Prostitution and the Civil War

By Annika Jensen ’18

It was to my slight disappointment that I found out that the term “hooker,” one of many referring to prostitutes (or, as they were called during the Civil War era, “public women), is not actually a play on the name of Joseph Hooker, the infamous and promiscuous Union general. Fighting Joe may, however, have helped elevate the term to its current popularity; after all, a certain red light district in Washington, D.C. was dubbed “Hooker’s Division.”

Pushing past the etymology, however, I discovered a vast array of sources, anecdotes, and documents leading to the world of prostitution in the Civil War era. In an earlier post I explored the prudish nature of domestic sex, a topic not often discussed or even performed. Indeed, prostitution and sex work was held in contempt by the majority of Victorian society: William Quesenbury Claytor on Virginia penned in his diary in 1852 that “impudent prostitutes” were often seen in Alexandria at night, and Union officer Josiah Marshall Favill wrote that in the same city in 1862 houses were “thronged” with sex workers. As discouraged and taboo as the practice was, however, it continued to expand and thrive during the Civil War era.

Sexually transmitted diseases indicate the prevalence of prostitution during the war itself; an estimated 8.2% of Federal soldiers were diagnosed with either syphilis or gonorrhea throughout the war, and far more likely went undiagnosed. These venereal diseases were a tremendous setback for the army, as treatment could put troops out of combat for long periods of time; officers had to ensure discipline and order to keep their men from frequenting brothels. Such problems proved especially prevalent in Union-occupied Southern cities like Nashville and New Orleans.

One effort taken by the Union to eradicate this fraternization was to ship the prostitutes to other states. This was attempted in Nashville, where women were put on trains and sped off to surrounding cities. However, many of them were close enough to find their way back, and more drastic measures were sought. The army decided the solution was to transport the women to different states by boat; they called upon Captain John Newcomb of the steamboat “Idahoe” to transport 100 prostitutes to Kentucky. The captain protested, not willing to tarnish the reputation of his ship, which he claimed would becoming known as a “floating whorehouse,” but he could not stand up to the army, and his trip went underway. Unfortunately for Newcomb, no city in Kentucky, or any other state, would accept his cargo, and he was forced to circle back to Nashville. The result was a ruined ship and a city that had not rid itself of its prostitutes.

The documentation of prostitutes and legalization of their work became an effective—though not necessarily morally sound—solution. This system was implemented in Nashville in August 1863, when public women were required to report to a newly-transformed clinic and be tested and licensed. Thus, prostitution essentially became legal and much safer, as sex workers were required to be tested every two weeks; if they failed the medical exam, they were sent to the hospital until they were deemed “cured,” after which they could return to their work. Unlicensed prostitutes caught working were incarcerated.

In the roughly two years that this system was used in Nashville, nearly 400 licenses were issued and the city and Union army alike became considerably healthier. The moral question was naturally raised, to which the army could only conclude that the safety and health of its soldiers transcended ethical values.

So, while the Civil War era is generally regarded as a part of prudish Victorian society, in which intimacy in the home was of a taboo nature, there was no lack of sex.

Sources:

Claytor, William Quesenbury. Diary of William Claytor, 1849-1896, vol. 1. Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2002.

Favill, Josiah Marshall. The Diary of a Young Officer Serving with the Armies of the United States during the War of the Rebellion. Chicago, IL: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 1909.

Lowry, Thomas P. “The Army’s Licensed Prostitutes.” Civil War Times Illustrated 41, no. 4 (August 2002): 30-36. America: History and Life.

Schogol, Jeff. “Do ‘hookers’ Owe Their Moniker to a Civil War General?” Stars and Stripes. April 28, 2011. stripes.com.

Serratore, Angela. “The Curious Case of Nashville’s Frail Sisterhood.” Smithsonian. July 8, 2013.

Image: General Benjamin Butler enforced harsh discipline on the people of Union-occupied New Orleans; he is noted for threatening to publicly denounce women as prostitutes if they acted out against his soldiers. This editorial cartoon illustrates the resulting change in behavior.

From: gettysburgcompiler.com

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The Curious Case of Nashville’s Frail Sisterhood

By Angela Serratore, 7-8-13

Finding prostitutes in the Union-occupied city was no problem, but expelling them was.

Major General William Rosecrans, leader of the Union’s Army of the Cumberland, had a problem.

“Old Rosy,” as he’d been nicknamed at West Point, was a handsome Ohio-born history buff and hobbyist inventor with a reputation for getting nearer to combat than any other man of his rank. He had led his troops to a series of victories in the Western theater, and by 1863 he was, after Ulysses S. Grant, the most powerful man in the region. Rosecrans’ men were spending a great deal of time in Nashville, a city that had fallen to the Union in February 1862.

The major general thought Nashville was a good place for his troops to gather strength and sharpen their tactical abilities for the next round of fighting, but he underestimated the lure of the city’s nightlife.

According to the 1860 U.S. Census, Nashville was home to 198 white prostitutes and nine referred to as “mulatto.” The city’s red-light district was a two-block area known as “Smoky Row,” where women engaged in the sex trade entertained farmers and merchants in town on business.

By 1862, though, the number of “public women” in Nashville had increased to nearly 1,500, and they were always busy. Union troops a long way from home handed their meager paychecks over to brothel keepers and street walkers with abandon, and by the spring of 1863, Rosecrans and his staff were in a frenzy over the potential impact of all that cavorting. But Rosencrans, a Catholic, wasn’t worried about mortal sin. He was worried about disease.

Syphilis and gonorrhea, infections spread through sexual contact, were almost as dangerous to Civil War soldiers as combat. At least 8.2 percent of Union troops would be infected with one or the other before war’s end—nearly half the battle-injury rate of 17.5 percent, even without accounting for those who contracted a disease and didn’t know it or didn’t mention it—and the treatments (most involved mercury), when they worked, could sideline a man for weeks.

Union officials in Nashville, certain the city’s ladies of the night were responsible for the sexual plague, hit upon what seemed like the simplest solution: If they couldn’t stop soldiers from visiting local prostitutes, local prostitutes could simply be made non-local.

In the first days of July 1863, Rosecrans issued an order to George Spalding, provost marshal of Nashville, to “without loss of time seize and transport to Louisville all prostitutes found in the city or known to be here.”

The dutiful Spalding, a Scottish immigrant who’d spent the prewar years teaching school in a Michigan town on the shore of Lake Erie, began carrying out the order, and on July 9, the Nashville Daily Press reported, the roundup of the “sinful fair” began, though not without some protest and maneuvering on the part of targeted women:

A variety of ruses were adopted to avoid being exiled; among them, the marriage of one of the most notorious of the cyprians to some scamp. The artful daughter of sin was still compelled to take a berth with her suffering companions, and she is on her way to banishment.

Finding Nashville prostitutes was easy, but how was Spalding to expel them? He hit upon the answer by the second week in July, when he met John Newcomb, owner of a brand-new steamboat recently christened the Idahoe. To Newcomb’s horror, Spalding (backed by Rosecrans and other officials) ordered Newcomb to take the Idahoe on a maiden voyage northward (ideally to Louisville, but Spalding wasn’t particular) with 111 of Nashville’s most infamous sex workers as passengers. Newcomb and his crew of three were given rations enough to last the passengers to Louisville, but otherwise they were on their own. The local press delighted in the story, encouraging readers to “bid goodbye to those frail sisters once and for all.”

For many Civil War-era women, prostitution was an inevitability, especially in the South, where basic necessities became unaffordable on the salaries or pensions of enlisted husbands and fathers. Urban centers had long played host to prostitutes catering to every social class (an estimated 5,000 prostitutes worked in the District of Columbia in 1864, and an estimated three to five percent of New York City women sold sex at one time or another), and an enterprising prostitute working in a major city could earn almost $5 a week, more than three times what she might be able to bring in doing sewing or other household labor. While some prostitutes adopted the sex trade as a lifelong occupation, for many it was interstitial, undertaken when money was tight and observation by friends or family might be evaded.

Little is known about the prostitutes banished from Nashville, though it’s likely they were already known to officials of the law or had been accused of spreading venereal diseases. All 111 women aboard the Idahoe had one thing in common: their race. The women heading for points north were all white. And almost immediately upon their departure, their black counterparts took their places in the city’s brothels and its alleys, much to the chagrin of the Nashville Daily Union:

The sudden expatriation of hundreds of vicious white women will only make room for an equal number of negro strumpets. Unless the aggravated curse of lechery as it exists among the negresses of the town is destroyed by rigid military or civil mandates, or the indiscriminate expulsion of the guilty sex, the ejectment of the white class will turn out to have been productive of the sin it was intended to eradicate…. We dare say no city in the country has been more shamefully abused by the conduct of its unchaste females, white and Negro, than has Nashville for the past fifteen or eighteen months.

It took a week for the Idahoe to reach Louisville, but word of the unusual manifest list had reached that city’s law enforcement. Newcomb was forbidden from docking there and ordered on to Cincinnati instead. Ohio, too, was uneager to accept Nashville’s prostitutes, and the ship was forced to dock across the river in Kentucky—with all inmates required to stay on board, reported the Cincinnati Gazette:

There does not seem to be much desire on the part of our authorities to welcome such a large addition to the already overflowing numbers engaged in their peculiar profession, and the remonstrances were so urgent against their being permitted to land that that boat has taken over to the Kentucky shore; but the authorities of Newport and Covington  have no greater desire for their company, and the consequence is that the poor girls are  still kept on board the boat. It is said (on what authority we are unable to discover) that  the military order issued in Nashville has been revoked in Washington, and that they will all be returned to Nashville again.

