Carrying Home the Enemy: Smallpox and Revolution in American Love and Letters, 1775–76

Through an analysis of letters exchanged between spouses in the peak years of smallpox during the American Revolutionary War, this article identifies what it calls the domestic smallpox narrative, wherein vulnerability and immunity are gendered and relational. The narrative traced through numerous letters written during the Revolution reflects a concern for smallpox's power to endanger marital and family relationships. Because a husband in service to the Revolution gained exposure and subsequent immunity to smallpox, it was feared that he could "carry home" the disease, either intentionally or accidentally, infecting and potentially killing his wife. Families could experience a kind of inadvertent or deliberate biological warfare in their homes that had the potential to revolutionize domestic life and intimate relationships between spouses. As a result of the war, men were more likely to be protected than women from smallpox just as men were empowered in the new Republic while women were not. This was particularly significant in the rebel nation that refused to bestow political rights on women.