A Contribution to the Study of 
Water borne Cholera. 
BT 
GEORGE HOMAN, M. D., 
HIALTII COMMIWMMA, «T. LOUIH. 
RKPRWTED FROM THE 
Neto Yorft JHe&fcal 
for March SO, 1895. Reprinted Jrom the New York Medical Journal 
for March SO, ISOS. 
A CONTRIBUTION TO TIIE 
STUDY OF WATER-BORNE CHOLERA* 
By GEORGE HOMAN, M. IX, 
HEALTH COMMISSIONER, 8T. LOUIS. 
In the burying ground of the St. Louis Quarantine Hos- 
pital stands a plain monument, erected, as the inscription 
upon it reads, in memory of one hundred and seventy-five 
non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Fifty sixth 
United States Colored Infantry who died of cholera in 
1866. 
It chanced that this monument and its meager inscrip- 
tion were brought to my notice at a time when I was some- 
w hat occupied looking into the history of epidemic cholera, 
and the mortality recorded seemed so excessive that I was 
led to gather what further information I could in regard 
to it. 
To this end I applied to the Surgeon General, United 
States Army, w ho in reply sent a copy of a War Depart- 
ment circular issued from the office of the Surgeon General, 
dated May 4, 1867, which was stated to contain all the data 
known respecting the cholera epidemic among the officers 
and soldiers of the regiment named in 1866. 
* Komi before the Association of Alumni of St. Louis Medical Col- 
lege, April, 1H'J4. 
Copyright, 1865, by I). Appleton and Company. 2 
WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
This document contains no account of this outbreak by 
any medical officer who had personal knowledge concerning 
it, but includes a report by the commanding officer, dated 
August 18, 1866, from which, together with information 
obtained direct from the War Department and other 
sources, the following facts were taken : 
Early in August, 1866, the regiment in question was on 
duty in Arkansas, five companies being stationed at Duvall’s 
Bluff, and the remainder of the command, with regimental 
headquarters, was at Helena. 
Being ordered to proceed to Omaha via St. Louis, the 
command, seven hundred and eight strong, assembled at 
Helena, and the five companies that had been at Duvall’s 
Bluff embarked on board the steamer Continental on the 
evening of August 9th. The remainder followed on the 
Platte Valley the next morning. 
The colonel states that the command had been unusually 
healthy during the summer, and the surgeon confirms this 
saying that the regiment was in the best of health at the 
time of embarking. 
No medical officer accompanied the command on this 
fateful journey, which has but one known parallel in Ameri- 
can military-medical history, and perhaps few anywhere 
else. 
Within a few hours after the boats swung out into the 
current of the Mississippi River mischief began, and by the 
time the Continental reached Cairo she had on board thir- 
teen corpses and between fifty and sixty cases of cholera, all 
belonging to this regiment. More than fifty men of this 
command died on this boat before St. Louis was reached, 
the second boat not suffering so severely, but hardly a sol- 
dier in the entire regiment escaped an attack of the disease. 
About a week after these troops left Helena the com- 
mander reported the deaths to that time among his men as WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
3 
one hundred and thirty-nine, hut the end was not reached 
until the number recorded on the monument had perished, 
if, indeed, that number is correct, as it appears from the 
W ar Department records and information from other trust- 
worthy sources, that the mortality in this body of men 
from this one cause was nearer one hundred and ninety 
than one hundred and seventy-five—a loss of more than 
one in every four in the command. 
Of course, as thinking beings the question occurs to us, 
What caused this sudden and appalling outburst ? And 
having duly considered the clouds and the moon and the 
malign influence of the stars without satisfactory result, we 
are compelled to look under our noses, so to speak, and 
study the immediate facts and circumstances connected 
with it. 
At the time the regiment left Helena, sound and well, 
for this place, people were dying of cholera here at the rate 
of myre than a hundred per day, the reported deaths from 
that disease in St. Louis for the week ending August 17th 
being seven hundred and fifty-four, and a very large pro- 
portion of the total deaths from this cause occurred in the 
territory between the river and Seventeenth Street and Cass 
and Chouteau Avenues. This territory was pretty well 
drained by sewers—the total length of public and district 
sewers here in 1860 being about fifty miles—and during the 
course of the epidemic the sewage thus poured into the 
river was heavily charged with the specific cholera organ- 
ism. 
