Allusion to the presence of General Scott in this campaign has been made, but for the purpose of receiving substantial treatment later on was temporarily dropped.
He may not have participated in any of its pitched battles, but in his conflict with an enemy more dreadful than bullets, he displayed a genius and heroism seldom found in military annals.
For the first time in the history of this continent, Asiatic cholera had appeared in Quebec and Montreal during the early days of warm weather. Few knew its character and none its treatment.
Jackson, who had grown impatient at what he considered a policy of procrastination and conduct which he is said to have characterized as pusillanimous on the part of the volunteers, ordered Scott to take nine companies from the Atlantic coast, proceed to the seat of war and put an end to it.
On June 28th General Scott started from Fortress Monroe with them, and with four of his nine companies made the trip to Chicago in the incredibly short space of eighteen days. His departure was noticed in Niles Register for June 30, 1832. The trip was prosperous enough to Buffalo, where four steamboats, the Sheldon Thompson, Henry Clay, Superior and William Penn, were chartered to carry the expedition around the lakes to Chicago. Down Lake Erie all went well, but when Detroit[[251]] was reached, two cases developed on board the Thompson while moored to the wharf, which excited alarm. The victims died and the boats all passed on up the St. Clair River to Fort Gratiot, some forty miles distant, by which time the contagion had assumed such proportions that it became necessary to land five companies of 280 men. Many had died; others died immediately after landing; others fled, and later, when seized with the pest, were shunned and denied assistance. Thus abandoned and exhausted, the miserable wretches perished in woods and fields, only to be discovered when birds of prey surrounded their bodies or the odor from decomposition became apparent. Of the entire body of 280 men, we are told that but nine survived.
Scott, in his autobiography, Vol. 1, p. 218, has stated that the disease broke out on his boat and that the only surgeon aboard, after drinking half a bottle of wine, was frightened into a sickness which kept him to his bed. He further adds with some asperity that the surgeon “ought to have died.”
Preparatory to departure, Scott, who was always forehanded, had consulted Surgeon Mower of New York about the disease, and, adopting all his suggestions, had laid in a supply of medicines to use if the plague overtook him. These he supplied with his own hand to one and all, from the moment of its appearance to the final eradication of the scourge from the ranks of his army. In Niles Register for August 4th, Vol. 42, p. 402, we are told that Lieut. Gust. Brown and Second Lieut. Franklin McDuffie had died July 15th,[[252]] and Col. W.J. Worth, Capt. John Munroe and Lieut. William C. DeHart were ordered east July 14th from Chicago, being too ill to travel. In the issue of August 11th Captain Gath (probably meant for Galt), the other member of “the staff,” is mentioned as being sent in the same party.
Decimation of the ranks of the men is noticed in Vol. 42, Niles, p. 423, for August 11th: “Of the 208 soldiers attached to the command of Colonel Twiggs, 30 died and 155 deserted. Of three companies of artillery under him, consisting of 152 men, 26 died and 20 deserted. Of Colonel Cummings’ detachment of 80 men, 21 died and 4 deserted. Of Colonel Crane’s artillery, 220 men, 55 died. Of the 850 men who left Buffalo, not more than 200 were left fit for the field.”
While a slight discrepancy may be found to exist between items and their totals, they are but natural to all statements, and do not overestimate the awful mortality and the conditions, which can readily be realized. The following letter, published in the same issue of Niles and dated Fort Dearborn, July 12th, will probably convey a better idea of those conditions than any deductions I may make:
“We have got at last to our place of rendezvous, but in what a condition! We have traveled 600 miles in a steamboat crowded almost to suffocation and the Asiatic cholera raging amongst us. The scenes on board the boat are not to be described. Men died in six hours after being in perfect health. The steerage was crowded with the dying and new cases were appearing on the deck, when the demon entered the cabin. The first case occurred at Fort Gratiot; the man attacked belonged to the company I commanded. I found that the soldiers hesitated about attending him at first, so that I went to the sick man, felt his pulse and stood by his bed, and in a short time the soldiers became reconciled. This was only at first, for when the disease came upon us with fury and the boat became a moving pestilence, every soldier who was well became a nurse for the sick. The disease was met with resolution, and never did a body of men stand more firmly by each other than the soldiers in our boat.