well. good evening, everyone. thank you for joining us and welcome to anderson house here in washington, d.c.. my name is andrew brown and i'm the historical programs manager for the american revolution institute of the society of the cincinnati. the american revolution institute promotes knowledge and appreciation for the achievement of american independence, fulfilling the aim of the continental army officers who founded the society of the cincinnati in 1783 to perpetuate the memory of that vast event. in addition to this evening's program, the institute fulfills this mission by supporting advanced study exhibitions and other historical programs and tours, advocating historic preservation and providing

resource ideas to classrooms nationwide that benefit teachers, students and scholars alike. since since 1938, the society of the cincinnati has done all of this work from right here at its headquarters, anderson house, a national historic landmark that was completed in 1905 as the winter residence of lars and isabel anderson. tonight's authors talk a program made possible in part by a generous gift from the massachusetts arts society to the cincinnati features. professor andrew wehrman discussing his recently published book, the contagion of liberty the politics of smallpox in the american revolution. with the smallpox epidemic raging during the revolutionary war, general george washington was forced to order the mandatory inoculation of the continental army. washington, however, did not have to convince fearful colonists to protect themselves against smallpox, as they were the ones demanding. tonight, professor warman offers a new dimension to our understanding of both the american revolution and the origins of public health in the

united states. through a discussion of how inoculation became one of the most sought after medical procedures of the 18th century, and how freedom from disease ultimately helped american colonists achieve independence from great britain. andrew wehrman is an associate professor of history at central michigan university. he received his ph.d. from northwestern university and has previously taught at marietta college in ohio. his research and teaching focuses on colonial, revolutionary america and the history of medicine, disease and public health. in addition to his newest book on which he will focus tonight on tonight, he has written several articles for the washington post, the boston globe and the new england quarterly for which he was awarded the walter muir whitehill prize in early american history, an annual award given for a distinguished essay in early american history. his new book has received has beeneviewed and received high praises from other well-known historians on the subject of 18th century medicine, including

gene abrams and the pulitzer prize winner and former society of the cincinnati book prize honoree elizabeth fenn. so with all of these asked accolades and without further delay, please join me in welcoming to anderson house professor andrew wehrman. wow. thank you for that. welcome. andrew. thank you to everyone at the society of the cincinnati and the american revolution institute for inviting me to come and speak. it's such a wonderful place and great time to be in washington. i'm thankful for everyone who put this together. now, when i told my kids to kids, charles and walter, 11 and

eight years old, when i told them that i would be speaking in washington, d.c., this is the first book talk that i've given. the book came out a week ago. it's it's ink still wet and when i told my kids that i'd be going to washington and giving a talk, they're very excited. and my son charles asked me and he said, hey, dad, do you think president biden might be might come to your talk? and i said, how? probably not. he's busy. you know, he just signed a bill today and at the white house. but i said no. i'm sure he'd be interested in the topic, but he's probably too busy and my son looked at me with a smile and he said, so it'll probably just be kamala harris then. so i'm told. do you see crowds arrive a little late, so leave a couple seats open just in case the vice president arrives. so as andrew said and he introduced, introduce my book. very well. i thought my book, the contagion

of liberty, argues that the man before inoculation not anger against inoculation, not anti inoculation but mand pro inoculation for quarantine and for other public solutions during smallpox epidemic. infected revolutionary politics in inspired riots over equal access and change. the way americans thought about and understood the their government's response ability to protect their health. now i'm going to talk today. i'll give a kind of general overview of my book, but i'm going to zoom in on washington's decision to inoculate the continental army. it's something that has come up a lot recently. when i started writing the book, i did not know that it would have topical interest.

it was sort of distress saying that that it did. i thought it was maybe an esoteric topic when i started researching it. a 12 or 15 years ago, it was a originated as a as a dissertation topic that i've developed over the years and kept finding more evidence and examples. let's it's going here. i started the research in the project simply by wanting to know more about how ordinary americans experienced the revolution. it wasn't about smallpox at first. i wanted to know how ordinary people navigated the tensions, how they how they felt when they were listening to debates and town meetings. and i really wanted to know how regular people, blacksmiths, sailors, how they felt, how they acted during these debates.

and it's a it's a subject that scholars always strive for. many of them do, but it's hard to achieve. you know, our our ordinary people reading john locke, are they reading montesquieu? are they are they reading lawyerly pamphlets? i don't think so. so what's getting them angry? what are they interested in? and so i came upon a diary written by a sailor from marblehead, massachusetts, a town that i hadn't heard of before. but it turns out it was the second largest city in massachusetts after boston at the time of the revolution. and this ordinary sailor named ashley baldwin kept a voluminous diary. he kept he wrote entries in it every day, beginning in 1766 into the 17th nineties. and i thought, great, here's here's my view of the revolution from an ordinary person. so i was in the library. there's a, there's a published version of the diary you could even read it online if you