The average stage of water in the river during that Au- 
gust was about twelve feet, and in view of all the facts 
elicited in regard to this occurrence, and of what is so well 
known now concerning water-borne cholera, there can re- 
main no reasonable doubt that this body of men was poi- 
soned by St. Louis sewage borne in the current of the river 4 
WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
as far south as Helena, for the soldiers began to sicken 
and die within twelve hours after embarking, and no other 
source of water supply was accessible to them except the 
river. 
As already stated, this incident, in the extent of fatali- 
ties attending it, stands with but one known equal in 
American history, according to data furnished by the Sur- 
geon General, and a very imperfect examination of reports- 
of foreign occurrences of like nature shows but one instance 
where cholera mortality in a similar organization was ex- 
ceeded, and this will be noted presently. 
In an address on Water borne Cholera, by the editor of 
the British Medical Journal, delivered in July, 1893, be- 
fore the American Medical Association, evidence was 
heaped on evidence showing the direct, positive agency of 
polluted streams, used as sources of human water supply, 
in the causation and spread of Asiatic cholera. 
In the abstract of sanitary and consular reports issued 
by the Marine- Hospital Service for the week ending No- 
vember 4, 1892, there is a report from the American Con- 
sul at Odessa, dated at Tashkent, Turkestan,, September 
9th, same year, which contains most signal proof of this 
contention, and with your permission I will cite a small 
portion of it. He says : 
“At Sarnarcand three regiments of infantry were encamped 
side by side on a level plain close beside a stream of water. 
The colonel of one of the regiments took the most extraordinary 
pains to prevent his men from being attacked with the cholera, 
and he succeeded. In the first place, he caused every article in 
camp to be thoroughly cleansed with hot water and then disin- 
fected. lie compelled his men to bathe every day in hot water 
that had been boiled, and a guard was constantly maintained, 
whose duty it was to keep the soldiers from drinking the river 
water and to carry out the colonel’s instructions. The result 
was that not a single case of cholera occurred in the regiment, WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
5 
while the other two regiments which were camped alongside 
lost over a hundred men from cholera. In these regiments the 
ordinary precautions were tuken, hut no such measures were 
adopted as I have mentioned ubove.” 
Again lie says : 
“ At Ashabad the cholera had almost disappeared early in 
August, and the event was celebrated with much rejoicing 
on the anniversary of the Emperor’s name-day, which occurs 
in that month. The Governor-General gave a dinner, to which 
ho invited a numerous company, and the various regiments 
were granted extra rations that they might rejoice on the 
occasion. The day, which began so auspiciously amid general 
rejoicing, was destined to have an ending which has no parallel 
in history. Of the numerous guests who attended that dinner, 
one half died within twenty-four hours. A military hand of 
about fifty men who played during that fatal dinner lost forty 
of their number with cholera, and only ten of the men reached 
camp that night. One regiment lost half its men and nine 
officers ere the sun rose the following morning, and within 
forty eight hours thirteen hundred people died with cholera. 
The cause of this outbreak was clearly traced to a small stream 
of water which supplied the town. Four days previous the 
authorities were informed that cholera had broken out at a 
small Turkoman village situated on the banks of this stream 
about four miles from Ashabad. The inhabitants of this village 
were ordered to move their kriltkas (tents) several miles back 
on the hills, which they did. On the day previous to the reap- 
pearance of the cholera at Ashabad a very heavy rainstorm 
occurred which washed the banks of the river and swept refuse 
and other matter from the abandoned village into the stream, 
and this matter was carried by the water into the city and dis- 
tributed to all parts of the town by the numerous open canals 
through which the inhabitants were supplied with water. It 
was this contaminated water which caused the reappearance of 
the epidemic and the frightful mortality which followed. The 
population of Ashabad was not more than thirteen thousand, 
of which ten per cent, died within forty-eight hours.” 6 
WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
Returning now to the Mississippi River, what evidence 
other than that of an inferential character can be brought 
forward in support of its impeachment as a death dealing 
stream in 1806 ? 
