Tag «Smallpox»

Siege of Fort St. Jean, September 17 – November 3, 1775

Brass cannon firing.

The Siege of Fort St. Jean by the American invasion force into Canada had taken so long, that by the time the fort fell, the American army was worn out, devastated by disease and dwindling supplies; a foreshadow of the doomed effort by the American rebellion to claim the 14th colony. Fort St. Jean, or …

Battle of Three Rivers June 8, 1775

Bayonetting Redcoat

The Invasion of Canada Did Not Go Well for the Americans From the time the Americans were defeated before the walls of Quebec City on a blizzard evening of December 31, 1775, until the last of a devastated rebel force gave up Canada in mid June, 1776, the entire episode of a new nation trying …

Germ Warfare and Smallpox During the American Revolution

Boston, November 25, 1775: besieged British sent several boatloads of men, women and children, three hundred in all, across the Back Bay. They were left on the shore near Cambridge and the transport quickly departed. Ragged, weak, distraught, many sick and dying, it was a heartbreaking tableau to the rebels who came upon them. “The …

Diseases and Epidemics During Revolutionary America 1763 – 1783

The Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia compiled the most extensive report about diseases and success rates of doctors during the Revolutionary War Period. Aside from mental disorders which affected nearly one fifth of all patients, half of the hospital’s cases concerned seven disorders: scurvy – 15%, fevers – 9%, venereal disease – 9%, dropsy – 6%, …