google it. and i said, okay, i want to see what he thinks about the stamp act, the tea act, sugar act. i want to, you know, see the things that are in all the textbooks about what people were angry about, about the revolution. ashley baldwin doesn't write about any of those things. at least not much. instead, day after day, beginning in the fall of 1773, the same time boston is having debates over tea. he was writing down the names of his neighbors who had fallen sick to smallpox. he was writing down the names of of the people who had who had died. his wife and son get sick. they have to go to the town's pest house. when when people die in his community. it was ashley bowen who had had smallpox previously who volunteered to bury the bodies. he was seething in anger about a

new private hospital that would inulate people in his town. but he wasn't angry about ocate asian. he wasn't angry. he didn'thk it was ineffective or some. he didn't think it was it was playing god that was against his religion. hea't worried about side effects. he wanted access to it, but he couldn't afford it. the new hospital was terribly expensive and so in his journal, he's writing about this all the time. he composes poems about the outbreak of smallpox. he paints a watercolor of the hospital that was built to stop it. this one. and if you go to marblehead, massachusetts,ouan see it for yourself. the actual watercolor is really tiny. it's on le a three by five card size blow it up here and he describes this episode in marblehead, where angry sailors like himself who were angry about the cost of

inoculation, not its efficacy, went out to this hospital and burned to the ground. then i discovered that there were these debates happening in other towns, other communities in the run up to the revolution, and a story that i thought hadn't been fully told. but we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. let's talk about smallpox. let's do a little science. i took microbiology in college. we can we can do this. a little bit of smallpox basics. now, smallpox is a viral disease. we can use the past tense, actually, and say it was a viral disease because, of course, it's been eradicated. since 1980. officially, colonial americans called smallpox the king of terrors or the sovereign disorder. at the same time that they were angry about the king in england, smallpox was the most feared disease in an age that had a lot

of disease. smallpox virus also called very over officially ravages the body. it starts off. it has a long incubation period. so if you're near someone that has smallpox, it might take about seven days before you start feeling sick and conveniently before you start being infectious. the pox don't start first. first, it's a fever, a really high fever. backaches, terrible pain, chills, shakes and about a day after that fever begins, the pox starts rising first in the mouth and the throat on the tongue. they start burst, start rising past nerve vessels. really painful for on the face and the hands, the extremities. it could cover the entire body. survivors were fortunate, but

they were left with scars and pitted skin. in the 18th century, smallpox epidemics had around a 15 to 20% more tabloidy rate, sometimes higher. it was much higher among native american population. asians earlier in the century, sometimes 50% or greater. the only salvation that we have was smallpox. and you can see it's a big virus, not quite as big as our friend ebola here, but a big virus scientist often describe it as a brick shaped virus. the body recognizes it pretty easily after it comes into contact the first time. so if you survive smallpox, you were immune for life and you can see the kind of relative size as here's a a corona virus, right. for in comparison to some other

smaller guys. in europe and the americas were the last places to experience smallpox epidemics in the 16th and 17th centuries. and the last to learn about how to prevent it. inoculation. the europeans would try to tell you they were the first to really discover. and of course, they were the they were the last. let's be honest. now, you may know this story, but before i get into it, inoculation, what we're talking about tonight is a precursor to vaccination. vaccination that is not widely known about certainly not known about by europeans until edward jenner publishes his study of of cowpox inoculation. that's vaccination in 1798 so. well after the revolution inoculation is the precursor or it is the purpose for exposure

of oneself to smallpox via a small incision, usually in the in the arm, sometimes both arms, just to make sure it took a tiny amount of smallpox matters gross bit right taken from the pus of a smallpox pustules the little bit would be rubbed or dropped into a tiny scratch of an incision and then bandaged up within a few days. that fever would start. you'd start getting a few pox, but it would be a mild case compared to natural for smallpox. the mortality rate of inoculation turned out to be far lower. now, inoculation. this process had been known about in india and africa and the middle east. turkey for centuries, beginning

around 1700 reports of inoculation started being printed by the royal society in london. reports from china, greece and turkey. but this isn't how. americans first learned of it. you may know the story of smallpox in 1721, and that's where my book really begins. we could do a whole talk on just this episode, but cotton mather wrote to the royal society after they had published some of these reports about inoculation and said, oh, that's not the place at i have heard aut inoculation. i've heard about it before. i heard about it from my slave name on this thomas and cotton mather told the story atome point afr being given an islamist as a as a slave, as a gift from his congregation down there in boston. what a gift to the human, mather

asked, only imus if he had ever had smallpox before, and omniscience was must have been very clever and innocent. i said. well, yes and no, and then describes the experience. right. he had had smallpox via inoculation, and he said it was an unknown procedure for where he came from. mather tried to get others in boston. he prints it in the newspapers, tries to get others in boston to use inoculation during an outbreak of smallpox. he only manages to convince one doctor in boston to do it. doctors abdul boylston. boylston inoculates first members of his family, then then some 200 people. and in the aftermath, it turns out that the inoculated patients fared much better than those who had the disease. naturally. now, this was controversial. there are debates and heated

arguments, even a bomb thrown into cotton mather's window. but over time, during subsequent outbreaks and i talk about outbreaks in different places in in my book confidence grew in that procedure. now george washington right are subject for today often when you hear about smallpox in this period maybe don't read about it as much as i do but often things jump from. mather 1721. the onus this story to washington inoculating the troops. a lot happens in between but we're going to do the jump also now, historians have long known about washington's decision to inoculate the continental army. now, the very first historians, the ones who wrote some of the first histories on the american revolution, didn't mention washington's inoculation of the

