Image from page 134 of "Frank Leslie's scenes and portraits of the Civil War " (1894)
More than 12,000 Louisiana soldiers were sent to Virginia when the Civil War erupted in 1861. There, they fought under Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and became known as the “Louisiana Tigers.” Approximately, 3,300 Tigers never made it back home. Of those, 1,300 died of disease.
Although Civil War medical studies often concentrate on the treatment of battlefield wounds, two out of three deaths were caused by disease. Cramming thousands of men into small areas led to frequent outbreaks of measles, pneumonia, and smallpox. Soldiers from rural areas were especially susceptible to such diseases because they had never been exposed to them as had soldiers who grew up in crowded cities. The 9th Louisiana, composed mostly of men from rural North Louisiana, is a good example. Of its 1,474 men, 233 were killed in battle, but an incredible 349 died of disease.
Unsanitary living conditions caused dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid, and cholera. Regulations required men to bathe once a week, but soldiers almost universally ignored that rule. Tons of manure from cows, horses, and mules, and the entrails from slaughtered animals added to the filth of a typical Civil War encampment.
Armies on both sides ordered latrines to be dug and the contents to be covered daily with a fresh layer of dirt, but sometimes little thought was given to their placement. As a result, the slit trenches were frequently dug close to wells or upstream from water sources. Modest soldiers disliked using the open latrines and simply relieved themselves wherever they found a secluded spot.
Dysentery was the single greatest killer of Civil War soldiers. It differed from common diarrhea because it was caused by a bacterial infection that gave a soldier loose and bloody bowels. Both dysentery and diarrhea were commonly called the “flux,” “Tennessee Trots,” or the “runs,” and all Civil War soldiers suffered from them at one time or another. As one surgeon put it, “No matter what else a patient had, he had diarrhea.”
Bacteria also caused typhoid and cholera. Typhoid was spread by flies that came in contact with feces or contaminated food, while cholera was caused by ingesting tainted food or water.
Malaria and yellow fever added to camp life misery, and both were common in the mosquito-infected Deep South. Malaria, also called the “ague,” accounted for about twenty percent of all patients treated. Physicians at the time did not know that mosquitoes carried malaria and yellow fever and believed the diseases were caused by harmful swamp fumes, the breath of infected men, or camp excrement.
Smallpox was another dreaded disease in Civil War camps, but soldiers were fortunate that a vaccine had been developed that helped prevent widespread epidemics. Unfortunately, the vaccine was primitive and dangerous, and men dreaded being inoculated.
Soldiers often complained that the treatment surgeons prescribed for diseases was worse than the disease itself. Malaria and other fevers were treated quite effectively with quinine, but it had the severe side effect of loosening one’s teeth. Quinine was also used to treat diarrhea and dysentery, as was opium to ease abdominal spasms and pain. Calomel, blue mass, strychnine, castor oil, turpentine, silver nitrate, and ipecac were popular treatments for dysentery and diarrhea, but they all had extreme side effects.
Blue mass was one of many treatments that contained mercury. Just a few pills per day contained more than one hundred times the safe amount of daily absorption.
Turpentine could damage the nervous system and kidneys and induce bloody vomiting, while calomel caused “explosive diarrhea” and projectile vomiting which dehydrated dysentery patients even more. Blue mass and other mercury-based drugs caused extreme salivation, inflamed gums, and loose teeth. Sometimes ulcers formed in the mouth and ate away bone and tissue which led to hideous facial deformities.
Other types of Civil War medical treatment seem almost like medieval torture. Some surgeons cauterized bleeding hemorrhoids while treating dysentery and ulcers on the penis when treating venereal disease. Pneumonia patients were frequently bled or had heated mustard plasters placed on their chests that were supposed to draw out fluid from the lungs. Surgeons treated one soldier’s stomach ailment by applying hot bricks to his feet and hot cloths to his stomach. The man wrote home, “Oh such hours of suffering, but the Lord was with me, praise his name.”
By today’s standards, medical care in the Civil War was primitive because little was known about what caused disease and how it spread. Surgeons later came to recognize this fact, but one Confederate doctor spoke for most when he declared, “We did not do the best we would, but the best we could.”
Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For an autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, send $25 to Terry L. Jones, P.O Box 1581, West Monroe, LA 71294.
