[829] New York Mercury, July 18, 1832.
[830] Niles' Register, August 11, 1832.
No fatalities occurred on the "Sheldon Thompson," the steamer on which General Scott had embarked, until Mackinac had been passed and Lake Michigan entered. Before setting out for the Northwest Scott, anticipating an outbreak of the plague, had taken lessons from Surgeon Mower, stationed in New York, upon its character and treatment.[831] On Scott's particular steamer the disease broke out suddenly and with fatal violence. The only surgeon on board became panic-stricken, drank a bottle of wine, and went to bed sick, and, to quote the commander's grim comment, "ought to have died." In this crisis Scott himself turned doctor, applying as best he could the medicine and treatment suggested by Surgeon Mower. He himself states that his principal success consisted in preventing a general panic. From beginning to end of the cholera visitation he set the example to his subordinates of exhibiting no sign of fear concerning it, visiting and personally attending to the wants of the afflicted. In comparison with this exhibition of fearlessness, the courage required on the field of battle seems trivial.[832] Some time after the Mexican War, Scott told John Wentworth that he had often been in the midst of danger and suffering, but "he had never felt his entire helplessness and need of Divine Providence as he did upon the lakes in the midst of the Asiatic Cholera. Sentinels were of no use in warning of the enemy's approach. He could not storm his works, fortify against him, nor cut his own way out, nor make terms of capitulation. There was no respect for a flag of truce, and his men were falling upon all sides from an enemy in his very midst."[833]
[831] Scott, Memoirs, I, 218 ff.
[832] The terror of the troops and of the citizens in the vicinity of Detroit has already been noticed. A concrete instance of the dread which the cholera inspired is given by Mrs. Kinzie, who was at Green Bay when the news of the approach of the plague reached that place. She relates (Wau Bun, 340) that the news was brought to her by a relative, "an officer who had exhibited the most distinguished courage in the battlefield, and also in some private enterprises demanding unequalled courage and daring." When he had broken the news he "laid his head against the window-sill and wept like a child." This effect was produced, not by the actual presence of the pestilence, but by the news of its ravages at Detroit and the fear of its advent at Green Bay.
[833] Wentworth, Early Chicago, 37.
The "Sheldon Thompson" reached Chicago on the afternoon of July 10.[834] Since there was no harbor, and the bar at the mouth made it impossible for the vessel to enter the river, the troops must be landed in small boats, which was done the next day. The troops under Major Whistler, who had been occupying Fort Dearborn since June 17, were promptly moved out and on July 11 the fort was converted into a general hospital for the use of Scott's men.[835] During the night which elapsed between the arrival at Chicago and the landing of the troops the following morning three more of the company died and their bodies were consigned to the bottom of the lake. Years afterward the captain of the steamer recalled that their forms could plainly be seen through the clear water from the deck, exciting such disagreeable sensations in the minds of the beholders that it was deemed prudent to weigh anchor and shift the vessel a sufficient distance from the spot to shut out the gruesome sight.[836]
[834] Scott to Governor Reynolds, July 15, 1832, in Niles' Register, August 11, 1832.
[835] Drennan Papers, Fort Dearborn post returns, October, 1832.
[836] Letter of Captain A. Walker, in Chicago Weekly Democrat, March 23, 1861.