troops. it only came out about 50 years after the revolution. people started writing about it among those was parson weems of the cherry tree story. he writes about washington and inoculation, as does the chief justice of the supreme court, john marshall, who writes a biography of of of washington. however, washington exaggerates a bit, and there's a little bit of exaggeration in in almost all accounts of washington's inoculation, othe troops. and sometimes when you read about what happened, it ends up sounding like john marshall. marshall said inoculation having raly been practiced in the western world by the genel washington determineto inoculate all the soldiers in the american in serce. of course, inoculation had been pretty widely practid, not just in the western world, but in the colonies. and we're going to get to that

in a moment. mo recent scholars have started tonclude smallpox in their histories, but almost always they give washington the li's share of the credit. and as we're going to discuss tonight, washington was one of the last people to want to inoculate the continental army. there was a surge of pressure from ordinary soldiers, from officers, from doctors. from his own wife, martha, in favor of inoculation. the demand started the lowest ranks and communities across the colonies up to colonial governments. eventually, washington submits and i'll show you. so having rarely been practice in the western world, it may surprise you that supreme court

justices and chief justices aren't always accurate right now. so this is just boston, right? boston has the publishes the statistics in their newspapers. they they send out their their government, their selectmen, to to knock on doors, to take the numbers after it's over. they keep pretty careful records. are these numbers total the exact what we know from our own covid counts and things that that exactness is is relative. so these even though they seem really precise they're they're still ballpark ballpark figures. there's no quiz. don't try to memorize the numbers. but i want you to kind of see the pattern that's developing over the decades. the numbers make clear that inoculation was far safer than getting infected naturally by 79. so starting in in 1721, so on the left, you've got natural smallpox getting the disease,

natural cases, the number of people who catch it naturally and the number of people who die from it on the right, the number of people who are inoculated, who choose to be inoculated, and the number of people who die from or as a result of their inoculations. so 17, 21 the epidemic had a 14.6% case fatality rates, 842 people die almost 6000 bostonians catch two disease, boylston. the experiment is relatively small, but only six die of his 287. and they're doing these percentages. they're talking about them, writing about them. benjamin franklin publishes them down in in philadelphia, especially after the 1730 epidemic. more and more evidence is is is is coming inoculations are being more successful. the people who die from inoculation tend to be very

young children, babies and the elderly. the soldier age people who are soldiers in the continental army, teenage ers survive it very well. there's tremendous demand from young adults for innocuous. and you can see by 1764, most bostonian boys are demanding and receiving inoculate. and there's a general inoculate. and in boston in 1764, the entire town shuts down. they shut down trade, shut down commerce. so the whole community can be innocuous. they sit together. the trouble with inoculation and the reason why you have to do it all at once is because after your inoculate, your infectious, you're infectious for 3 to 4 weeks and you can spread natural smallpox to others during that time. so if you wanted to get inoculated, you couldn't return

home. you might spread it to your to your children, to your neighbors. so they would create, isolate in hospitals, quarantine hospitals or pest houses all all the same kind of thing for people to to recover in. now, think about how many people not only would be able to afford hiring a doctor to inoculate them, which was an expensive procedure itself but could afford the four weeks away from work to while away the hours in an inoculation hospital. not very many. so demand is growing, but the expense is extraordinary. so boston solution is to shut down the whole town. nobody's missing work. everything is shut down. we'll all inoculate at once and we'll pay for the inoculations of the poor. so boston is a real pioneer in these mass inoculations, but they do it in charleston. they do it in other places as well. now, contrary to being rare in

the western world, we can keep picking on marshall for a bit. this is a map from from my book, my friend dr. matthew young from marietta college made the maps that are in my book. each of the dots is a site of inoculation and inoculation hospital or a place where these general inoculations took place before george washington gave his order. each of the the doctors before washington's order in. february 1777. so you can see it was pretty common in new england. most of the soldiers in the northern part of the continental army came from communities where debates were happening about smallpox demand was growing. most average soldiers didn't didn't get inoculated, but they wanted it. it was growing. imagine having a cure for cancer. it's just takes a month of your time and you'll never have it

the rest of your life. right? the demand was intense moving into the decades of decade of the revolution. george washington. john, of course, was not from new england. he was not from boston. he was from virginia. and both smallpox talks and inoculation were far less common in virginia. smallpox did its damage in cities and towns. and virginia was rural, highly populated, but mostly rural. and smallpox spread less easily there. now, that doesn't mean that virginians were unfamiliar with the disease or they were unfamiliar with inoculation, and they were reading about it, too. they knew that it worked, but it was rare. so george washington had never experienced a town meeting where they're debating whether or not to have a general inoculate. and he's never been in a meeting

where they're deciding whether to build their hospital or not because they don't have that in virginia, when thomas jefferson wanted to get inoculated because he was going to be doing some traveling, he had to go to philadelphia to be inoculated. most wealthy virginians in the in the 1760s and 1770s were going to maryland or philadelphia or even even london to be inoculated. didn't much happen in in virginia. washington, of course, was familiar with the disease, smallpox case because he was infected with it as a teenager in 1751. he and his brother lawrence went to barbados. the only time washington left the 13 colonies left because lawrence wasn't feeling well, thought that the sea air and the caribbean climate would be good for him. ironically, in this process,

