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Encyclopedia of Arkansas
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Disease during the Civil War
Disease was a major problem among the armies serving in Arkansas during the Civil War. Large numbers of men living in close confines made the spread of illness likely. As many as 700,000 members of the military across the country lost their lives during the war, and approximately two-thirds of them died from disease.
Outbreaks of disease were common in the state even before the beginning of the war. In 1855, a yellow fever epidemic struck Helena (Phillips County), and minor outbreaks of other diseases such as cholera and typhoid were common. The lack of major centers of population and difficulty of travel, however, prevented many large-scale epidemics before the Civil War. The state had a number of doctors in the antebellum period, but, while they did undergo some training, these men were not required to obtain any formal certification or standardized education.
With the outbreak of war in 1861, thousands of men began to gather in towns across the state to create military units. The close proximity of these men made the spread of disease much easier, as many were from rural areas and had never been exposed to common illnesses such as measles. Both a lack of trained medical professionals and little understanding of how cleanliness impacted health led to large-scale outbreaks of disease during the war. Camp Nelson near Cabot (Lonoke County) housed thousands of Confederate troops from Arkansas and Texas in 1862 before being struck by a number of epidemics. Measles, mumps, typhoid, and other diseases ran through the camp, leading to the deaths of around 1,500 men, including Brigadier General Allison Nelson. The camp was soon abandoned.