A few, according to the Cleveland Morning Leader, which rapturously chronicled the excitement happening across the state, tried to swim ashore, while others were accused of trying to make contact with Confederate forces who might help them escape. The women, according to reports, were in bad shape:

The majority are a homely, forlorn set of degraded creatures. Having been hurried on the boats by a military guard, many are without a change of wardrobe. They managed to smuggle a little liquor on board, which gave out on the second day. Several became intoxicated and indulged in a free fight, which resulted without material damage to any of the party, although knives were freely used.

Desperate to get the remaining 98 women and six children off his ship, Newcomb returned the Idahoe to Louisville, where it was once again turned away, and by early August the Cincinnati Gazette was proven correct—the ship returned to Nashville, leaving Spalding exactly where he’d started, plus with a hefty bill from Newcomb. Demanding compensation for damages to his ship, Newcomb insisted someone from the Army perform an inspection. On August 8, 1863, a staffer reporting to Rosecrans found that the ship’s stateroom had been “badly damaged, the mattresses badly soiled,” and recommended Newcomb be paid $1,000 in damages, plus $4,300 to cover the food and “medicine peculiar to the diseased of women in this class” the Idahoe’s owner had been forced to pay for during the 28-day excursion.

George Spalding was unconcerned with Newcomb’s hardships. His plan to rid the city of cyprians had failed. Resigning himself to the fact that prostitutes would ply their trade and soldiers would engage them, he reasoned that the women might as well sell sex safely, and so out of sheer desperation, Spalding and the Union Army created in Nashville’s the country’s first system of legalized prostitution.

Spalding’s proposal was simple: Each prostitute would register herself, obtaining for $5 a license entitling her to work as she pleased. A doctor approved by the Army would be charged with examining prostitutes each week, a service for which each woman would pay a 50 cent fee. Women found to have venereal diseases would be sent to a hospital established (in the home of the former Catholic bishop) for the treatment of such ailments, paid for in part by the weekly fees. Engaging in prostitution without a license, or failing to appear for scheduled examinations, would result in arrest and a jail term of 30 days.

The prospect of participating in the sex trade without fear of arrest or prosecution was instantly attractive to most of Nashville’s prostitutes, and by early 1864 some 352 women were on record as being licensed, and another hundred had been successfully treated for syphilis and other conditions hazardous to their industry. In the summer of 1864, one doctor at the hospital remarked on a “marked improvement” in the licensed prostitutes’ physical and mental health, noting that at the beginning of the initiative the women had been characterized by use of crude language and little care for personal hygiene, but were soon virtual models of “cleanliness and propriety.”

A New York Times reporter visiting Nashville was equally impressed, noting that the  expenses of the program from September 1863 to June totaled just over $6,000, with income from the taxes on “lewd women” reached $5,900. Writing several years after war’s end, the Pacific Medical Journal argued that legalized prostitution not only helped rid Rosecrans’ army of venereal disease, it also had a positive impact on other armies (a similar system of prostitution licensing was enacted in Memphis in 1864):

 The result claimed for the experiment was that in Gen. Sherman’s army of 100,000 men or more, but one or two cases were known to exist, while in Rosecrans’ army of 50,000 men, there had been nearly 1500 cases.

Once fearful of the law (particularly the military law, given the treatment they’d received), Nashville prostitutes took to the system with almost as much enthusiasm as those operating it. One doctor wrote that they felt grateful to no longer have to turn to “quacks and charlatans” for expensive and ineffective treatments, and eagerly showed potential customers their licenses to prove that they were disease-free.

Regulated sex commerce in Nashville was short-lived. After the war ended, in 1865, and the city was no longer under the control of the Union army, licenses and hospitals quickly faded from public consciousness. Today, the handful of U.S. counties that allow prostitution, such as Nevada’s Lyon County, rely on a regulatory system remarkably similar to the one implemented in 1863 Nashville.

Rosecrans, after making a tactical error that cost the Union army thousands of lives at the Battle of Chickamauga, was relieved of his command by Grant; he finished the war as commander of the Department of Missouri. After the war he took up politics, eventually representing a California district in Congress in the 1880s. (In the ’90s, Spalding would follow the congressional path, representing a Michigan district.)

One man who had a bit more difficulty moving on from the summer of 1863 was John Newcomb. Nearly two years after the Idahoe made its infamous voyage, he still hadn’t been reimbursed by the government. Out of frustration, he submited his claim directly to Edward Stanton, Secretary of War, after which he was furnished with the money he was owed and certification that the removal of the Nashville prostitutes had been “necessary and for the good of the service.”

Even after collecting nearly $6,000, Newcomb knew the Idahoe would never again cruise the rivers of the Southeastern United States. “I told them it would forever ruin her reputation as a passenger boat”, he told officials during one of his attempts to be compensated. “It was done, so she is now & since known as the floating whore house.”

Sources

Books: Butler, Anne, Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery, University of Illinois Press, 1987; Lowry, Thomas, The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War, Stackpole Press, 1994; Clinton, Catherine, “Public Women and Sexual Politics During the American Civil War, in Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality in the American Civil War, Oxford University Press, 2006; Denney, Robert, Civil War Medicine, Sterling, 1995; Massey, Mary, Women in the Civil War, University of Nebraska Press, 1966.

Articles: “A Strange Cargo,” Cleveland Morning Leader, July 21, 1863; “George Spalding,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress; “William Rosecrans,” Civil War Trust; “The Cyprians Again,” Nashville Daily Press, July 7, 1863; “Round Up of Prostitutes,” Nashville Daily Press, July 9, 1863; “News from Cincinnati,” Nashville Daily Union, July 19, 1863; “Black Prostitutes Replace White Prostitutes in Occupied Nashville,” Nashville Daily Press, July 10, 1863; “Some Thoughts about the Army,” New York Times, September 13, 1863; Goldin, Claudia D. and Frank D. Lewis,   “The Economic Cost of the American Civil War: Estimates and Implications,” Journal of Economic History, 1975.

Image: Nashville women in what was likely the hospital for infected prostitutes, c. 1864. From Thomas Lowry’s The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War.

From: smithsonianmag.com

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Erring Women's Refuge

By Mary Linehan

In 1863, 24 white, middle-class, Protestant women opened the refuge, which found a permanent home two years later at 3111 South Indiana. Challenging the legal and social inequity of the double standard of sexual morality which punished women—but not men—for extramarital sexual relations, they provided prostitutes the support and resources necessary to leave the sex industry: education, job training, obstetric care, and the influences of Christian motherhood. The philosophy of the home was revolutionary for its time, stressing the reformability of prostitutes and the transforming spiritual power of women. By 1890 the mission of the refuge had changed. The word “Erring” was dropped and the institution became a home for delinquent girls.

From: encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org

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Prostitution in Civil War Nashville

By Greg Segroves, 4-3-13
 

Trivia question. What city in the United States was the first to legalize prostitution? If you answered Las Vegas Nevada you are wrong. It was Nashville Tennessee in 1863. There are many things that can reduce the effectiveness of an Army in wartime. The use of alcohol, drugs, and sexually transmitted disease. That is in any era. More soldiers died from disease in the Civil War than died from bullets. Besides sexually transmitted disease men died from poor hygiene. The poor placement of latrines near a camp. Surgeons using dirty hands while treating wounds. Because of the Civil War medical officials began to realize that disease could be prevented by changing unhealthy practices and educating troops. This ratio of deaths from disease as opposed to combat wounds changed in World War 1. In every war since more men have died from combat wounds than disease. There were 750,000 deaths from both causes in the Civil War.

In 1860 there were 207 prostitutes living in Nashville. The largest brothel housed 17 women and it was located on the river front near lower Broad & 1st Ave, or as it was called then, Front St. The average house had anywhere from one to three women. In 1860 Nashville had a population of 17,000. Five thousand of these were free blacks and slaves. When the war broke out thousands of Confederate troops passed through Nashville and then the city fell to Union Forces on 25-Feb-1862. There were as many as 100,000 troops in and around Nashville at various times. Washington D.C. and Nashville had the biggest problem with prostitution because Washington was the headquarters for the eastern armies and Nashville was the headquarters for the western armies.

There was a four block area from present day 1st Ave. to 4th Ave. called "Smoky Row" which was the "red light district". The term hooker was in use before the war but it was popularized in relation to General Joseph Hooker who had a reputation for hanging out with loose women. Nashville actually acquired the nickname as the "city of 10,000 whores' but the actual number was estimated at 1,500. The rise of sexually transmitted disease became so bad that the army's chief medical officer rounded up as many prostitutes as he could find and put them on a new steamboat called the "Idahoe". He sent them to Louisville and that city refused to take them. Then they eventually traveled to Cincinnatti where they also were not wanted. In the meantime these women trashed the steamboat. The steamboat Captain gave up and returned To Nashville. They found that the black prostitutes were picking up the slack for the missing white prostitutes. After this failed attempt a notice was issued to the prostitutes that they had until 20-Aug-1863 to be medically examined by a Army surgeon and after paying a 5.00 dollar fee they would be issued a permit to ply their trade. The new ordinance stated that they must be re-examined every 10 to 14 days. By April 30th 1864, 352 women had been licensed. Thanks to legalization only 30 of the first 999 soldiers to contract a sexually transmitted disease contracted it in Nashville.