washington in bridgetown, barbados succumbs to smallpox, he reports in a diary that he kept as being strongly attacked with the smallpox. and then he doesn't write in his diary for for a month. so it must have been a serious case. and the disease scarred and pitted washington's skin. we know he was sensitive about his appearance. he didn't really like sitting for portraits, the portraits that he did like were keen to put their subjects in the best possible light. so, you know, we don't really know what smallpox did to washington's face. there's a portrait of of of washington behind me, where he's got smooth skin. the one painting that exists where he's got anything but a baby face is this one. you can see this in alexandria at the masonic national memorial

there in alexandria. and you can't see it very well. it's still well hidden. he sat for this portrait, i think, over a dozen times before he would approve it. and this was for private eyes. it was just for the masons in alexandria. so he felt a little bit better about it. and again, you can't quite see it, but you can see a little bit of of of what looks kind of like freckle laying across the bridge of his nose, maybe a bit on this on his forehead here. there was a mole down here under his ear. and then there's an unrelated abscess on his other other cheek. so washington well understood the damage that smallpox could cause, but he did survive if he hadn't been inoculated. and he survived as a as a teenager. this is undoubtedly one of the reasons why it took so long for washington to decide to inoculate his soldiers. often historians don't really

interrogate why it took him. two years, he inoculates the soldiers. in 1777 to decide to do it, and it's partially because he endured it as a teenager. for one, he knew it was important to keep smallpox out. but if he thought the soldiers did get it, they could be isolated. they could survive it. and he just wasn't that with inoculation, how safe it was becoming, how much people, especially in in new england, were clamoring for it, demanding it, how much that demand had grown. so when george washington arrived outside of boston in july 1775 to take over command of the continental army, the plans to combat smallpox had already been set by leaders in massachusetts. so it had long known how to prepare during a smallpox epidemic or to prevent one. the massachusetts government,

along with the officers leading the militias outside boston, had been dealing with smallpox outbreaks for decade. aids and very specifically had been worried about outbreaks within boston. outside boston, since before the lexington and concord. they assumed that british soldiers who were captured following lexington and concord were infectious. they separated them into quarantine hospitals as they prepared quarantine hospitals as a more likely chance that american soldiers would catch to the disease. and it seemed to be working so well. these quarantines in and around boston that the soldiers themselves were forbidden to inoculate. those were the rules are usually in new england and in boston. you weren't allowed to inoculate unless an epidemic was declared,

unless it got really bad, unless there were in boston, unless there were reported cases, no was allowed to inoculate because again, inoculate could spread the disease to others. why do it? unless we know it's a certainty that smallpox is going to spread, the bostonians, the people, the massachusetts did really well. in 1775, keeping smallpox out of this was a policy th washington inherited as he came the continental army.general of and he continues it. he takes smallpox serious, certainly in terms of enforcing these quarantines, but almost everyone knew that having soldiers encamped together for long periods meant that smallpox might eventually break out, and especially when troops were on the move, regulations started breaking down quickly. and that was especially the case in canada and new england.

soldiers. northern department of the continental army launched an invasion of canada in the fall of 1775. these soldiers who went there, by and large, had not had smallpox before, had not been inoculated, and during an assault on quebec in the winter of 75, in 76, smallpox began to ravage the american soldiers. in a horrifying scene in the society of the cincinnati exhibit out front or diary is from soldiers in in canada. it's terrible smallpox evaded all quarantine efforts infected hundreds and then thousands of troops desperate it soldiers who had been longing, reading about it, inoculation themselves, wanting it for themselves, started secretly inoculating to protect themselves, which only further spread the disease. so orders were given that it

would be death to anyone who inoculated. but the soldiers thought just being part of this army is almost a death sentence. they did it anyway. even before news of smallpox infected soldiers in canada reached most americans, many were already calling for washington and for local governments to launch mass inoculations of americans. we've done it in boston before. why aren't we inoculating the continental army now? and those voices only became louder once reports started coming in from canada washington's own surgeon general, dr. john morgan torched washington in pamphlet published inpr 1776. so almost a year before washington gives the order, his sueon genal is, astounded by shington's decision not to

inoculated the soldiers. washington had had the opportunity to dsomorgan thought wle soldiers were encamped outside boston, they thought he could have inoculated new recruits at any time. they joined the army, but he hadn't. morgan thohthat he had uandered time. general gage, the british general, had inoculations to take place of his soldiers and of the civilians in boston. but washington didn't do the same, despite knowing that that's what the british were doing. at the same time, morgan wrote a couple of good quotes here. morgan wrote next to l jy ambition and the pride of kings. this appears to be the severe a scrge that ever afflicted the unhappy race of man. and he wrote to specifically aimed at washington to forbid inoculation when thu circumstance is a greater violation of the natural rights of mankind to achieve

self-preservation. he goeono write in that little ellipses there, and he says, how wise is it? then in every community whe there was a danger of spreading the disease to provide for the fe of itsemrs by rendering the practice of inoculation as universal as possible? morgan publishes this. in april 1776, the rhode island colony opens inoculation hospitals there in 76, and they send the letter to congress, calling on them to inoculate the troops, but instead, washington doubles down on forbidding the practice. washington thought that inoculation was the cause of the epidemic. he thought the british were using it as a weapon against americans. he mistrusted doctors who were using it and he had reason to.