It happens that confirmation strong and proof convinc- 
ing is afforded by the War Department document already 
cited in the account it contains of cholera among the troops 
at New Orleans the same year, the facts in brief being as 
follows: 
On July 30th, on account of riotous disturbances in that 
city, the Eighty-first United States Colored Infantry was 
stationed at the foot of Canal Street and remained there 
ten days, during a part of which time the men drank water 
from the river, and many cases of cholera occurred until 
pure water was supplied, which had a most marked bene- 
ficial result, according to the surgeon’s report. 
The supply of distilled and rain water for the use of 
the One Hundred and Sixteenth United States Colored In- 
fantry was scant for a day or two and some of the men 
used river water. Soon two cases of cholera appeared. 
Pure water was supplied and there were no more cases in 
the regiment. 
Again, the Ninth United States Colored Cavalry and 
Thirty-ninth United States Infantry were supplied, but not 
sufficiently, with distilled water until the cisterns at their 
camp could be repaired and filled. At first the distilled 
water, sent hot in casks, could not become cool before it 
was needed. The men preferred to drink the river water 
because it was cold, and did so against orders and repeated 
warning, accepting the risk of disease rather than wait for 
the water to become cool and aerated. Case after case of 
cholera followed. Critical inspection failed to develop any 
other probable cause except the use of river water, and 
recommendation was made to move the regiments away WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
7 
from the river far enough to prevent the men obtaining it. 
To avoid moving, the cavalry put on a strong guard to 
keep the men from the river, and cistern water was sup- 
plied them. Cholera from that time ceased in these regi- 
ments. 
In view of the foregoing facts, much interest attaches 
to the question as to the origin of the cholera virulence of 
the river water at New Orleans, for at that time there 
was no sewage How from that city into the river in front 
of it, nor was there any sewerage system worthy the name 
in any town or city above it nearer than St. Louis. 
No cholera was known to exist at Helena while the 
Fifty-sixth Regiment was there, although before its depart- 
ure the surgeon informs me that this disease was reported 
as being present in St. Louis and New Orleans. 
Up to the time of embarking, the command in question 
drew its water supply from wells and springs which were 
kept free from surface contamination. 
Upon a full consideration of the facts and circum- 
stances connected with this epidemic there seems to be no 
escape from the conclusion that the Mississippi River was 
poisoned from here to the Gulf of Mexico by cholera in- 
fected sewage in the summer and fall of 1806; that the 
source of that sewage was St. Louis ; that a How of over 
one thousand miles in open channel failed to free those 
waters of perilous risk to human health and life, and that 
this fact should lay forever in its grave the worn-out no- 
tion that water can purify itself of such living elements by 
merely flowing any distance whatsoever—a notion or super- 
stition held by many who should know better, and dating 
from a time when no living thing much less in size than a 
tadpole was recognized as existing in water. 
In the extracts from correspondence accompanying this 
paper mention is made of the eating of raw sugar by the 8 
WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
soldiers while en route to St. Louis as being a possible or 
actual cause of the frightful mortality experienced, espe- 
cially by the detachment on board the Continental. 
That sugar alone could produce such a result is impos- 
sible, else cholera epidemics would occur daily ; but recent 
investigations serve to throw much light on the role sugar 
may have played in this instance. The responsibility of 
the common house fly as the active medium in the infec- 
tion of food substances, and causation of otherwise mys- 
terious outbreaks of cholera, seems well established ; and 
the infection at New Orleans of the sugar carried by the 
Continental, or while en route, may be explained in this 
way, and sufficiently shows the relation of cause and se- 
quence when the partiality of flies for alvine dejecta and 
saccharine substances is borne in mind. 
1 beg to add, as tending to throw additional light on 
the subject matter of this paper, some extracts from the 
correspondence of those who were, more or less, actors in 
this tragical occurrence. They are as follows : 
From a letter from Daniel A. LaForce, M. D., of 
Ottumwa, Iowa, Jate Surgeon Fifty-sixth United States 
Colored Infantry, dated January 26, 1894 : 
“ I was in charge of the United States General Hospital at 
Helena, Ark., in July, 1866, when the Fifty sixth United States 
Colored Infantry received orders to go to Fort Leavenworth, 
Kansas. I had orders to turn over the hospital supplies and 
join the regiment at Fort Leavenworth. 
