Washington at Rushmore

Over 130,000 Americans died from smallpox during the War of Independence. Documents released by the National Archives show evidence that the British may have used smallpox as an insidious biological weapon against the colonists.

In a report to Congress, General George Washington warned that the British were deliberately infecting people with smallpox and sending them to various American cities. Washington wrote:

"A Sailor Says that a number of these Comeing out have been innoculated, with design of Spreading the Smallpox thro’ this Country & Camp. I have Communicated this to the General Court & recommended their attention thereto." Washington's letter to John Hancock, President of Congress. Source: National Archives

Washington would go on to mention the bioterrorism threat in a series of similar letters. In the end, he was convinced that smallpox was "a weapon of Defense they Are useing against us."

Washington did not panic, nor did he use this as an excuse to grab more power. Instead, he took decisive action to inoculate his troops. Inoculation involved intentionally giving healthy individuals a mild case of smallpox to prevent them from getting the more deadly strains later. It was a risky gamble, given that inoculees could unintentionally spark outbreaks and, of course, possibly die during the inoculation.

Despite the risks it was the right move. Historian Elizabeth Fenn explained:

"Washington's unheralded and little-recognized resolution to inoculate the Continental forces must surely rank with the most important decisions of the war. The general had outflanked his enemy." Source: Pox Americana by Elizabeth Fenn

The results were indeed dramatic:

"After the inoculations were complete, the Continentals were able to fight at full strength without fear of the epidemic. This was critically important in the Southern campaign in the final years of the war. Irregular militias refused to march on Charleston, South Carolina, to retake the town because smallpox was loose there. But an inoculated army of soldiers paid to fight was able to engage in battles that had scared off the militias---and to withstand the British attempts at biological warfare that preceded the surrender at Yorktown." Source: Washington Monthly

Today, smallpox is still considered a serious biological weapon that poses a threat to our national security. Iraq's possible possession of smallpox was even used as a justification for war.

We are often told that we have to curtail our freedoms because we live in extraordinary times. The next time you are asked to exchange your freedom for security, remember that our freedoms were once forged by men of less means and more character, who lived in times that were no less extraordinary than our own.

"We are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular." Edward R. Murrow.

Washington Today

Photos by hawleyjr and Pearbiter.