one of his earliest his earliest surgeon general was a man named benjamin church, who turned out to be a spy for the british, though he just wasn't sure that it would work. he also wasn't sure it would work logistically. he thought the soldiers could keep and that they could get by with healthy diets and and good hygiene, good discipline. washington even applauded the jailing of an inoculation named azer betz, who you'll meet if you read my book and washington made it army policy to give quote the severest punishment to any soldier and circulating and to not only discharge any officer inoculating, but to actually publish their names in the newspapers as enemies and traitors to the country. this is in the summer of 1776.

washington is saying to inoculate is to be a traitor to the nation. now washington understands what inoculation is, but he's fuzzy about it. at nearly the same that washington is taking this really hard line stance. he receives news from two of the people that he trusts the most. one was his own wife, martha washington. his wife, martha washington knew that smallpox was a risk if she visited her husband in camp with the army there. so she took it upon herself off to be inoculated in philadelphia washington, wrote to his brother, but he doubted that martha would actually go through with it. he said that he doubted her resolution, but she does it anyway. john hancock actually offered to have martha inoculated where he

was staying at his house in philadelphia. but martha went her own way and was inoculated at the house of a cabinet maker named benjamin randolph. and after martha is inoculated, after she goes through successfully and recovers, washington stamps on inoculation begins to soften and a bit. for the first time, he actually uses the word inoculation in his letters. after martha's inoculation, he usually calls it taking the smallpox right, making it almost equivalent to getting infected naturally starts using the word. he almost always spells it wrong, but he starts using the word everybody spells it wrong. that sounded like a knock on washington. it's not really. maybe a little bit in massachusetts. washington's general general, artemus ward, who had led the troops in massachusetts before washington, took command, informed washington that his soldiers there in massachusetts

were demanding inoculation and artemus ward said that he thought he had a right to provide it to him, to them when they were such, when they were demanding it. washington didn't know what to think. he knew that he couldn't very well stop ward, who's in massachusetts while washington's in new jersey, stop him from doing it. so washington decided against punishing ward. quietly allowed ward to inoculate his soldiers without telling his other officers that it's happening, telling them that this is already violating that policy, that washington has announced. so they were ready amounts that are already inoculating anyway, despite washington now, washington was trying to keep his army together in the fall of 1776. new york has fallen. the british army had had had a

series of devastating victories as washington is retreating into new jersey, retreating more into pennsylvania and that war in new jersey, a lot of fighting in the revolution in new jersey, that fighting in new jersey forced a new medical adviser into washington's inner circle. so washington's already getting softer. you can't really do much during these really active campaigns. but that doctor who comes in. the washington circle is named dr. john cochrane. his portrait is there. cochrane was one of the leading inoculatn in the colonies. he advertised in newspapers, had inoculated thoands of of of patients, was one of the most well-known well binoculars had done mass inoculations. and along with william shippen, o was a professor at will become the university of pennsylvania professor of surgery. they were constantly in

washington's ear telling him we can inoculate cochrane saying i've inoculated large nbers. we can do it. it won't spread the disease. we can do it quily and easil in washington. starts softening, especially after the victories at trenton, princeton in january 1777. washington is stillondering about the logistics, how they will pull it off if they have enough clothing and bedding to it. ultimately, washington realized that his recruitment numbers we low. soldiers were staying away because of the fear of smallpox. the soldiers were demanding it. his advisersere confident it would work, and washington changed his mind. this is what we don't give george washington enough credit for. it's not only that he ordered the inoculation of the troops, but he was steadfast against it and changed his mind. he orders that all the soldiers on february six, 1777, that all

the soldiers in the continental army should be inoculated at once. the medical ordered or a inoculation facilities across the colonies in philadelphia and bethlehem. in pennsylvania, fishkill, peekskill, taken droga in new york. three hospitals in connecticut. another outside boston. recruits from the south would be inoculated at dumfries or alexander area in virginia or right where we are, right near where we sit in georgetown, maryland. one soldier recalled hundreds. a soldier from north carolina recalled hundreds of his fellow soldiers being inoculated, quote, where washington city now stands. in morristown, new jersey, where washington and the majority of the continental army were camped. he made a deal with the local population. local population wasn't so sure about having all these soldiers inoculating. won't that spread disease to our

town? washington made a deal that if they allowed the soldiers to inoculate, he would provide free inoculations for anyone in the town who opened up their homes, churches and businesses to the soldiers that he would inoculate them for free. remember, this is a considerable expense. so soldiers and civilians inoculated together in morristown. very few soldiers. so this was a remarkable success. the inoculations of the continental army. numbers are hard to figure. one estimate is that some 40,000 soldiers may have gone through inoculation during the course of the war. they survived it. they earned a lifetime immunity. not one soldier. is there a record of refusing? no one said it was against you know, a washington's power, that it was any kind of violation of liberty. if anybody knows liberty, it's these people, right? they did it. very few soldiers died well