“ There had been very little sickness in the regiment during 
the spring and summer. The regiment was camped near the 
hospital, and the sick reported to me at the general hospital 
for treatment. The assistant surgeon was on duty at Duvall’s 
Bluff with two companies of the same regiment. 
“ There was no medical officer to accompany the regiment, 
as it was necessary for me to stay long enough to turn over the 
hospital and supplies. The regiment was in good health at the WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
9 
time of leaving. I followed in about three days and found it in 
quarantine near St. Louis. Surgeon Swift, of the regular army, 
was in charge of the camp, and I relieved him. There were 
two young city physicians who volunteered to assist in caring 
for the cholera patients. They were noble, whole-souled, and 
untiring in their efforts to aid us in the care and treatment of 
the cholera patients. Their names were Outten and Quarles. 
“ As stated, the regiment was in the best of health when 
they embarked on the Continental or Platte Valley. We knew 
of no cholera on the boats until it broke out among the troops 
about twelve hours after leaving Helena, and by the time they 
reached Memphis there were about forty cases reported. There 
was no medical officer with the regiment except a hospital 
steward, so Colonel Bentzoni, commanding, employed a physi- 
cian to accompany them to St. Louis. 
“ It was currently reported and believed that the eating of 
the raw sugar by the troops was the cause of the epidemic. 
Four or five hundred of the regiment had the cholera and a 
hundred and seventy-five died at quarantine, to whom a monu- 
ment was erected by the surviving members. The scourge 
abated by the latter part of August, and the regiment was mus- 
tered out of service September 15, 1866.” 
From same, under date of February 2, 1894 : 
“In answer to your inquiry as to tbe source of water used 
by the Fifty-sixth Regiment, United States Colored Infantry, 
at Helena and Duvall’s Bluff, would suv that I did not accom- 
pany the detachment to Duvall's Bluff, consequently am not 
able to state the source of water supply at that place. 
“ At Helena the water was from springs and wells. They 
were kept clean and free from surface water. It was my opin- 
ion that the water was pure. 
“ The regiment was encamped mostly in log barracks erect- 
ed by the soldiers on the east side of a sloping hill with sandy 
loam. They used the water from the same source for about 
two years. Quite a good many of the soldiers died the first 
year of malarial fever and small pox. In the early part of the 
cholera epidemic nearly every one that was attacked died in a 10 
WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
few hours. Later on the disease became less fatal. I remem- 
ber that nearly every soldier in the ranks suffered with an at- 
tack more or less virulent. A hard-fought battle would have 
been a picnic to going through the ordeal of the scourge. I 
think fear caused many of the cases to be fatal among the 
negroes. I saw some cases die in two hours from the appear- 
ance of the first symptoms. They seemed to be in a stage of 
collapse almost from the start. Several officers had the chol- 
era, but only one died, and that was Lieutenant Joe Brooks, 
lie had so far recovered as to be able to be sent home to his 
father, Rev. Joe Brooks, of St. Louis. 
“ Cholera had been reported at New Orleans and some 
other points on the lower Mississippi and at St. Louis shortly 
before the regiment vacated Helena; but up to that time there 
had been no case reported at Helena.” 
From W. B. Outten, M. D., St. Louis, under date of 
January 26, 1894 : 
“ In August, 1866, Colonel Labadie, then Department Pur- 
veyor of the United States Army at this point, solicited I)r. R. 
S. Anderson and myself to attend to a negro regiment which 
was then in transit, and among its numbers cholera had already 
appeared. The St. Louis Quarantine Station on the Iron Moun- 
tain Road, at its present position, protected the Mississippi 
River and prevented any arrivals who were foolish enough to 
come up by the river at that time, and there were not any 
who did come except in this instance a portion of the United 
States Army returning from the South. 