Syphilis before the discovery of penicillin was the 19th century's version of AID's. They treated it with salts of mercury. Mercury is extremely toxic. This treatment led to the saying that "a night with Venus means a lifetime with Mercury". There were 23 military hospital's in Nashville during the war. One hospital was for soldiers suffering from STD's. One was for white prostitutes, and one was for black prostitutes. The first picture is of an era prostitute. The second is the permit issued to a Nashville prostitute and the third is believed to be the wartime hospital for white prostitutes on Second ave. near Jo Johnston . Because of the success achieved at Nashville Memphis became the second city to legalize prostitution.

From: gregsegroves.blogspot.com

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Sex and the Civil War

Written by: Doug Coleman

L.P. Hartley once wrote: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” And so it is with the Civil War and American sexual morality during the 1860’s. Things we outlaw, they tolerated. Things we tolerate, they regarded as monstrous crimes.

Start with the notion that Americans in the Victorian age were prudes. Not so, unless one is willing to overlook the large families of that age. Domestic terrorist John Brown managed to sire twenty children before Virginia broke his neck on the gallows for trying to start a national slave revolt.
Thomas P. Lowery relates in his The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War an incident occurring in Carlisle, Pennsylvania a few days before Gettysburg. It seems a North Carolina regiment captured a good supply of Yankee whiskey and were soon helping themselves to it. One of the Tar Heels reported “some of the Pennsylvania women, hearing the noise of the revel and the music, dared to come near us. Soon they had formed the center of attention and joined in the spirit of the doings. After much whiskey and dancing, they shed most of their garments and offered us their bottoms. Each took on dozens of us, squealing in delight. For me it was hard come, easy go.” “With malice towards none, with charity for all”, our friendly Pennsylvanians rattle the stereotype of Victorian prudishness…

Civil War soldiers, or at least the Yankees, had pornography and dirty books. We know this because the Federal provost marshal complained what a chore it was to have to burn the mountains of the stuff his postmasters intercepted. So, pornography was forbidden, but apparently it was okay to have the government go through your mail. We have all heard of bullets stopped by Bibles, but at least one soldier claimed to have been saved by a dirty novel concealed on his person.

Prostitution was more or less legal in Alexandria. The 1860 census reflects that Alexandria had seven “soiled doves” and two bawdy houses. Not surprisingly, business boomed in Alexandria once the war was on, our city being described as “a perfect Sodom” with perhaps 75 brothels and 2500 prostitutes. The Federal authorities tolerated the sex trade and generally speaking those arrested at bawdy houses were arrested as AWOL or for drunk and disorderly conduct, not for patronizing the girls.   In Richmond, on the other hand, humorless FFVs consistently cracked down on disorderly houses, at least according to the Dispatch.

When the army moved, the prostitutes moved with them. In 1863, these “camp followers” were given the nickname “Hooker’s Division”, ostensibly after the lifestyle of General Joseph Hooker, who had a reputation for keeping his headquarters well-stocked with whiskey and entertaining women.

Actually Hooker was not a big drinker, nor was he much of a womanizer. Similarly, the commonly held belief that “hookers” take their name from General Hooker is probably mistaken, as the term was already in use at least as early as 1845.

If Hooker had kept mistresses, he would not have been out of the mainstream. Confederate general Jubal Early allegedly kept two white mistresses having four children each, plus a mulatto child with a black woman. Custer is alleged to have had an ongoing relationship with his mulatto cook, an escaped slave who was pushed over a cliff in Custer’s carriage when captured by Confederates.

Custer’s letters between him and Mrs. Custer were also captured and raised Confederate eyebrows, being described as “vulgar beyond all conversation and even those from his wife would make any honest woman blush for her sex.” Even McClellan was alleged to have lived with a young mistress for the duration of his command. However, one doubts this story, at least for the time when he was in Alexandria headquartered at the Seminary, as an engraving pictures him in front of Cazenove family’s Stuartland with his wife and children in the background.

Occasionally ordinary soldiers would share their tents with their wives. In the Confederacy, Keith Blalock signed up with “Sam” Blalock, a good-looking sixteen year old boy, actually his wife Melinda. Melinda fought three engagements before she was wounded and found out by the regimental surgeon. Upon discharge from the Confederate army, they continued to soldier on together as Union partisans. In the Army of the Potomac, Kady Brownell and Mary Tepe joined their husband’s regiment as vivandieres, enduring all of the hardships of campaigning and both being wounded in combat.

The predictable drawback of all this sex was venereal disease, mostly syphilis and gonorrhea. Among the white troops, 73,382 cases of syphilis were reported and 109,397 cases of gonorrhea, giving a total of 82 cases of venereal disease annually per thousand men. Among the colored troops syphilis had an annual rate of 33.8 cases and gonorrheal infections 43.9 cases per thousand. The cures were scary enough to encourage chastity. For syphilis, first-line therapy was to cauterize the chancre with a caustic chemical. Secondary therapy might involve highly toxic mercury infusions, hence the phrase “a night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury.” For gonorrhea, treatment consisted of urethral injections of nitrate of silver, sugar of lead or sulphate of zinc. Amazingly, in an era before penicillin, these therapies appear to have worked much of the time. Rudimentary condoms, made from sheep intestines called “skins” and secured with a little pink ribbon, were available, but it is anybody’s guess how much protection they afforded to disease.

The Union’s hospital service certainly appreciated the relationship between prostitution and venereal disease and took pragmatic steps to get ahead of the problem. One of these steps was to license working girls, the license being conditioned upon periodic examination by a physician. The other, hand in hand with the first, was to establish hospitals to take out of circulation and treat prostitutes found to be infected. The attached photo depicts such a hospital. And in fact these measures were effective, with Yankee “casualties” dropping off dramatically where instituted. As for the women, their lives were nasty, brutish and short. One physician following a group of prostitutes noted that their life expectancy was only about four years once they entered the trade, alcohol and disease being major risks.

On the deviant side, rape appears to have been relatively rare, with 335 courts martial being recorded. When found out, it often resulted in a hanging. A soldier who had raped a free black woman was hanged at Fort Ellsworth before all of the units camped around Alexandria so that everyone understood this. Twenty-two other soldiers were executed for rape over the course of the war.

Homosexuality was not much of an issue. There are not many recorded, probably because sodomy was regarded as an unspeakable crime. Though some reenactors a few years back “reenacted” a firing squad for two soldiers dressed in pink uniforms for “conduct unbecoming”, in fact there is no record of any soldier on either side being executed for the offense of homosexuality, or for that matter being disciplined for the offense. However, a handful of sailors were thrown out of the navy. Military law did not specifically outlaw sodomy until 1921. But we should not infer from this that homosexuality was previously accepted along the lines of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Keep in mind that at the time of the Revolution sodomy was punishable by death in all thirteen colonies. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson proposed a more lenient penal code under which homosexuals would be castrated and lesbians would have their noses pieced with half-inch holes; Jefferson’s proposal was rejected and sodomy remained a capital crime until 1831.

As recently as World War II, the usual sentence for sodomy in the United States Army was 85 years. William Manchester in his 1979 autobiographical Goodbye, Darkness describes the sensibilities of young marines in the 1940’s: “Youth is more sophisticated today, but in our innocence we knew almost nothing about homosexuality. We had never heard of lesbians, and while we were aware that male homosexuals existed – they were regarded as degenerates and called ‘’sex perverts,” or simply “perverts” – most of us, to our knowledge, never encountered one.” The attitude of the farm boys who fought in World War II is probably pretty close to that of the farm boys who fought in the Civil War.

But plaster saints these soldiers were not.

Image: Federal Hospital For Prostitutes. Hospital for Prostitutes, National Archives.

From: oldtowncrier.com

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Prostitution During the Civil War

Excerpted from: wikipedia.org

Prostitution experienced its largest growth during 1861-1865. Some historians have speculated that this growth can be attributed to a depression, and the need for women to support themselves and their families while their husbands were away at war. Other historians considered the growth of prostitution to be related to the women wanting to spread venereal disease to the opposing troops.

The term ‘public women’ was coined for the women that became prostitutes. There was moral outrage at this rising employment, and law officials classified the people they arrested as such.

The word “hooker” predates the Civil War, but became popularized by Union General Joseph Hooker.

After the outbreak of war, the number of brothels skyrocketed. “In 1864 there were 450 brothels in Washington, and over 75 brothels in nearby Alexandria, Virginia. A newspaper estimated there were 5000 public women in the District and another 2500 in Alexandria and Georgetown, bringing the total to 7500 by the war’s third year”. However, it was the towns located just outside the camps where prostitution was most prominent. These small towns were overrun by the sex trade when army troops set up nearby camps. One soldier wrote home to his wife, “It is said that one house in every ten is a bawdy house—it is a perfect Sodom.”

The most notorious area for prostitution was in Tennessee. Before the outbreak of the war, Nashville recorded 207 prostitutes; however, in 1863 reports claimed to have at least 1500 prostitutes. The area where these prostitutes could be found was known as Smokey Row.

In an infamous campaign to rid the city of the ‘public women’ Lt. Col. George Spalding loaded the women on to the steamboat Idahoe. The women were sent to Louisville, where they were not allowed off the ship and sent further along to Cincinnati. Many of the women became sick due to lack of food and they were again forced to turn around and return to Nashville.

