By Jessica Gorman
Not long after I started working at the museum, I was warned by then director, Schelley Francis to be careful handling things like old letters not just for their sake but for my own. You never know what these types of materials have come into contact with over the years. For example, during the Civil War, soldiers were known to mail smallpox scabs back home to their families. These scabs were used in inoculation, a method used to protect against severe cases of small pox by introducing the disease through cuts in the skin. In 2003, a New Mexico librarian was surprised to discover an envelope containing scabs tucked into an 1888 medical book. Those scabs were subsequently sent to the CDC for study.
When the Civil War broke out, Edwin H. Fay was Headmaster of the Minden Male Academy. Though a supporter of secession, he was not so eager to enlist in the Confederate Army. Instead, he waited until just before conscription was instituted. Had he only waited two more weeks, he would have been exempt from service because of his position at the school. Letters written by Fay to his wife, Sarah, reflect his clear desire to be released from the army and return home.
Edwin Fay’s letters, published in This Infernal War: The Confederate Letters of Sgt. Edwin H. Fay give us insight not only into the experiences of a soldier, but also of a husband and a father including the death of the couple’s oldest son, William Edwin Fay. They also document the family’s experience with inoculation against smallpox.
On Tuesday, 9 December 1862, he writes:
“Would you believe it I have on now the same clothes that I put on the morning I left home. It was so cold on the Tallahatchie that I put off changing until we started and we have been more than a week on the Road. One reason was I was vaccinated and I feared to take cold in my arm. It took well and made me quite sick for several days but I had to keep traveling though I should have laid up if I had been at home. I may send a scab in this letter to Dr. Patillo to vaccinate the family with if you wish it. I think it had better be done as the small pox is in Monroe certain although the Drs. Say it is not.”
Dr. Patillo is probably Dr. William C. Patillo, a resident of Minden. Just a few days later, in a letter dated 14 December 1862, he writes again:
“I sent you some vaccine matter in my last letter and will send you some more in this for fear that miscarried. It comes from my own arm. Give it to Dr. Patillo and be vaccinated yourself, have all the family, Thorny too, vaccinated and tell him to vaccinate Mrs. Webb and her children too. Be sure you do it at once for it is important. The small pox is in the army but it creates no sensation.”
Thorny is the couple’s one-year-old son, Thornwell. In his next letter, Fay describes the symptoms he experienced and emphasizes his concern for his family and his desire for them to also be inoculated.
“I have not been very well for several days this sore on my arm makes me sick all over but it is healing up and itches terribly. I have sent two scabs from it to you to have Dr. Patillo vaccinate you all. I hope you may get them safely and thereby escape the Small Pox. We have but little fear of it here though it is in all parts of the army.”
By the 21st of December, there is acknowledgment that the scabs had been received by Mrs. Fay.
“I’m so glad you got the scab I sent in my letter. Hope Dr. Patillo will use it. He ought not to charge you anything as you furnished the matter, and will not I presume. Be sure and tell him to vaccinate Mrs. Webb & Martin as I promised to tell you. There is a good deal of small pox in the army and it is in all the Hospitals, but I don’t think there is much fatality. If there is I don’t hear it, but of course the Surgeons are very anxious to get matter and I have promised this scab when it comes off.”
Scabs were collected by physicians to be used to inoculate others. In January, Fay’s letters continue to describe ongoing symptoms. “…I have been riding 8 days and my ‘vaccined’ arm is inflamed and swollen so that I can hardly write at all.” And then, indication that his family, too, had been inoculated. “The Vaccine matter was taken from my own arm. I am glad it has taken so well.” He continues, “I am so glad my darling that you are vaccinated and that it has taken on our dear little Thornwell. The matter came from my own arm and it is by no means well now. I vaccinated a great many while I was out after deserters.”
Soon thereafter, he reveals an unintended consequence of his inoculation.
“My dear I must tell you a good joke on myself. I have scratched my vaccine sore and then scratched my “sitting down place” and am vaccinated on both sides so I can with difficulty sit down at all. Don’t say anything about it to any body.”
He then writes of the great discomfort that he experienced, and also of his confidence in being vaccinated.
“I…have three or four bad sores broken out on my behind or ‘down sitter’ so I can with only the greatest difficulty sit down on anything much less a saddle. They are vaccine sores and were made by my scratching my arm at night and then scratching there. The matter was transferred in that manner. So you see I am quite thoroughly vaccinated. The small pox still prevails to a limited extent in some parts of this army but the greatest care is taken and the best sanitary regulations adopted and I do not think it will prevail to any great extent though there are cases in the Hospitals at Jackson & Canton. The sores I spoke of look just like the small pox and if I had been exposed to it I should think it the Varioloid [mild smallpox], that is if I did not know whence they originated.”
It would seem that by mid-January, Fay’s inoculation symptoms must have subsided. It would also seem that his family’s experience must have been milder than his own as he makes no mention of being concerned about their well-being in regards to any symptoms they may have experienced.
After the war, Edwin Fay returned to Minden for a short time. He later served as Principal of Fayette Academy in Mississippi, President of Sillman College, Superintendent of Education for the State of Louisiana, and established Elfinwood school in Baton Rouge before his death in 1898.
(Jessica Gorman is Executive Director of the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Webster Parish Historian, and an avid genealogist.)