under 1%. it was a momentous decision and important to remember that it was a decision that stemmed not from washington's deeply held convictions, but one that came from listening learning and change in his mind. shouldn't we all hope for the same from our own leaders. that's morristown, right? wolf portrait. we're soldiers and civilians inoculated together. to washington's great credit. after he ordered the inoculation of the troops, he never again wavered. he became a proud evangelist for inoculation, encouraging it to all those officers, inoculating his whole household, all of his enslaved people in mount vernon, where other slave owners not inoculate all of their slaves. washington did. he wrote that he shuddered to

think about how hard it was keeping smallpox out through alone. how well inoculation worked. he announced in a private letter in the summer of 1777, after the successes he's having with soldier inoculate us that he hoped virginia would pass a law compelled families forcing families to their children under penalties if they didn't do it. now. i took a walk this morning. right. i was here early, took a walk down towards the white house, took a view of the washington monument, and was thinking about this talk that i was going to give about washington. washington's decision to inoculate the army. i took a selfie with didn't show that wouldn't win. i'm not great itself, but i looked at the washington man woman in the courage me for the first time this morning. what the washington looks like

at least to me. i don't know if you've thought about it. folks who live in washington, but it doesn't look like george washington at all. and it's just point the obelisk right? to me, it looks like a lancet. the instrument that was used to inoculate the troops of the continental army. i've got these are actually dr. edward jenner's lance that's here. they use they didn't have hypodermic needles back then, so they would use a lancet to make a small incision and i think maybe folks are listening to this or watching it. it's a good way to think about the washington monument, not only was he a commanding general, the continental army, the first president, but it protected the soldiers and the people of the united states, set a precedent that the government has a duty to protect public health established from the very

that inoculation vaccination are patriot acts in the united states. so that's where i'll stop. i'm happy to answer questions. any aspect of the talk, any part of the book that you would like? thank you. a little bit about the use of smallpox as bioweapon in that time period. i think they gave blankets to the indians during the french and indian war. did that occur during the revolution at all? yeah. so i get into some of that in my book, there were there were rumors about using smallpox as a weapon. it's important to realize that while colonial americans did understand that smallpox was

transmissible, it was contagious they didn't really know how it spread. it spread similar to covid through to water vapor, leaving your mouth. it didn't spread all that well on surfaces, but colonial americans thought it did. so that's where you get the the giving blankets to native americans during the french and indian war. did that have the genocide idol effect that was intended? perhaps not. there was smallpox all around. it's hard to trace that, but we can look at that and say that they wanted to. right. they were cheering for smallpox. as it spread, the native populations during the french and indian war and even even later did it happen during the revolution? there were lots of rumors out there that was washington was tremendously concern. and and and initially was skeptical of some reports that general howe in boston was purposely sending people out of boston who had recently been inoculated that would spread the

disease. they probably didn't. it wouldn't make much sense. and if they had. people in boston were very good about quarantining. they were looking for signs and symptoms. it's hard to surreptitiously hide if you have smallpox and then you'd have to be willing, right. so if you were sick with smallpox, you'd have to go, ha, i'm going to go infect those people. who wants to do that? right. so that's why those those giving it in blankets, right? maybe unsuspecting people would catch it. there's a a a tremendous document on display out in the vault lobby here of a. british writer and, an occupied new york, who suggest just the horrible idea of dipping arrows and smallpox. and i think he says twanging them at continental troops, immediate upon the publication of that tract, everyone knew that that was terrible.

they cut out that passage and you can see it out in the lobby you can look it up online. you can see images of that passage that that vile suggestion to shoot smallpox arrows, that people gets extracted. so that idea is out there. can it be definitively tracked? not really. but there were certainly rumors and worries about it. i think he's coming around with a microphone. if all if all the sort o if all the soldiers were recuperating from the inoculation procedure all at once, wouldn't that have been sort of an opportunity for the british to, you know, do something aggressive militarily? it could have been. and that was a worry. so the question was whether there were worries that the british might attack while soldiers were under recuperation.

washington was assured that they wouldn't inoculate all at once. they build these these hospitals. they would send soldiers in, in waves and keep them separate. so while one group was inoculating the rest of the army stood ready. when that group was finished, they would go out and could guard the rest. they would do it in these waves. it was alexander hamilton actually, who's writing these these procedures. and hamilton writes, you don't have to wait for the precise moment that the that one group is finished before the next group can start. so they would move them through that way. the first wave was done in secret, didn't want the british to learn about it. the british weren't keen to take this advantage. their soldiers aren't are totally unafraid of of smallpox. they started it in february when roads were frozen over. there wasn't much military activity going on anyway. so they were smart about it, but they were worried about that

opportunity. of course, the british never attack a smallpox hospital or anything like that during the war. what i know there a lot of sickness in the army that caused a lot of death over time rather than just wounds. but how much of a role did smallpox play in the early fatality rates before inoculation was done? that's a great question. so there were other illnesses and sicknesses. smallpox is the big worry and it's also the one disease that they really know how to handle. so it gets a lot of their attention with inoculation. so the the in terms of fatalities, there's the canadian campaign where you've got thousands of soldiers. there and probably a fatality rate. but the numbers are bad because the they're not keeping numbers. things are out of order. nobody wants to take a paper that that's been in a in a smallpox hospital.

