How Did Smallpox Change the American Revolution?

When Martha Washington was inoculated against smallpox, she didn’t write to George’s sister about it—out of concern that she might spread the disease via letter. The idea that smallpox could survive on inanimate objects was surprisingly accurate: as late as 1901 a woman in Michigan contracted smallpox from a letter. But in 1776, when doctors believed in balancing the four humors and blood tests for antibodies were still a hundred years away, General George Washington risked it all to develop the first American public health initiative. Smallpox, which existed for thousands of years, was one of the deadliest diseases in history. It decimated Native American populations when Europeans carried it to North America. Native Americans had no previous exposure or immunity to the disease: their deaths numbered in the millions by the time the first true vaccine for the disease was developed about 1800. During the American Revolution, disease killed more men than combat. But before that, people in parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa had realized that mild infections of smallpox protected individuals from serious cases later. This led to variolation, an early type of inoculation that involved exposing people to smallpox by scratching pus from an infected person into a cut on an uninfected person’s arm. It usually resulted in a minor case of smallpox*. Quarantine and recovery still took weeks. Most Europeans were exposed or inoculated at a young age, but many Revolutionary War American soldiers had never traveled outside their rural hometowns and lacked immunity. Plus, many clergy in America were opposed to inoculation; they believed smallpox was a punishment from God for sin. Doctors who performed inoculations risked their lives. Some had to go into hiding. The Continental Army forbade inoculation in 1776 because it meant that soldiers would be out of commission, leaving the corps vulnerable to attack if the British found out. But with death rates skyrocketing in cramped quarters, General Washington made a difficult choice. He had seen the damage in Canada in 1775: with too few men healthy enough to fight, the Continental Army lost the Battle of Quebec. And so, in 1777, Washington ordered mass inoculation among the troops. This decision, the first medical directive in American history, inspired men to reenlist and saved thousands of lives—enough to turn the very course of the war in America’s favor.