“ Accordingly, I signed a contract and went immediately 
down to quarantine, arriving there in the evening. The ne- 
groes had died so rapidly that they were not encoffined, but 
enshrouded in their blankets and buried at the old quarantine 
graveyard. I continued my work there for two days and two 
nights without any assistance; neither Dr. LaForee nor his as- 
sistant surgeon were on hand. On the third day of my arrival 
I managed to induce Dr. R. A. Quarles, who is now a resident 
of this city, to come down and help me. He and I remained 
with the regiment until the cholera ceased. If I remember WATKR-BORN E CHOLERA. 
11 
correctly, out of a regiment of some seven hundred, in the 
neighborhood of some six hundred or more were affected with 
the disea*e, and in the neighborhood of two hundred died from 
this cause. 
“ There is only one element of success in connection with this 
trouble, and that is in the direction of prevention, and which 
was indulged in in the epidemic at quarantine. Wo had sick 
call night and morning, and, instead of giving medicine to the 
collapsed men, we attended to the furred and coated tongue and 
incipient diarrhoea—that is, kept the well from being sick and 
thus robbed cholera of its material, and at the end of ten days 
no new case of cholera presented itself.” 
From Major Charles Bentzoni, United States Army, late 
Colonel Commanding Fifty-sixth United States Colored In- 
fantry, dated February 27, 1894 : 
“The troops on the Continental had been stationed at Du- 
vall’s Bluff on the White River. I think they came down the 
river on another boat and were transferred to the Continental. 
Both the Continental and the Platte Valley came from New Or- 
leans, where cholera had been epidemic for some time. There 
were rumors that cases had occurred on one or both the vessels, 
hut I had neither time nor opportunity to make inquiry. The 
troops on the Platte Valley, on which boat I was, had been 
stationod at Helena. Aside from malarial affections, there was 
no sickness in the command at the time of embarkation. It 
is true that officers at the time laid much stress on the fact 
that men on the Continental had been eating raw sugar in great 
quantities; but there was no such cause on the Platte Valley. 
As to the probability of being infected by the water, I call your 
attention to the fact that the Continental, after only a ten hours’ 
run with the troops aboard, left the first case dying on the 
wharf at Memphis; and on the Platte Valley 1 buried the first 
case about fifty miles above Memphis. This is a very great dis- 
tance from the supposed source of infection. In short, I believe 
both boats were infected at New Orleans. 
“ I engaged a Dr. Perkins at Cairo,’and he had charge of the 
sick on the Platte Valley until we reached St. Louis.” 12 
WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
From James Sykes, M. P., of Beverly, 111., late Assistant 
Surgeon, Fifty-sixth United States Colored Infantry, dated 
April 2, 1894 : 
“ About the 1st of April, 1866, the second battalion of the 
regiment, consisting of Companies 11, D, E, G, and K, were or- 
dered to Duvall’s Bluff, on the White River, in Arkansas, with 
myself as medical officer in charge. The command enjoyed ex- 
cellent health till we were ordered to St. Louis, Mo., about the 
1st of August, when the battalion rejoined the regimental head- 
quarters at Helena, Ark. We had a few sick at that time—I 
think about eight or ten—but there was nothing peculiar about 
their sickness, I being left with them. Two weeks later they 
had all recovered sufficiently to travel, and I went by boat to 
Helena with them. A few days before we left Duvall’s Bluff— 
say, about the 8th or 10th of August—there occurred two or 
three cases among the citizens that were strongly suspected to 
be cholera, and, from my subsequent experience with cholera, I 
am now satisfied they were genuine Asiatic cholera. I think 
these cases were still sick when we left, as I have no recollec- 
tion how they ended. At that time cholera was prevailing along 
the river towns and on the boats. The troops at Duvall’s Bluff 
used river water, which at that time was very clear, but hot. 
On our arrival at Helena we found the regiment gone to St. 
Louis, leaving on two boats. There had been a few cases of 
cholera at Helena when we arrived, and I think some of them 
occurred before the troops left. So I think it entirely probable 
that they had the microbes with them when they went on 
board. From the officers with the troops I learned at the time 
that most of the cases occurred on one boat. I think Surgeon 
La Force was with one boat, but I forget which one. They in- 
formed me that several cases occurred before the most infected 
boat reached Cairo, where the colonel took on two citizen 
doctors. 