all so numbers are hard to hard to say. but there's the things that happened in the canadian campaign. and then later in the war, there's damage done to the enslaved populations in virginia large numbers of of people dying after the inoculation was take place in 1777. going into 1778, the hospital records no longer show smallpox as being a problem. hardly anyone in the in the army has smallpox. there were these like preprinted forms in the hospitals that list diseases that the soldiers might have. so there's things like typhus and measles and syphilis and, smallpox. after 1778, they took took smallpox off the forms. it's not a problem anymore. so then it's those other diseases that are causing problems, typhus is really bad. it's spread by lice in these crowded prisons, ships and, crowded hospitals. that was a real killer. in the south, there are things like yellow fever malaria that

are taking lives as well. so smallpox was just one, one victory amidst, you know, a real stew of disease. so during this period, there's a number of a large number of african americans who were not offered their freedom by the revolution, but by the british and there was and the demonization of these enslaved people who escape. and it's a social hated with them being vectors for smallpox. could you talk about that, please? that's absolutely right. and i'm glad you brought it up so despite having the opportunity to do so, despite knowing that the enslaved populations in virginia and the carolinas were vulnerable to disease, by and large enslaved

did not inoculate their slaves. now, you might think that would be a economic choice. it would it would protect these these people that they viewed as as value ble. but the cost of inoculating these soldiers was prohibitively high enslavers minds. you were going to lose at least a month of labor if you're inoculating large numbers. some of them will die. that's an expensive prospect. so large numbers of enslaved people are not inoculated. they're susceptible to the disease. so when the british army starts sweeping through enslaved people throughout the south, look at the british army as their emancipator, as a potential source of freedom. they flocked to the british army. the british army does inoculate some of these people, but they can't really take care of them. they're struggling to take care of their own soldiers there and people going to them, they're running out of food and supplies. that's cornwallis problem going into yorktown. so many of these enslaved people

are just left a band and some of them try to go back to their plantations. they're spreading disease. and yes, the black people of the south were largely blamed for this. the british were blamed for spreading smallpox on purpose. even though it's not clear that they were doing that. and it's really, as i talk about in the book, one of the the places where we can point to very early racial disparity is in american health care, as white americans often blame black people for their own suffering, their own poverty, the things that are brought on to them by failing to be provide inoculation for them. so answer your question pretty well. kind of all, we can talk after for the. week as questions on zoom for

you doctor warman. one of our viewers would like know for then the native allies of washington. did they agree to it? were they were they willing, were they forced? what was the situation with four tribes like the oneida, for example? there was, as far as i know, never any real effort to inoculate native peoples. there was a strong belief that native people were pretty peculiarly susceptible to smallpox. going back to the days of cortez and the spanish and these and when native people first come in contact with with the disease and how debilitating it is, native people themselves were sometimes hesitant to inoculate. some did. there are examples of native people who are inoculated, who seek it out, but it is not in

large numbers. as far as i know, washington. i know washington never advocated for native inoculations the way he did for his his own continental army. right. and another viewer would like to know why. what was the reasoning behind the cost of why was it so expensive? the whole inoculation process was supply and demand so doctors could make a lot of money with inoculation. it was high in demand and they could they could sell it. they also the procedure itself was there were some doctors that would announce discounts and cheaper rates. i talk about a lot about prices of inoculations in the in the book and why it was sometimes so expensive. but part of it was just logic. right? so if you're inoculate it'd you would have to be quarantined for a month. so the doctors, the people that were keeping these, these hospitals would would charge for room and board.

if you were traveling to an inoculation hospital, you know, they would charge you for stable your horse. all these kinds of things add up and become really expensive. and the average person not only couldn't afford that, but they couldn't afford that missed time away from work. so that's why they had to come up with these other kinds of solution to to allow access to inoculation, the general inoculations in public hospitals, that kind of thing. great. thank you. another viewer would like to is referring to the miniseries john adams and is referencing the the the patient in the cart. was that standard practice if the doctors are inoculating so many soldiers in washington's army? i mean, i guess an easy way to ask this question is they just have a collection of guys with smallpox that they were just pulling from or how did that? yeah, i thought about showing that clip. i've done it before in front of students.

