshaw reported the full size of the smallpox cemetery even though it may have contained Confederates and citizens of Murfreesboro. Or was a separate medical facility used for smallpox not included in this hospital’s report? Or did he just have bad information.
If there are only ten smallpox deaths, were they eventually moved to the national cemetery? Looking at the maps, there is a column of Murfreesboro vicinity burials located between the Tullahoma burials and the Rose Hill burials. Most of these are unknown graves from Murfreesboro. It is feasible for some of these to be the smallpox deaths.
Looking at the names found in the hospital records, most of the names were not located in the cemetery. But two names out of the ten were found. Isaac Johnson of the 143rd Indiana Infantry died on March 31, 1865 of smallpox. His grave was located in the probable column of burials in J-3982. David Graham, also of the 143rd Indiana Infantry, died of smallpox on May 17, 1865. His burial is unusual because Grave M-4824 is located right along the entrance lane across from the parking spaces. We know from other burials in this Section M column that the graves were not used in the initial scope. It is likely that the workers set up tents used to direct incoming wagons to the correct location. The column was then filled in with the last graves in the initial phase of the cemetery. Graham’s grave also indicates that there wasn’t a dreaded fear of the body buried in the grave since they placed it right at the cemetery’s entrance.
Based on all of the available facts, smallpox deaths were a much smaller number than what was reported by Chaplain Earnshaw. The Union Army’s efforts to vaccinate the incoming troops undoubtedly helped in keeping the number of outbreaks low. Some states failed to vaccinate as required as they rushed recruits through the enlistment process to meet troop quotas. This may explain why Indiana had the majority of deaths from the disease.
Chaplain William Earnshaw oversaw the burials at the newly created Stones River National Cemetery starting in 1865. In his final report in October 1866 before moving to start the cemetery in Nashville, Earnshaw wrote:
“I am free to say, that within these limits, not more than fifty (50) Union soldiers still sleep outside of our beautiful cemetery, with the exception of about two hundred (200) who died of small-pox, but will be carefully removed during the coming winter. The labor will not cease until the last one is laid peacefully at rest here. When all are found, supplementary reports of their names, etc., will be rendered.”
The emphasized statement shows how feared smallpox was at the time. Despite all of the other contagious diseases, a plan was developed to wait until the bodies were frozen before moving them to the new national cemetery.
A study of the maps of the cemetery reveals a problem. We know that all of the graves in Earnshaw’s original scope for the national cemetery are numbered by the row of graves. The last burials were mainly from the Tullahoma area in this scope. The scope concluded with Earnshaw’s final report in October, 1866. The smallpox victims and any other subsequent discoveries of the missing fifty bodies would be included in a supplementary report.
The following year, the decision was made to move the graves from The Rose Hill Cemetery in Columbia, TN to Stones River National Cemetery. Once these remains were placed in the cemetery, their graves are numbered in columns, not rows. There is a clear-cut separation between the original burial phase and the supplementary burials.
Based on Earnshaw’s plan for the smallpox burials, it is expected to find about 200 graves from Murfreesboro between the Tullahoma burials and those coming from Rose Hill. But they aren’t there. So where did they go?
The easy conclusion is that the smallpox graves were never moved. Chaplain Earnshaw was reassigned to Nashville and the plan to move the graves could have been overlooked by the subsequent superintendent. Or it is possible that the decision was made to avoid the potential hazard to the workers and even to subsequent visitors to the cemetery by leaving the bodies buried in the Murfreesboro smallpox cemetery continuing their eternal quarantine.
Further Investigation
After the creation of the national cemeteries, The War Department published books called The Roll of Honor that contained each cemetery’s final report of the burials by state in each sacred ground. The book also looks at each unit’s casualty reports to list known deaths that probably are buried in unknown graves.
The book that has Earnshaw’s final report in October, 1866 contained an anomaly. For the list of Indiana’s known burials in unknown graves, the heading contained a note that those marked with an asterisk are buried in the smallpox cemetery. Seven names were marked with an asterisk. For Ohio, a similar header note was made but no names were marked with an asterisk. No other states or units had the asterisk comment. But if Earnshaw stated that about 200 died from the disease, you would expect to have a more widespread listing of burials in the smallpox cemetery waiting a move to the national cemetery.
The answer lies with the government’s report of deaths in the General Hospital in Murfreesboro. This is a comprehensive list of hospitalized soldiers and the cause of death for each one. There were many deaths caused by typhoid fever, diarrhea, consumption, gunshots, etc. But a review of each page found only ten names with smallpox listed as the cause of death.
If Chaplain Earnshaw reported 200 smallpox burials but hospital records showed only ten deaths due to the disease, what caused the disconnect? It is possible that Earnshaw reported the full size of the smallpox cemetery even though it may have contained Confederates and citizens of Murfreesboro. Or was a separate medical facility used for smallpox not included in this hospital’s report? Or did he just have bad information.
If there are only ten smallpox deaths, were they eventually moved to the national cemetery? Looking at the maps, there is a column of Murfreesboro vicinity burials located between the Tullahoma burials and the Rose Hill burials. Most of these are unknown graves from Murfreesboro. It is feasible for some of these to be the smallpox deaths.
Looking at the names found in the hospital records, most of the names were not located in the cemetery. But two names out of the ten were found. Isaac Johnson of the 143rd Indiana Infantry died on March 31, 1865 of smallpox. His grave was located in the probable column of burials in J-3982. David Graham, also of the 143rd Indiana Infantry, died of smallpox on May 17, 1865. His burial is unusual because Grave M-4824 is located right along the entrance lane across from the parking spaces. We know from other burials in this Section M column that the graves were not used in the initial scope. It is likely that the workers set up tents used to direct incoming wagons to the correct location. The column was then filled in with the last graves in the initial phase of the cemetery. Graham’s grave also indicates that there wasn’t a dreaded fear of the body buried in the grave since they placed it right at the cemetery’s entrance.
Based on all of the available facts, smallpox deaths were a much smaller number than what was reported by Chaplain Earnshaw. The Union Army’s efforts to vaccinate the incoming troops undoubtedly helped in keeping the number of outbreaks low. Some states failed to vaccinate as required as they rushed recruits through the enlistment process to meet troop quotas. This may explain why Indiana had the majority of deaths from the disease.