Once they arrived back in Nashville, Lt. Col. Spaulding created a system of registration similar to European ones. He inadvertently created the first legal system of prostitution. This is the set of regulations he set up: 1. That a license be issued to each prostitute, a record of which shall be kept at this office, together with the number and street of her residence. 2. That one skillful surgeon be appointed as a Board of Examination whose duty it shall be to examine personally every week, each licensed prostitute, giving certificate soundness to those who are healthy and ordering those into hospital those who are in the slightest degree diseased. 3. That a building suitable for a hospital for the invalids be taken for that purpose, and that a weekly tax of fifty cents be levied on each prostitute for the purpose of defraying the expense of said hospital. 4. That all public women found plying their vocation without a license and certificate be at once arrested and incarcerated in the workhouse for a period of not less than thirty days.

Prostitution experienced a large growth and spread across the North and South, and was one of the only industries to cross enemy lines throughout the duration of the war.

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The Curious Case of Nashville’s Frail Sisterhood

Finding prostitutes in the Union-occupied city was no problem, but expelling them was.

By Angela Serratore

Major General William Rosecrans, leader of the Union’s Army of the Cumberland, had a problem.

“Old Rosy,” as he’d been nicknamed at West Point, was a handsome Ohio-born history buff and hobbyist inventor with a reputation for getting nearer to combat than any other man of his rank. He had led his troops to a series of victories in the Western theater, and by 1863 he was, after Ulysses S. Grant, the most powerful man in the region. Rosecrans’ men were spending a great deal of time in Nashville, a city that had fallen to the Union in February 1862.

The major general thought Nashville was a good place for his troops to gather strength and sharpen their tactical abilities for the next round of fighting, but he underestimated the lure of the city’s nightlife.

According to the 1860 U.S. Census, Nashville was home to 198 white prostitutes and nine referred to as “mulatto.” The city’s red-light district was a two-block area known as “Smoky Row,” where women engaged in the sex trade entertained farmers and merchants in town on business.

By 1862, though, the number of “public women” in Nashville had increased to nearly 1,500, and they were always busy. Union troops a long way from home handed their meager paychecks over to brothel keepers and street walkers with abandon, and by the spring of 1863, Rosecrans and his staff were in a frenzy over the potential impact of all that cavorting. But Rosencrans, a Catholic, wasn’t worried about mortal sin. He was worried about disease.

Syphilis and gonorrhea, infections spread through sexual contact, were almost as dangerous to Civil War soldiers as combat. At least 8.2 percent of Union troops would be infected with one or the other before war’s end—nearly half the battle-injury rate of 17.5 percent, even without accounting for those who contracted a disease and didn’t know it or didn’t mention it—and the treatments (most involved mercury), when they worked, could sideline a man for weeks.

Union officials in Nashville, certain the city’s ladies of the night were responsible for the sexual plague, hit upon what seemed like the simplest solution: If they couldn’t stop soldiers from visiting local prostitutes, local prostitutes could simply be made non-local.

In the first days of July 1863, Rosecrans issued an order to George Spalding, provost marshal of Nashville, to “without loss of time seize and transport to Louisville all prostitutes found in the city or known to be here.”

The dutiful Spalding, a Scottish immigrant who’d spent the prewar years teaching school in a Michigan town on the shore of Lake Erie, began carrying out the order, and on July 9, the Nashville Daily Press reported, the roundup of the “sinful fair” began, though not without some protest and maneuvering on the part of targeted women:

A variety of ruses were adopted to avoid being exiled; among them, the marriage of one of the most notorious of the cyprians to some scamp. The artful daughter of sin was still compelled to take a berth with her suffering companions, and she is on her way to banishment.

Finding Nashville prostitutes was easy, but how was Spalding to expel them? He hit upon the answer by the second week in July, when he met John Newcomb, owner of a brand-new steamboat recently christened the Idahoe. To Newcomb’s horror, Spalding (backed by Rosecrans and other officials) ordered Newcomb to take the Idahoe on a maiden voyage northward (ideally to Louisville, but Spalding wasn’t particular) with 111 of Nashville’s most infamous sex workers as passengers. Newcomb and his crew of three were given rations enough to last the passengers to Louisville, but otherwise they were on their own. The local press delighted in the story, encouraging readers to “bid goodbye to those frail sisters once and for all.”

For many Civil War-era women, prostitution was an inevitability, especially in the South, where basic necessities became unaffordable on the salaries or pensions of enlisted husbands and fathers. Urban centers had long played host to prostitutes catering to every social class (an estimated 5,000 prostitutes worked in the District of Columbia in 1864, and an estimated three to five percent of New York City women sold sex at one time or another), and an enterprising prostitute working in a major city could earn almost $5 a week, more than three times what she might be able to bring in doing sewing or other household labor. While some prostitutes adopted the sex trade as a lifelong occupation, for many it was interstitial, undertaken when money was tight and observation by friends or family might be evaded.

Little is known about the prostitutes banished from Nashville, though it’s likely they were already known to officials of the law or had been accused of spreading venereal diseases. All 111 women aboard the Idahoe had one thing in common: their race. The women heading for points north were all white. And almost immediately upon their departure, their black counterparts took their places in the city’s brothels and its alleys, much to the chagrin of the Nashville Daily Union:

The sudden expatriation of hundreds of vicious white women will only make room for an equal number of negro strumpets. Unless the aggravated curse of lechery as it exists among the negresses of the town is destroyed by rigid military or civil mandates, or the indiscriminate expulsion of the guilty sex, the ejectment of the white class will turn out to have been productive of the sin it was intended to eradicate…. We dare say no city in the country has been more shamefully abused by the conduct of its unchaste females, white and Negro, than has Nashville for the past fifteen or eighteen months.

It took a week for the Idahoe to reach Louisville, but word of the unusual manifest list had reached that city’s law enforcement. Newcomb was forbidden from docking there and ordered on to Cincinnati instead. Ohio, too, was uneager to accept Nashville’s prostitutes, and the ship was forced to dock across the river in Kentucky—with all inmates required to stay on board, reported the Cincinnati Gazette:

There does not seem to be much desire on the part of our authorities to welcome such a large addition to the already overflowing numbers engaged in their peculiar profession, and the remonstrances were so urgent against their being permitted to land that that boat has taken over to the Kentucky shore; but the authorities of Newport and Covington  have no greater desire for their company, and the consequence is that the poor girls are  still kept on board the boat. It is said (on what authority we are unable to discover) that  the military order issued in Nashville has been revoked in Washington, and that they will all be returned to Nashville again.

A few, according to the Cleveland Morning Leader, which rapturously chronicled the excitement happening across the state, tried to swim ashore, while others were accused of trying to make contact with Confederate forces who might help them escape. The women, according to reports, were in bad shape:

The majority are a homely, forlorn set of degraded creatures. Having been hurried on the boats by a military guard, many are without a change of wardrobe. They managed to smuggle a little liquor on board, which gave out on the second day. Several became intoxicated and indulged in a free fight, which resulted without material damage to any of the party, although knives were freely used.

Desperate to get the remaining 98 women and six children off his ship, Newcomb returned the Idahoe to Louisville, where it was once again turned away, and by early August the Cincinnati Gazette was proven correct—the ship returned to Nashville, leaving Spalding exactly where he’d started, plus with a hefty bill from Newcomb. Demanding compensation for damages to his ship, Newcomb insisted someone from the Army perform an inspection. On August 8, 1863, a staffer reporting to Rosecrans found that the ship’s stateroom had been “badly damaged, the mattresses badly soiled,” and recommended Newcomb be paid $1,000 in damages, plus $4,300 to cover the food and “medicine peculiar to the diseased of women in this class” the Idahoe’s owner had been forced to pay for during the 28-day excursion.

George Spalding was unconcerned with Newcomb’s hardships. His plan to rid the city of cyprians had failed. Resigning himself to the fact that prostitutes would ply their trade and soldiers would engage them, he reasoned that the women might as well sell sex safely, and so out of sheer desperation, Spalding and the Union Army created in Nashville’s the country’s first system of legalized prostitution.

Spalding’s proposal was simple: Each prostitute would register herself, obtaining for $5 a license entitling her to work as she pleased. A doctor approved by the Army would be charged with examining prostitutes each week, a service for which each woman would pay a 50 cent fee. Women found to have venereal diseases would be sent to a hospital established (in the home of the former Catholic bishop) for the treatment of such ailments, paid for in part by the weekly fees. Engaging in prostitution without a license, or failing to appear for scheduled examinations, would result in arrest and a jail term of 30 days.

The prospect of participating in the sex trade without fear of arrest or prosecution was instantly attractive to most of Nashville’s prostitutes, and by early 1864 some 352 women were on record as being licensed, and another hundred had been successfully treated for syphilis and other conditions hazardous to their industry. In the summer of 1864, one doctor at the hospital remarked on a “marked improvement” in the licensed prostitutes’ physical and mental health, noting that at the beginning of the initiative the women had been characterized by use of crude language and little care for personal hygiene, but were soon virtual models of “cleanliness and propriety.”

A New York Times reporter visiting Nashville was equally impressed, noting that the  expenses of the program from September 1863 to June totaled just over $6,000, with income from the taxes on “lewd women” reached $5,900. Writing several years after war’s end, the Pacific Medical Journal argued that legalized prostitution not only helped rid Rosecrans’ army of venereal disease, it also had a positive impact on other armies (a similar system of prostitution licensing was enacted in Memphis in 1864):

 The result claimed for the experiment was that in Gen. Sherman’s army of 100,000 men or more, but one or two cases were known to exist, while in Rosecrans’ army of 50,000 men, there had been nearly 1500 cases.