i didn't know about copyright issues and that kind of stuff. i love that. the mini series, the hbo series, john adams included inoculation run and i could go on and on, but they get almost everything wrong. and how inoculation works that they put in there, wonderful. they wouldn't actually a poor fellow through boston and then scrape his pockets to go inserted into abigail adams's arm must not they didn't need to bring him there they had jars they had vial was that they could keep the pox matter in. so what they would usually do, if you want a little bit of of grody details, they would often take a thread, a piece of thread and run that through to one of the the pox. so we would get it nicely wet right with, with the pass and they'd put it in a, in a vial and cork it and then they would just clip off a tiny little bit to put in each, each patient patient's arms. so it was a pretty clean procedure. and the hbo series, they make it look really gross and bloody,

but they had gotten it down. the patient barely bled a lot of inoculations prior themselves on, never causing patients to bleed or never causing discomfort with the actual thing. and no, they there was enough pocket matter around that they didn't actually have to have to cart poor guys around with it. it's a great question, though, because that's what they show in the in the in the movie is that another viewer would like to know if there were religious arguments in favor of inoculation in favor of it. well, usually i get asked the opposite were their religious arguments against it. and there were initially back in the 1720s, there were sermons against inoculation that inoculating was playing god because it's god who makes us sick and makes us well. and and by artificial like giving someone smallpox, it seems like you're playing god. and so there were arguments early on and in the 1720s and 1730s, by the time the revolution, those are almost entirely extinct in the colonies

in the united states. even jonathan edwards gets inoculated. the leader of the great awakening, he dies from his inoculation. even in 1752, i think in princeton, new jersey. but nevertheless, the demand keeps keeps growing. he's not blamed for it. it doesn't cause an anti inoculation movement. the jonathan edwards dies from it. it just keeps going. people understand it now, we know that if a soldier were to come from home to join the army, they received a uniform. they received guaranteed food, essentially was the inoculation process of did that help the recruitment of for washington's army? yeah. so it does and that's when they would often get inoculate new recruits. so there they're new arrivals they're getting used to the camp, they're getting their uniforms, their marching orders.

and that was a perfect time to inoculate as as they're getting used to things before they would go out on the march. that's when it happens. the other part was of that question was sorry i lost myself. company recruitment didn't help recruitment. yeah. so the governor of virginia is a good example is was patrick henry and said recruitment is flagged being among our troops and they're afraid of of we're having trouble raising our enlistments and washington thunders back. this is after his announcement of inoculation and says may not that problem be solved through the more general use of inoculation let's make sure the troops know that we're providing it that it's out there that'll solve our recruitment worries. now washington has recruitment issues throughout the war, but that particular fear no longer becomes becomes a problem. soldiers are eager to get inoculated. i think that's one of the surprising things that people find in in the book.

it's a harrowing procedure. it makes you sick for a month, but then it's a lifetime of immune afterwards and the soldiers otherwise are coming from poor communities, immigrants, people that wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to do it. and they do it. their wives, their children are are eager for them to do it. and are and are jealous often that their husbands and fathers have had it done. they want it done for themselves after the war. and there's a a couple of chapters in the book talking about how this carries on that. there's a demand for inoculation. it's not just a wartime thing that people carry it on into the into the new republic. so we have another attendee who or online attendee who would like to know if there were the same rigorous requirements in the continental navy as the army for inoculate elation that's a tough question they did inoculate in the navy. but washington isn't specifically those commands.

far as i know. inoculate asian did spread on on board ships a lot of sailors i don't know this is me waffling because i don't totally know but a lot of sailors really out inoculation. it was extremely popular because you're sailing from from port to port you're likely to to pick up a disease. so some of the initial enthusiasm, inoculation very early on came from sailors and sailing communities. so they also would have leapt at the chance to do it. i'm not aware of of direct orders them to do so, though. and another online attendee would like know if if soldiers were inoculated if anybody was inoculated before joining the army. was was there proof of that? where were they required to do it again or how did that how did that work? so washington does and in one of his letters, he doesn't always

say it this way, but he says the troops shall be inoculated that have not had the disease before. right. so but you have to be really confident, right, that you had maybe had smallpox as a child, very few soldiers would have been inoculated before, before the revolution, you would have had to have been wealthy most of the time and that the wealthy weren't weren't joining the army as as private. so it didn't really apply almost everyone needed to be inoculated. but if you had been there are a couple of examples of soldiers who had either smallpox before or had been inoculated before. one of you. if you've been inoculated, you could get inoculated again. it's just a scratch on the arm. it wouldn't wouldn't do anything. so you just know that you were secure and then if you got sick, you would know that the last time you thought you had it or in your parents thought you have had smallpox as a kid, but that wasn't true. so people would be would be fine getting inoculated, second time

getting inoculated even if they had smallpox. but further, you would have to be really confident because you were still to have to share a barrack. you're going have to bunk with all these people who are breaking with smallpox. and you'd be expected, nurse them to help, take care of them, to guard them. so you couldn't no one just refused but even if you did because of some you you thought it was some violation of your liberty or didn't think you had some conspiracy theory, didn't work. you were going to have to live in a smallpox hospital for a period of time. you would have to really believe that. and then, of course, you would get natural and that would be really nasty. so nobody thought that everybody is going through this together. if you had already had it, you'd be expected to take care of the rest. thank you. and i think well, that's a good place to wrap up. so, dr. wurman, i want to thank you very much for coming out tonight and speaking for us and i thank all of you for attending here at andersen house and

online at home. if you are interested in one last-minute christmas present, we do have books of dr. worm on sale in the back here, so if you'd like to grab yourself a copy. had a little bit of panache in there with his autograph make a great holiday gift. again, thank you all much. and have a great holiday season and we will see you next time. thanks again for your support of our mission and get home safe. take care. thank you all.