“ I was informed at the time that the most infected boat had 
a quantity of raw sugar going to the refineries, and that the 
soldiers, being on the boiler deck, burst open several hogsheads 
of it, and ate as only colored men can. My own theory is that 
the soldiers either took the cholera microbes from Helena or WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
13 
else they were already on the boat, and then, gorging themselves 
with raw' sugar, allowed the pestilence to get in its deadly work. 
The fact that but very few officers took the disease at all, and 
they in a light form, would seem to indicate that it was some- 
thing in the diet, rather than the water, as all used river water 
alike. But one officer died (Lieutenant Brooks), and he from a 
relapse occurring after he had recovered so far as to take a 
leave of absence to visit his family living in St. Louis. After the 
troops arrived at St. Louis they were removed to quarantine, and 
the cholera became general among all the companies. The above 
is from memory, and while I doubtless have forgotten some facts, 
the narrative is substantially correct.” 
From George M. Sternberg, Surgeon General, United 
States Army, under date of March 7, 1894 : 
“ In connection with your reference to mortality from cholera 
in your letter of January 26, 1894, I desire to invite your atten- 
tion to an extract from a report of Major-General Macomb, 
given on page 81 of Forry’s Medical Statistics, United States 
Army, Washington, 1840, as follows: 
*• k()f the six companies of artillery which left Fort Monroe, 
five companies arrived at Chicago in the short space of eighteen 
days. . . . The loss by cholera in that detachment alone was 
equal to one out of every three men.1 ” 
Note.—Since the foregoing was written the subjoined 
statement, under date January 17, 1895, has been received 
from Captain J. M. Thomas, who commanded the detach- 
ment on board the Continental, and which presents such a 
vivid picture of pestilential ravages—which, it is hoped, 
could never again occur in this country—that it is given 
nearly in full. The account is as follows: 
“Replying to your request for information in detail con- 
cerning the cholera epidemic of 1866, and especially as it affect- 
ed the Fifty-sixth United States Colored Infantry, will say: 1. 
The health of the detachment at Duvall’s Bluff during our stay 
there was very good. 2. We left there about the last of July 14 
WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
to rejoin our regiment at Helena, Ark.; the name of the boat 
carrying us T do not now remember, but I considered its sani- 
tary condition good. 3. When we embarked for Omaha, Neb., 
on the steamer Continental, August 10th, no cholera was known 
to exist along the Mississippi Kiver at any point either above or 
below Helena. 4. The health of the passengers on the Conti- 
nental was good and the sanitary condition excellent. 5. She 
was from New Orleans en route to St. Louis, and carried about 
thirty passengers. 
“I will state that, on the 9th day of August, while at Helena, 
one of my men was taken violently ill and in a few hours died. 
The doctor certified his death to be caused by ‘ congestive chill,’ 
but I must say the symptoms were identical with many others 
who afterward died and were called cholera deaths. 
“ We left Helena on the 10th of August with orders to re- 
port to the commanding officer at Omaha, Neb. At that time 
the health of the command was good. We had not gone far 
when an officer of one of the companies reported to me that 
one of his men was very sick and, he feared, was going to die. 
I directed that he should be sent to the military hospital at 
Memphis, Tenn., when we reached that point, which was done. 
I afterward learned that the soldier died. Next day, the 11th, 
many more were taken sick, and we began to realize that we 
had cholera with us in all its violence. The crew and passen- 
gers became panic-stricken, and for a time it seemed as if abject 
terror had taken possession of all on board; men prayed who 
never prayed before, pleadiDg with their Maker to stay the pes- 
tilence. On our arrival at Cairo, 111., three of our men were 
dead, and fully one hundred very sick. W7e called on the 
Mayor of that city to bury them, but he refused, saying, ‘You 
have cholera on board your boat, and I want you to leave this 
city at once,’ and slammed the door shut. Having no medi- 
cines or doctor on board, l tried to hire a physician to go with 
us to St. Louis, but none could be induced to take their chances 
on a floating pesthouse, as our vessel was at that time. Wre 
went to a drug store and purchased forty dollars’ worth of 
cholera mixture, and returned to the boat and found that four 
others had died while we were away. WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
15 
“ After leaving Cairo I directed Captain O. It. Sensibaugh, 
my next officer, to land at some convenient point as soon as pos- 
sible and bury the dead, retiring to my stateroom for much- 
needed rest, not having slept one moment since leaving Helena. 