Once fearful of the law (particularly the military law, given the treatment they’d received), Nashville prostitutes took to the system with almost as much enthusiasm as those operating it. One doctor wrote that they felt grateful to no longer have to turn to “quacks and charlatans” for expensive and ineffective treatments, and eagerly showed potential customers their licenses to prove that they were disease-free.

Regulated sex commerce in Nashville was short-lived. After the war ended, in 1865, and the city was no longer under the control of the Union army, licenses and hospitals quickly faded from public consciousness. Today, the handful of U.S. counties that allow prostitution, such as Nevada’s Lyon County, rely on a regulatory system remarkably similar to the one implemented in 1863 Nashville.

Rosecrans, after making a tactical error that cost the Union army thousands of lives at the Battle of Chickamauga, was relieved of his command by Grant; he finished the war as commander of the Department of Missouri. After the war he took up politics, eventually representing a California district in Congress in the 1880s. (In the ’90s, Spalding would follow the congressional path, representing a Michigan district.)

One man who had a bit more difficulty moving on from the summer of 1863 was John Newcomb. Nearly two years after the Idahoe made its infamous voyage, he still hadn’t been reimbursed by the government. Out of frustration, he ssubmittedhis claim directly to Edward Stanton, Secretary of War, after which he was furnished with the money he was owed and certification that the removal of the Nashville prostitutes had been “necessary and for the good of the service.”

Even after collecting nearly $6,000, Newcomb knew the Idahoe would never again cruise the rivers of the Southeastern United States. “I told them it would forever ruin her reputation as a passenger boat”, he told officials during one of his attempts to be compensated. “It was done, so she is now & since known as the floating whore house.”

Image: Prostitution license signed by George Spalding, 1863. National Archives

From: smithsonian.com

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Prostitution and Venereal Disease in the Civil War

by Amelia Cotter

During the Civil War, medical and ethical advances were helpful in developing a health care system that benefited both prostitutes and soldiers.

Low wages during the inflationary war period inspired many women, especially of the lower class, to take up prostitution, including women who were barely older than what we today consider to be children.

Dr. William Sanger of the Venereal Disease Hospital on Blackwell’s Island, New York, conducted a survey in 1858 of about 2,000 prostitutes. He found that 80% of them were under age 30, and 40% were under age 20. About 62% of them were foreign-born, with 57% being Irish, 20% German, and 8% English. Most of the prostitutes died within an average of four years due to venereal disease or alcoholism—an important insight into the lives of prostitutes at the time.

TREATMENT OF STDs IN THE CIVIL WAR
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were common during the Civil War. A diagnosis of gonorrhea referred to any form of urethral discharge, and could have encompassed a number of other diseases not yet discovered, such as Chlamydia. Gonorrhea was diagnosed in 102,893 soldiers, and over 79,589 soldiers were diagnosed with syphilis. Of these cases, six white soldiers and one black soldier died of gonorrhea, while 123 white soldiers and 28 black soldiers died of syphilis. It should be noted that doctors were not yet aware of the more advanced forms of syphilis that affected the nervous system and heart, and likely caused numerous deaths years after the war.

Amazingly, only 426 of the men diagnosed with STDs were hospitalized, and the remainder were simply relieved from duty. The attitude towards illnesses and injuries was generally rather harsh, as demonstrated by the following quote found in a surgeon’s journal: “[Norris was] as well as any man in the regiment…diarrhea, swelling of the testicles, scabs, and a large running sore.”

Many soldiers, out of shame or embarrassment, tried to conceal their infections or treat them on their own. Remedies for these diseases included poke roots and berries, sassafras, and wild sarsaparilla. None of these were effective. Mercury, however, actually did provide some relief from pain, but no permanent positive effects—hence the saying, “A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury.”

THE VICTORIAN ERA SYSTEM OF PROSTITUTE LICENSING
By mid-war, a licensing system was developed by doctors in Nashville, Tennessee that involved the regular inspection and possible treatment or hospitalization of prostitutes. The inspection fee for a prostitute—which involved checking if she was free of disease and otherwise healthy—was 50 cents.

By January, 1864, over 300 prostitutes were registered in the city, with 60 found to have venereal diseases. Similar systems were instituted in Memphis, Richmond, Washington, D.C., and several other cities. Interestingly, many of these licensing programs were established in the South, where sexuality and gender roles were traditionally more heavily guarded than in other areas of the States.

If a prostitute was found to have a disease, she would be placed under quarantine. Surgeon W.H. Chambers wrote in December of 1864 that early in the year, 10 to 20 of his officers would have had an STD at any given time, but by December, he hadn’t seen a single case. Unfortunately, in the same year, military personnel in some other cities were banned from visiting brothels, perhaps due to the prevalence of venereal disease.

ATTEMPTS TO BAN PROSTITUTION
Not everyone was a fan of prostitution, of course. In an effort to clean up the streets, everything from soliciting prostitution openly down to simply talking to men in public were banned in Memphis and other cities. Many women’s rights and temperance activists attempted to pinpoint links between prostitution and alcoholism in order to outlaw both. Some soldiers could be arrested or even discharged for soliciting prostitutes, though this was rarely enforced.

From: suite.io/amelia-cotter

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More About Nashville's Civil War Prostitute History: Hospital 15

By Betsy Phillips

William Moss Wilson has a cool piece in the New York Times about his great grandfather's great grandmother who ran a brothel in Nashville during the Civil War. (You may remember we talked about Nashville's ill-fated attempt to ship all its white prostitutes to Louisville earlier this year.) One of the cool parts is his discussion of the hospitals specifically devoted to treating Nashville's prostitutes and their soldier clientele.

"Two hospitals were dedicated to treating sexual infections in Nashville: Hospital 11, for soldiers, and Hospital 15, also known as the Pest House, for prostitutes. The head surgeon, Robert Fletcher, claimed that after the first six months of regulation, when 92 women had been diagnosed with S.T.D.’s, only 13 of the nearly 31,000 soldiers admitted to Hospital 15 had contracted their infections in Nashville. Dr. William Chambers, charged with medical inspections of the women, noted that regulations led to improvements in hygiene in addition to the decrease in new infections.

"Chambers’s work led him to a discovery that challenged the conventional wisdom of the day, which held prostitutes solely to blame for spreading sexual infection. In February 1864, a substantial spike in new visits to Hospital 15 accompanied the thousands of re-enlisted soldiers returning from furlough. The following days brought a surge of new female patients to the Pest House. Chambers concluded that the returning soldiers must have brought the S.T.D.s with them and then infected his female patients."

This is a little confusing because the hospitals are misnumbered in the first paragraph and numbered correctly in the second. Hospital 11 was the hospital for prostitutes, located on Second Avenue in the old home of a Catholic Bishop. (A lot of Civil War Historians think this picture is probably of that hospital.) Hospital 15 was for soldiers. So, soldiers came back and were sick and then prostitutes got sick.

From: nashvillescene.com

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The Nashville Experiment: Prostitution is Legalized

By  William Moss Wilson

Emaline Cameron was among the thousands of refugees who poured into occupied Nashville, Tenn., in 1863. While the strains of war may have contributed to her flight from her native Smithville, about 50 miles to the east, Emaline crossed Union lines to distance herself from an imploded marriage. James Hayes, known as Toy, had divorced her on the grounds that he was not the father of their eldest child. She admitted as much in court: while growing up Emaline had worked as a chambermaid at the Smithville Hotel, which was run by her parents. After a boarder left the 15-year-old pregnant, they quickly married her off to the naïve Toy.

When Emaline came to Nashville, where there were many opportunities to clothe, feed and entertain the garrison of Union soldiers, a demand for labor that far outstripped the city’s prewar population. Family history reports that Emaline chose the last sector: sometime after her arrival, she “operated a house of prostitution.” If true, my great-grandfather’s great-grandmother participated in the first licensed and regulated sex trade in the United States.

Like other radical developments during the war, Nashville’s experiment with legalized prostitution evolved as a practical solution to a military problem. Nearly one in 10 Union soldiers were reported to have contracted gonorrhea or syphilis during the war; rates were even higher for troops garrisoned in and around cities.

While these sexually transmitted diseases were hardly fatal, they increased demands on an already strained medical system. In Nashville, schools, hotels, storefronts and even factories had been refashioned into hospitals to accommodate the thousands of wounded soldiers returning from the front. After the Battle of Stones River, federal hospitals were so overwhelmed that Brig. Gen. Robert Mitchell allowed wounded Confederate prisoners to be treated in the homes of known secessionists. Men with sexually transmitted diseases were an unnecessary added burden.

By June 1863, the large numbers of soldiers hospitalized in Nashville for venereal diseases led surgeons and regimental commanders to “daily and almost hourly” petition Brig. Gen. R.S. Granger, a local commander, “to save the army from a fate worse than… to perish on the battlefield.” The first solution was to rid the city of its prostitutes. Deportation would prove no easy task; nearly every structure along the four blocks between Capitol Hill in downtown Nashville and the river wharves, known as “Smokey Row,” was a house of prostitution, and other brothels were scattered about town.

