While searching the historical archival images of global vaccination, I came across this simple yet powerful image that struck me. A very straight-forward, properly exposed environmental portrait of a person without any dramatic appearance that was captured in September 1862. But the guy was not straight at all. To know about this person, we have to dig deep into the history of the American Civil War.
Between 1861 and 1865, America witnessed the worst civil war in its history, in which measles played a major role. Measles sickened troops on both sides of the American Civil War. As written by Michael B. A. Oldstone in his Viruses, Plagues, and History (146–47 (2009)):
“During the first year of the war, there were 21,676 reported cases of measles and 551 deaths in the Union Army alone. Deaths were primarily from respiratory and cerebral (brain) involvement. It was recorded, ‘This infection is always serious, often fatal either directly or through its sequelae. The Prognosis, therefore, should be guarded. […]
The American Civil War was the last large-scale military conflict fought before the germ theory of disease was developed… Two-thirds of soldiers who died in that war, 660,000 in all, were killed by uncontrolled infectious diseases. Of these, in the Union Army over 67,000 had measles and more than 4,000 died.”
This photograph depicts Allan J. Pinkerton–a Scottish-American cooper, abolitionist, detective, and spy–riding a horse during the Battle of Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Maryland. He had founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency prior to the outbreak of the war. He famously thwarted an alleged plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and later served as the head of the Union Intelligence Service, the forerunner of the United States Secret Service. During the Civil War, he gave military information to the Union Army, especially to General George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac. This information included very wrong numbers about how many troops the enemy had. After the war, his agents were very important as strikebreakers, especially during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. This was a job that the Pinkerton men would continue to do even after their founder died.
Disease, war, and politics have been intertwined since the inception of mankind. And there are few species of mankind who have always benefited from disease and war. How come?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…