American Historical Ephemera & Photography

GREEN, George W. (1812-1890). Autograph letter signed ("Geo. W. Green"). Addressed to his brother Spencer Kimball Green (1817-1893) in New York. Fair View, Concordia Parish, Louisiana. 18 November 1853. 3pp, 7 3/4 x 10 in. (creasing at folds, adhesive tape remnants, toning). 

A native of Vermont, George Washington Green removed to Louisiana, likely sometime surrounding his 1841 marriage to Amanda Malvina Hootsell (1810-1859) of Natchez, Mississippi. He served with Co. H, Mississippi Light Artillery during the Civil War. Prior to that time, he resided at Fair View, a cotton plantation in Concordia Parish, Louisiana. The letter offered here provides a detailed description of travel from New York to Louisiana, noting that they journeyed on "a fine steamer, crowded to repletion, all Southerners," "the route from New York to Cincinnati occupied 53 instead of 34 hours," "a while week from Louisville to Cairo," and assuring his brother that with river travel "you experience sensations altogether more delightful than lumbering over the New York and Erie Canal." Upon arrival in Mississippi, he states that "I have been twice to Natchez since our arrival home. You cannot imagine the tales of horror which has been told me, connected with the late epidemic. To you, and all who are strangers here, I believe it would be impossible to conceive of the distress.... The number of victims for the two states of Louisiana and Mississippi are set down at thirty thousand. In Natchez the fearful list swells to 452. Long will this year be remembered and conspicuous will stand the noble heroic exertions of the Howard Association...." 

The 1853 yellow fever outbreak was considered the worst year of the epidemic, marking the single highest annual death rate of any state during the entire nineteenth century. Death rates were highest in urban areas, though more rural areas experienced devastating losses as well.