In early July, the case was assigned to Provost Marshal Lt. Col. George Spalding, who led soldiers and police officers on a raid of the city’s brothels, “heaping furniture out of the various dens, and then tumbling their disconsolate owners after.” Under military escort, several hundred women were dragged onto requisitioned steamboats. Capt. John Newcomb of the Idahoe received his passengers only after vigorous protest. Newcomb feared for the reputation of his vessel, and correctly so — the Idahoe soon become known as the “Floating Whorehouse.”

The following weeks revealed the limitations of the eviction policy. Armed guards in Louisville and later at Cincinnati refused to allow the female passengers of the Idahoe to disembark, and after the same scene was repeated at smaller ports, Newcomb had no choice but to return to Nashville. Moreover, the day after the Idahoe departed for Louisville, The Nashville Daily Press complained that the only immediate effect of the removal was that black prostitutes had filled the void left by their white colleagues:

Unless the aggravated curse of lechery as it exists among the negresses of this town is destroyed by rigid military or civil mandates, or the indiscriminate expulsion of the guilty sex, the ejectment of the white class will turn out to have been productive of the sin it was intended to eradicate … No city … has been more shamefully abused by the conduct of its unchaste female population, white or black, than has Nashville…for the past eighteen months … We trust that, while in the humor of ridding our town of libidinous white women, General Granger will dispose of the hundreds of black ones who are making our fair city a Gomorrah.

Once deportation proved a failure, Granger and Spalding initiated a second, more radical solution. On Aug. 20, 1863, the Spalding released orders that required all of Nashville’s prostitutes to register with the military government, which would in turn issue each woman a license to practice her trade. In exchange for a weekly fee of 50 cents, these women would receive a regular medical checkup, and if healthy, issued a certificate. Infected prostitutes would be hospitalized and treated at no additional charge. Failure to register would be penalized with a 30-day sentence in a workhouse.

Shockingly, legalization did not draw the same vitriol from the press that had accompanied deportation. The City Council delivered de facto endorsement of military regulation on Aug. 24, when Nashville’s aldermen voted to “postpone indefinitely” legislation banning prostitutes “from riding in hacks with soldiers.”

Nashville’s prostitutes embraced the new scheme. More than 300 licenses were issued in the first six months. By August 1864, Spalding had included black prostitutes in the program; of the 500-plus licensed prostitutes in Nashville, 50 were black women. Women took pride as they flashed their credentials and prominently displayed their health certificates. Observers also noted a decrease in street walking in favor of less-risky brothel work. Part of the licensing surge was attributed to an influx of prostitutes from Northern cities who perceived the increased safety and better working conditions provided by regulation.

Two hospitals were dedicated to treating sexual infections in Nashville: Hospital 11, for soldiers, and Hospital 15, also known as the Pest House, for prostitutes. The head surgeon, Robert Fletcher, claimed that after the first six months of regulation, when 92 women had been diagnosed with S.T.D.’s, only 13 of the nearly 31,000 soldiers admitted to Hospital 15 had contracted their infections in Nashville. Dr. William Chambers, charged with medical inspections of the women, noted that regulations led to improvements in hygiene in addition to the decrease in new infections.

Chambers’s work led him to a discovery that challenged the conventional wisdom of the day, which held prostitutes solely to blame for spreading sexual infection. In February 1864, a substantial spike in new visits to Hospital 15 accompanied the thousands of re-enlisted soldiers returning from furlough. The following days brought a surge of new female patients to the Pest House. Chambers concluded that the returning soldiers must have brought the S.T.D.s with them and then infected his female patients.

Chambers’s insight proved as fleeting as the wartime program, which did not survive his resignation in May 1865. Though the Union command at Memphis had borrowed from the Nashville experiment for a similar program in his city, civilian government in both cities quickly abandoned regulation of the sex trade at the close of hostilities.

While the Nashville experiment may not have had lasting social repercussions, it is possible that improved conditions in the dangerous profession delivered women like Emaline through the hardships of war. Emaline survived her time in Nashville to return to Smithville, where she lived out her days in the home of her son.

William Moss Wilson teaches history at the University School of Nashville.

From: opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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A Night with Venus, a Lifetime with Mercury

By Julia Carlson

There is a saying that dates back to approximately the Civil War era: that a night with Venus leads to a lifetime with Mercury.  This was a pithy warning for a serious set of infections.  At that time, germ theory had yet to be fully developed, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) were not yet well understood (gonorrhea and syphilis were believed to be manifestations of the same illness), and there no effective cures available.  This was the background that the Civil War surgeons had to work against while treating soldiers for STIs.

Although more soldiers were wounded and infected with other disease, there were a high number of cases of STIs.  Unfortunately, no records exist for the number of Confederate soldiers that were infected with STIs during the war.  For white Union soldiers, 73,382 were diagnosed with syphilis, usually based on the presence of a chancre.  109,397 soldiers were diagnosed with gonorrhea based on presence of pus coming from their urethras.  Gonorrhea diagnoses probably included cases of chlamydia and other STIs that were not yet known to be separate infections.  The diagnosed cases averaged out over the war to be approximately 82 cases/1000 men/year. The highest rates of STI infection were at the beginning and the end of the war.

Comparable to white soldiers, there were 6,207 syphilis cases and 8,050 gonorrhea cases in black Union soldiers that averaged 78 cases/1000 men/year.  There were 426 hospitalizations of white soldiers, and 136 deaths (32 fatalities reported for black soldiers).  Depending on location, age, and army, STI infection rates could be much higher-the Department of the Pacific at one point reported rates of 461 cases/1000 men/year.  Soldiers who were not actively fighting, young, and stationed near cities were the must likely to become infected and the soldiers of the Department of the Pacific often matched those descriptors.

Most men contracted STIs from contact with prostitutes also known at the time as “public women”, and surgeons of the day knew this, although some may have also been infected during small pox vaccinations by sharing blood of an infected individual.  As STIs were a widespread problem in the Union army, many commanders looked for various ways to stem the issue as STIs were bad for morale, and were considered detrimental to their army’s performance.  Famously, Union General Joseph Hooker forced all of the prostitutes in Washington, D.C. to be relocated into a single area that was then nicknamed “Hooker’s Division.”  Although this may have cleaned up the city, it is unlikely that this was an effective measure to curb soldier’s visiting the prostitutes’.  In an interesting set of cases, unparalleled in American history, in Nashville, prostitution became so widespread in the city that while under Union army control in 1863, Provost Marshall Lt. Colonel Spalding was given orders to take his men and the local police around the city to capture all the prostitutes, put them on the merchant ship Idahoe, and exile them.  After the ship visited Louisville, Covington, and Newport KY as well as Cincinnati, OH without being able to successfully drop off the prostitutes, the boat was forced to return to Nashville.

Upon their return, Provost Marshall Spalding designed a system of legalized prostitution, with the aim to reduce new STI cases.  First, all prostitutes were required to have a license to practice.  Second, each week, a prostitute had to have an appointment with a physician to be given a certificate of health.  If a woman was found to have contracted an STI during that examination, she was sent to a special hospital (or ward) for treatment until she was declared healthy.  Finally, each week, each prostitute would pay 50¢ towards the hospital for its support. This system was deemed so successful at reducing troops contracting new cases of STIs in Nashville, that Memphis also adopted it.

Although these treatments, as discussed above, were not cures, it appears that by quarantining these women when they were likely the most contagious, such as when the syphilis chancre is present during the early stages, was at least somewhat effective in reducing new infections.  This solution accepted that human behavior would continue, while reigning in some of the unwanted effects to improve soldier’s performance in the battlefield.

Today, soldiers deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq face much lower rates of STI infections, although there does seem to be an upward trend in cases.  Between 2004-2009 case rates of gonorrhea ranged from 5/100,000 to 17.6/100,000 (not separated by gender or race) and chlamydia rates for men were approximately steady at 192.6/100,000 (although it did increase over time).  Rates for syphilis diagnosis were not available.  The current rates are much lower, presumably because of the ability to cure STIs using antibiotics rather than Civil War-era treatments such as mercury, sarsaparilla, and diet alterations as well as more widespread use of condoms than in the civil war era.  However, both the rates during the Civil War and the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are probably lower than reality, as STIs are commonly not reported by individuals either due to embarrassment or not being aware of their infection status. Treatments and rates of STIs have improved since the Civil War; however, most likely now just as back then, STI rates are under-represented due to unknown cases.

Finally, what cannot be quantified, is the lasting impact of these STIs.  The soldiers themselves would have continued to suffer from both diseases, with severe morbidity.  Gonorrhea in some cases can continue to cause pain while urinating.  Persistent syphilis can go on to its tertiary stages (neurosyphilis/cardiovascular syphilis), which attacks the central nervous system or heart and can be fatal.  Some historians estimate that up to one third of the men in veteran’s homes and hospitals that were caring for the soldiers from the Civil War were suffering from STIs at the end of their lives.  Undoubtedly, men went home and infected their wives, who then could also suffer from both neurosyphilis, but also pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) caused by gonorrhea.  Although this was unknown at the time, we now know that PID could have lead to problems with fertility, salpingitis, and tubal pregnancies.  Women could have also passed on the diseases to children in childbirth.  In children, gonorrhea can cause blindness and syphilis is linked to stunted growth.  Unfortunately, despite good treatments and screening programs, many individuals still do not know today whether or not they are infected with an STI, and many of the same results can occur. Although the pathology, knowledge, and treatments of STIs have significantly improved since the Civil War, culture today still suffers many of the same problems from untested STIs.