“ About eight o’clock in the morning Captain Sensibaugh 
came to me and informed me that my orders had been obeyed, 
and that he had buried twenty-one men and one woman (a sol- 
dier’s wife). 
“ About 5 p. m. we made a landing on a small island 
thickly timbered and buried twenty-one men and one woman, 
also a soldier’s wife. On the morning of the 13th, as we neared 
•Jefferson Barracks, we landed on the Missouri side for the pur- 
pose of burying ten men who had died during the night. One 
of the men, who assisted in carrying off the first body, on re- 
turning to the boat was taken violently sick, falling full length 
as if struck with a hand-spike, and was dead before the others 
were buried, and was carried off and laid beside them, increas- 
ing the number to eleven, making a total of fifty-three men be- 
longing to our command and two women, soldiers’ wives, buried 
between C'airo and St. Louis, all in the space of thirty hours. 
“ Arriving at Jefferson Barracks, I went to the telegraph office 
for a reply to my dispatch previously sent to General Sherman, 
but found no answer; therefore we were compelled to proceed 
to St. Louis. Upon our arrival at the wharf 1 directed Captain 
Washington to anchor in midstream while I reported to Gen- 
eral Sherman for orders. 1 immediately repaired to head- 
quarters, only to learn that he was in Nebraska, and my mes- 
sage had been forwarded, but no reply had been received, and 
no one at the general’s headquarters would assume the respon- 
sibility of sending us to quarantine, as requested. We were 
thus compelled to wait until about 4 p. m. before the order came, 
as follows: 
“‘If Captain Thomas, commanding detachment Fifth-sixth 
United States Colored Infantry, has cholera on board, send them 
to quarantine. Sherman, General.' 
“Colonel Swift, United States Medical Department, had an- 
ticipated the order and was already at quarantine, having pro- 
ceeded by rail, and had hospital tents up and ready to receive 16 
WATER-BORNE CHOLERA. 
our sick as soon as we should land. He was accompanied by 
Dr. W. B. Outten (now chief surgeon, Missouri Pacific Railroad), 
and Dr. Quarles, of your city. After leaving General Sherman’s 
headquarters, accompanied by Mayor J. S. Thomas and Captain 
(afterward Mayor) Joseph Brown, we were conveyed out to the 
steamer Continental with its awful cargo of human freight. 
When we landed at quarantine twenty-eight dead soldiers were 
carried off the boat, besides more than two hundred sick ones. 
‘‘Colonel B. L. E. Bonneville. United States Army, com- 
manding at Jefferson Barracks, kindly sent a detail each day to- 
bury our dead, for we had not men enough to attend to it. 
Our total loss was one hundred and eighty-four enlisted men 
and one officer—First Lieutenant Joseph Brooks, Jr. 
“Colonel Bentzoni, with the remainder of the regiment, 
came in on the next boat and camped near us, and a day or two 
later we were joined by Major Wells and Dr. Sykes, our assist- 
ant surgeon, both of whom had been absent on leave. 
“ It was said our sickness was caused by eating unrefined 
sugar, with which our boat was loaded; but I do not believe our 
ills could be laid to that charge, for thousands died in St. Louis 
and other places all over this country who never tasted raw 
sugar, and, besides, a very few of the men had eaten of the sugar 
at all. 
“ The commissioned officers suffered very little inconven- 
ience from the effects of the epidemic; most of us lived, as near 
as possible, the same as before. I had it quite severely, but at- 
tributed it to my having lost so much rest while attending to- 
the needs of others, my sickness occurring several days after 
reaching quarantine. 
“I had then served in the volunteer service of the United 
States for more than five years, had endured the usual hard- 
ships of camp life, and am free to say that I would gladly have 
served it all over again rather than pass through those scenes, 
again, and witness the horrors of another cholera epidemic such 
as I did in the year of our Lord 1806.”