Yankees versus Yellow Jack in New Orleans, 1862-1866

YANKEES VERSUS YELLOW JACK IN NEW ORLEANS, 1862-1866 Jo Ann Carrigan From the late eighteenth century until die first year of the Civü War cases of yellow fever appeared annuaUy in New Orleans. Several times in each decade die disease ravaged die city in violent epidemic form, disrupting aU normal social and economic activities, inciting panic and mass exodus from the vicinity, and burdening the remaining inhabitants with problems of widespread sickness and deadi. Throughout the first haU of the nineteenth century each of the recurring pestilential attacks seemed even more virulent than the last. The decade of die 1850's witnessed four great epidemics, worse than anything the Crescent City had ever suffered—and it had suffered much. In 1853, 1854, 1855, and 1858 yeUow fever claimed a total mortaUty of about eighteen thousand in New Orleans alone, plus additional diousands in the gulf ports, river towns, and interior communities to which the disease was transmitted from its original focus.1 Since the early 1800's Yellow Jack's repeated incursions had earned for New Orleans a reputation tiiroughout the country as an exceedingly insalubrious location. The horrors of the 1850's only intensified die city's notoriety. It was also a well-known fact that newcomers to New Orleans, especiaUy European immigrants and Northerners, always bore the brunt of the fever's attacks and swelled die mortality lists, whüe native and long-resident New Orleanians exhibited considerable resistance or immunity to its ravages.2 Had New Orleans been visited by die scourge during the period of Federal wartime occupation, the Jo Ann Carrigan is a member of the history faculty at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and editor of Louisiana History, the journal of the Louisiana State Historical Association. 1 Edward Hall Barton, The Cause and Prevention of Yellow Fever, Contained in the Report of the Sanitary Commission of New Orleans (Philadelphia, 1855), pp. 41-44 and comparative table preceding p. 1; New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, new ser., VI (1879), 699. 2 This phenomenon, so noticeable that yellow fever was sometimes called "the stranger's fever," was at that time explained on the basis of acclimation. It was believed, in other words, that natives and long-term residents had become ad248 Northern forces would undoubtedly have suffered severe losses and disorganization—at least for a period of two or three months, the usual duration of a yeUow fever epidemic. IronicaUy, at the very time the city might have considered YeUow Jack more friend dian foe, that disease remained conspicuously absent. In its annual report for 1861 the Louisiana State Board of Health recorded a total annual mortaUty much lower than the usual figure for New Orleans, and also announced die astounding fact diat for the first time in more than a half century not a single deadi from yeUow fever had occurred in die Crescent City. This incredible phenomenon was attributed to die Federal blockade, "partial diough it may have been," which together with Louisiana's quarantine restrictions had cut down the possibUities of introducing disease from foreign ports.3 This year of complete exemption from the pestilence marked die beginning of a brief interregnum in yeUow fever's century-long reign in New Orleans, while an entirely different species of force moved in to dominate die city —Yankee troops. In late April, 1862, the Crescent City fell to the Union forces and remained under müitary occupation throughout the war. Particularly during die first year of wartime occupation, yeUow fever was a subject much in the minds of botii the conquerors and die conquered—a source of great fear and dread to die one, of hope and encouragement to the other. General Benjamin F. Butler, in command of die Federal occupation forces during die first year, later wrote: "I learned diat die rebels were actuaUy relying largely upon the yellow fever to clear out the Northern troops, the men of New England and die Northwest . . . whom they had learned from experience were usuaUy the first victims of the scourge." Furthermore, he had also heard "tiiat in the churches [of New Orleans] prayers were put up that the pestilence might come as a...