From: gucivilwarmed.blogspot.com

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Treatment of Venereal Disease During the Civil War

By Dr. Michael Echols
From: medicalantiques.com

During the Civil War, as in all wars, venereal disease was a major problem since it disabled the soldier and decreased his effectiveness to fight or be moved from battle to battle. Dr Freeman Bumstead was one of the leading authorities on venereal disease during the Civil War and his treatment of one of the most common diseases is outlined below. A copy of his book on the topic of  "Venereal Disease" is a part of this collection.

Preface to the second edition with comments about knowledge of venereal disease during the Civil War
From the Medical and Surgical History regarding the incidence of venereal disease during the War:

"Venereal diseases were associated with intemperance in the conditions which favored their causation. Hence they were more frequent at the beginning and the close of the war than during its progress, and among troops stationed in the vicinity of cities than among those on active service. Elevations of the lines of prevalence during the continuance of the war correspond with the accession of fresh levies or the return of furloughed veterans. Among the white troops, 73,382 cases of syphilis were reported, and 109,397 cases of gonorrhea and gonorrheal orchitis, giving a total of 82 cases of venereal disease annually per thousand men, as compared with 87.86 in our army before the war and 87.62 from the records of the ten years immediately following the war period. Among the colored troops syphilis had an annual rate of 33.8 cases and gonorrheal affections 43.9 cases per thousand of strength. The variations in the monthly rates are shown in the diagram facing page 890. The lines of syphilis and gonorrhœa run courses parallel to that of their consolidation."

Edited from Dr. Freeman Bumstead's text-book on Venereal Disease (in this collection)
The treatment of gonorrhea must be adapted to the general condition of the patient, and especially to the stage of his disease. In the great majority of oases met with in practice, acute inflammatory symptoms have already set in at the time the patient first applies to the surgeon; but in those exceptional cases which are seen at an early period, and in those only, we may often succeed in cutting short the disease by means of the treatment termed abortive.

Abortive Treatment of the. First Stage.—During the first few days after exposure, varying in number from one to five in different cases, before the symptoms have become acute, when the discharge is but slight and chiefly mucus, and while as yet there is no severe scalding in passing water, we may resort to caustic injections with a view of exciting artificial inflammation, which will tend to subside in a few days, and supplanting the existing morbid action, which is liable to continue for an indefinite period and is exposed to various complications. This is known as the " substitutive," or more commonly as the " abortive treatment" of gonorrhea. This method has been inordinately praised and as violently attacked ; its true merit is probably to be found between these two extremes. It is certainly liable to be greatly abused, and, if so, is both unsuccessful and  capable of producing the most unpleasant consequences; but. when limited to the early stage of gonorrhea and used with proper caution, it is a highly valuable method of treatment, unattended with danger, and undeserving the censure sometimes cast upon it.

In employing the abortive treatment, there are several points which it is important to recollect:

1. The disease, in the stage to which this treatment is applicable, is limited to the anterior portion of the urethra, known as the fossa navicularis, or extends but a short distance beyond it; it is not necessary, therefore, that the injection should reach the deeper portions of the canal.

2. For the treatment to be successful, the whole diseased surface should receive a thorough application of the injection, for if any portion remain untouched, it will secrete matter that will again light up the disease.

3. When once a sufficient degree of artificial inflammation is excited, the caustic has accomplished all that can be expected of it and should be suspended. Since a solution of nitrate of silver, which is commonly used in the abortive treatment, is readily decomposed by contact with metallic substances, metal syringes should l>e avoided. Glass syringes, if well made, answer every purpose; but, as found in the shops, they are apt to be unequal in calibre in different parts of the cylinder, the wadding of the piston contracts in drying and a portion of the fluid fails to be thrown out, as is seen by its overflow when the syringe is filled a second time. For these reasons, I never advise a patient to purchase an ordinary glass syringe, knowing that it will probably give him much annoyance, and perhaps prevent his deriving benefit from treatment. We have an excellent substitute in the hard-rubber syringes, which can be obtained at the druggists'
"No. 1 " (Fig. 1) is the one generally sold when no special form is directed by the surgeon, but its nozzle is objectionable; it is unnecessarily long, its point is apt to irritate the internal wall of the canal, and it is not well adapted to fully distend the meatus.
" No. 1, A " (Fig. 2), is preferable. The abrupt shoulder near the point is well adapted to fill the meatus, and the short and rounded end cannot abrade the sensitive mucous membrane.
Fig. 3 represents another excellent form, and one which is recommended by Prof. Sigmund, of Vienna. I find a figure of the same in the work of Dr. H. A. Hacker, Die Blcnnorrhden tier Genitnlien, Erlangen, 1850.

The " urethral syringe with extra long pipe " (Fig. 4) is, in fact a syringe united to a catheter, and is adapted for injections of the deeper portions of the canal. The catheter portion may lie bent to any curve desired by first oiling it and heating it over a spirit-lamp; its form is then retained by dipping it in cold water.

The solution of nitrate of silver, in the abortive treatment of gonorrhea, may be of considerable strength, when only one injection will be required; or it may be weak, and in that case should be repeated at short intervals until the effect produced be deemed sufficient. I much prefer the  latter course, especially with patients who apply to me for the first time, since it enables me to graduate the effect according to the susceptibility of the urethra, which varies in different persons. Inject the weak form of silver nitrate and water:

The patient should be made to pass his water immediately before injecting, or, better still, a quarter of an hour before. We wish to clear the urethra of matter, and to have the bladder empty, so that the injection may have some time to act before it is washed away by another passage of the urine, and yet a short interval between the last act of micturition and injection is advisable, in order that as much of the urine as possible may have drained from the canal and little be left to decompose the nitrate of silver. The prepuce should now be fully retracted, and the glans penis exposed. The latter should be wiped dry, so as to afford a firm hold to the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, applied laterally, not from above downwards, and firmly compressing it around the point of the syringe. Call the patient's attention to the fact that the opening of the urethra is a vertical slit; that compressing the glans from above downwards makes this opening gajw while the compression from side to side closes it; hence the importance of exercising the compression in the latter way while taking the injection. If the pressure be properly made, not a drop of the solution will be lost, as the piston of the syringe is slowly forced down by the forefinger of the right hand holding the instrument, and the whole contents will be discharged into the canal. The syringe should now be withdrawn, and th« fluid still retained for a few seconds by continuing the compression of the glans. When the injection is allowed to escape, it will be found to be of a milky-white color. This is due to the partial decomposition of the contained salt by the remains of the urine and the muco-pus in the canal. As this de-coin posit ion has prevented the application of the injection in its full strength to the urethral walls, a second syringeful should be thrown in, and retained for two or three minutes. During this time a finger of the disengaged hand should be run along the under  surface of the penis from behind forwards, so as to distend the portion of the canal occupied by the injection, and insure the thorough application of the fluid to the whole mucous surface.

This description of the method of using the syringe is, in the main, applicable to all the injections which may be required in the course of a gonorrhea; but we are now speaking of the abortive treatment, by means of weak injections of nitrate of silver. We will suppose that this first injection has been administered by the surgeon, who, at the same time, has explained the various steps of the operation to the patient. The directions with regard to diet, etc., that will presently be mentioned in speaking of the second stage, should now Ik- given ; the patient should be ordered to repeat the injection every three hours, and, for the present, it is best that he should be seen by the surgeon twice a day. It is also well at this time to prescribe an active purge.

The first effect of the caustic injections is manifested in a few hours; the discharge becomes copious and purulent, and considerable scalding is felt in passing water. In the course of twenty-four to forty-eight hours, however, the discharge grows thin and watery, and, very likely, is tinged with blood. It is now time to stop the injection and omit all medication for a few days, until we see how much good has been accomplished. If the treatment meets with success the discharge will gradually diminish, and finally disappear in from three to five days. Sometimes, however, after growing less, it again increases, showing a tendency to relapse. In this case, I usually advise weak injections of acetate of zinc, as recommended in the third stage of the disease. Some surgeons prefer to resume the caustic injections in the same manner as at first if, after a week has elapsed, any traces of the discharge remain.

The chief objection to this modification of the abortive treatment is, that it is necessary to leave the administration of most of the injections to the patient, who may be prevented by ignorance, or the requirements of his occupation, from using them as thoroughly or as often as is necessary. If we have reason to fear this, we may resort to a stronger solution, and inject it once for all, with our own hands, but I have found the effect decidedly less satisfactory. It was this method of employing the alwrtive treatment that was recommended by Debeney of France, and Carmichael of England, by whom this treatment was first introduced to the profession. The same method is also still employed and highly recommended by many surgeons, and especially by M. Diday of Lyons. The strong injection should not contain less than ten grains (0.65) of the nitrate of silver to the ounce (30.00) of distilled water, and more than fifteen grains are objectionable, unless with patients who have been under treatment before, and in whom the urethra has been found to be quite insensible.
Citations from the Medical/Surgical History--Part III, Volume I
Chapter XI.--On Certain Diseases Not Heretofore Discussed.
V.--Venereal Diseases.

Venereal diseases were associated with intemperance in the conditions which favored their causation. Hence they were more frequent at the beginning and the close of the war than during its progress, and among troops stationed in the vicinity of cities than among those on active service. Elevations of the lines of prevalence during the continuance of the war correspond with the accession of fresh levies or the return of furloughed veterans. Among the white troops, 73,382 cases of syphilis were reported, and 109,397 cases of gonorrhœa and gonorrhœal orchitis, giving a total of 82 cases of venereal disease annually per thousand men, as compared with 87.86 in our army before the war and 87.62 from the records of the ten years immediately following the war period.(*) Among the colored troops syphilis had an annual rate of 33.8 cases and gonorrhœal affections 43.9 cases per thousand of strength. The variations in the monthly rates are shown in the diagram facing page 890. The lines of syphilis and gonorrhœa run courses parallel to that of their consolidation.

