[MILITARY] -- [CHOLERA OUTBREAK]. SCOTT, Winfield. Autograph letter signed ("Winfield Scott"), to Brigadier General Henry Atkinson. Headquarters North Western Army, Chicago, 18 July 1832.

4 pages, 4to, on a bifolium, some staining, a few short tears.

WHAT A CALAMITY HAS COME UPON THE EXPEDITION!

"Cholera was a disease of conquest in Chicago, making its first known appearance in 1832 with Winfield Scott’s troops who had been sent to subdue Black Hawk and his allies. This swift-moving disease could kill within hours of contraction. Victims felt sudden cramps, followed by vomiting, diarrhea, and often death due to dehydration" (Encyclopedia of Chicago).

Winfield Scott writes to Atkinson: "Since I wrote you on the 13th all my intelligence from Detroit has been disastrous. The detachments of Lieut. Colonel's Cummings & Twiggs, & that of Major Payne have suffered dreadfully from choler & were on the 13th encamped- the second & third near Fort Gratiot, & the first below Detroit. The steamers Clay & Superior, refused to proceed with infected troops. ...Repeated orders have been sent to separate the well from the sick...I learn also, that death & pannic have stopped the navigation above Detroit & that all our medicines & hospital stores & many other essential supplies were shifted from a seamer to the Schooner Napoleon, which lies in the river below Huron, without master or crew. ...I can collect small force of regulars, un-infected and unsuspected of infection, together with a surgeon, medicines & tents... We have lost from the four companies of artillery about 53 men & two officers (Lieuts Gustavus Brown & McDuffie by cholera... What a calamity has come upon the expedition! I sank my own grief of heart in the general disappointment of the government & country." During the outbreak at his post

Property from the James Milgram, M.D., Collection of Broadsides, Ephemeral Americana, and Historical Documents