The hospital records present 426 cases of venereal disease,--53 of gonorrhœa and 373 of syphilis. Of the former 50 were simple cases and 3 complicated with suppurating bubo. Of the latter 194 developed no constitutional symptoms,--among these, gonorrheal complications were present in 41 and supurating bubo in 77. It is impossible to determine, from the language of the record, the character of the primary sores in 179 cases which were followed by secondary symptoms. The most notable point connected with their history is the frequency with which sore throat, cutaneous eruptions and other manifestations of the constitutional taint are reported as having followed venereal sores associated with suppuration of the inguinal glands: 19 such cases are recorded.

Treatment as a rule was first restricted to the local lesions, mercury or iodide of potassium being withheld until the development of secondary symptoms. No reference is made to scorbutic complications nor to untoward results in constitutions undermined by the hardships of military service. In fact, a similar series of cases might easily have been gathered during the same period in the wards of our civil hospitals. A few reports on file indicate individual views of the method of treating these diseases:

Ass't Surgeon ROBERT F. STRATTON, 11th Ill. Cav., June 30, 1862.--It was impossible to cure gonorrhœa while the patients were exposed to the rain and had to sleep on the damp ground and live on a salt and stimulating ration.

Surgeon WILLIAM R. BLAKESLEE, 115th Pa., Alexandria, Va., Oct. 20, 1862.--Gonorrhœa was greatly modified and in most cases completely subdued by injecting a solution of chlorate of potash, one drachm in eight ounces, every hour for twelve successive hours, and then gradually ceasing its use during the next two or three days by prolonging the interval between each injection. Dietetic rules were observed, with rest and occasionally a saline laxative.

Surgeon A. F. PECK, 1st N. M. Cav., Los Lunas, N. M., Sept., 1862.--Nearly one-third of the cases this month consisted of gonorrhœa, which readily yielded to treatment. With much inflammatory action in the first stage, I generally prescribed a saline cathartic, rest, cooling lotions and low diet. After this stage had passed I found balsam of copaiba, powdered cubebs and magnesia given as a bolus, four or five times a day, to be very effectual. At the same time I used an injection of chloride of zinc, two to four grains to the ounce of water, once or twice a day. When the system is much reduced tonics are beneficial.

Surgeon ISAAC F. GALLOUPE, 17th Mass., Feb. 20, 1863.--Syphilis and gonorrhœa prevailed extensively in the regiment during its stay in Baltimore. Rapid and complete recovery was secured in all cases treated as follows:--Gonorrhœa: Injections of a weak solution of sulphate of zinc, one grain to one ounce of water, every hour or half hour; light diet. By this treatment the disease was always cut short, no discharge appearing after the first use of the injection. Syphilis: Cauterization of the chancre in the first instance, followed by the continuous application of black wash. All cases thus treated recovered without secondary disease.

Ass't Surgeon P. W. RANDALL, 1st Cal., Fort Bragg, Cal., Jan. 1, 1863.--For gonorrhœa my treatment, which is successful, consists of a thorough cleansing of the alimentary canal, rest, low diet, the balsam and cubebs internally, with urethral injections of nitrate of silver, sugar of lead or sulphate of zinc. For syphilis I use mercurial and saline purges, rest, low diet, iodide of potassium and bichloride of mercury, with caustic to chancres, warts or vegetations.

Surgeon J. G. BRADY, 26th Mass., New Orleans, La., Jan. 1, 1863.--Of the various forms of venereal disease chancre of the non-indurated variety is the most prevalent. It is accompanied in a majority of cases with bubo. The sores yield readily to cauterization with acid nitrate of mercury and applications of black wash, the bowels meanwhile being regulated and the patient kept on low diet. But one case of indurated chancre has been observed, and this was unaccompanied by a bubo. It was treated with mercurials internally and pernitrate of mercury to the sore. Sufficient time has not yet elapsed to determine whether secondary symptoms will be developed, No case of non-indurated chancre has been followed by constitutional symptoms. Gonorrhœa is much less frequent than chancre, and more obstinate under treatment. My practice has been to use injections of sulphate or chloride of zinc; occasionally, when there is irritability of the bladder, I employ diuretics. The cases are prone to become chronic. I have no faith in the empirical use of balsams and diuretics, so long considered specifics in this disease. I consider that, by their tendency to over-stimulate the kidneys, they do more harm than good.

Surgeon DAVID WOOSTER, 5th Cal., Sacramento, Cal., Jan. 13, 1862.--I inoculate every case of chancre. If the virus take, I treat locally and hygienically alone; if it fail to produce chancre after the third inoculation, I use protiodide. The cures in both series of cases are generally reasonably prompt, occupying from fifteen to rarely sixty days. I have not yet had secondary developments in cases the primary accidents of which have been treated at this post.

Surgeon ALLEN F. PECK, 1st N. M. Mounted Vols., Fort Stanton, N. M., Dec. 31, 1862.--Primary: Cauterize with nitrate of silver, after which apply black or yellow wash until the sore is healed. Consecutive: If there is no constitutional contraindication I give mercurials,--the protiodide yields better results than any other preparation. If the patient improves I continue the remedy until the sores are healed and the induration dissipated, using at the same time disinfecting mercurial and astringent washes. If the system is exhausted I give tonics.

Surgeon EZRA READ, 21st Ind., Baltimore, Md., Sept. 5, 1861.--For many years I have pursued the method of treatment by mercurial fumigation, which deposits the mercury upon the surface of the body when in a state of perspiration induced by the heated vapor of water surrounding the patient confined in a close and air-tight bath. This treatment is commended to our consideration because it eradicates the disease in a shorter period of time than is required by the internal use of mercury; moreover, when thus applied the constitutional effects of the mercury are under satisfactory control. In primary syphilis, after careful and thorough cauterization of the chancre, I regard fumigation as the best method of treating the disease, and as the most reliable means of preventing constitutional manifestations. In the secondary form I think it the only method by which a perfect cure can be effected.

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Civil War Soldiers and Sex

From: case.edu

Traditional histories of the Civil War steer clear of sex and birth control in favor of heroes and battles. This ignores reality. Court martial records list over 100,000 incidents of sexual misconduct, and the Surgeon General of the United States Army documented 183,000 cases of venereal disease in the Union Army. The men (and women, too) who produced these alarming statistics came from all ranks of society. Many were farmers and uneducated workers living beyond rigid parental and church rules for the first time. Military service thrust them into the "outside world" of violence, alcohol, and prostitution. One soldier writing home complained about "the Pocks and the Clap. The cases of this complaint is numerous, especially among the officers." Another wrote to his wife, "you would think that there was not a married man in the regiment."

Government regulated brothels

Facing an epidemic of venereal disease, the Union army tried a novel solution -- government sanctioned prostitution -- in Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee, from 1863 to 1865. Nashville at first expelled women "of vile character," sending them up river to Cincinnati, only to see them turned away. Col. George Spalding, Provost Marshall of Nashville, introduced a system of licensed prostitution, with periodic medical exams and hospital treatment for venereal disease. The number of licensed prostitutes rose and fell with the transit of troops through the city, but the incidence of disease declined sharply. A report issued after the war proclaimed the experiment a success, as testified by the influx of prostitutes: "…many of the better class of prostitutes had been drawn to Nashville from northern cities by the comparative protection from venereal diseases which its license system afforded." In Memphis, a program of registration, inspection, treatment, and licensing met with similar success until closed at the war's end. The report of the Surgeon General of the United States Army concluded that "while it does not encourage vice it prevents to a considerable extent its worst consequences."

Alcohol and Venereal Disease

Military surgeons documented Civil War era problems of alcohol and sexually transmitted disease. Statistics they compiled showed that drunkenness spiked just as soldiers entered service, coinciding with their first time away from home, and again at the end of the war, as they celebrated victory. Proximity to cities also correlated with increased alcohol consumption. African American soldiers got drunk less often than their white compatriots; just one in 4,500 required medical attention for alcohol problems, compared to one in 220 for Caucasian soldiers. Venereal disease emerged as a serious health issue during the Civil War. Among Union white troops, the surgeons treated over 73,000 for syphilis and over 109,000 for gonorrhea. Incidence of those diseases among African American soldiers was less than half that of the white troops. In the eyes of military leadership, prostitutes and "camp followers" drove venereal disease to alarming levels, and threatened military readiness.

Selling sex to soldiers

Soldiers bought contraceptives and sexually explicit material by mail. Thomas Ormsby, for example, sent soldiers a flyer listing such goods in an envelope with patriotic symbols. Ormsby enclosed his card and a list of medical advice books, including Aristotle's Masterpiece and several works on "reform physiology" by Origin of Life author Frederick Hollick. Far more racy offerings could be found in the accompanying "Private Circular for Gentlemen Only". This offered "fancy" literature, erotic, and even pornographic pictures, contraceptives ("French safes" or condoms), and "sex toys." Ormsby's address appeared nowhere on the Circular, and he promised to send the material anonymously, "in such a manner as to defy detection." The recipient of these flyers, Corporal James Schelly of the Pennsylvania volunteers, died in combat near Richmond, Virginia on June 30, 1862.

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