By Dr. Ferrell Miller
Geary County Historical Society Board Member
“The 1855 Cholera Epidemic”
We have been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic since March of 2020 and now face one or more variants. Lockdowns, social distancing, wearing of masks limited numbers of people in a social gathering, vaccinations and frequent handwashing have been some of the ways the Center for Disease Control has helped us with ways to respond and keep ourselves and others as safe as it is possible.
Thanks also to all our health care and frontline workers. This article contains information about the Cholera epidemic in the 1800s and the impact it had not only on the world, but also on the Fort Riley and Junction City area. The information was taken from the Kansas Historical Society webpage.
Immigrants moving west in the 1800s brought with them more than hopes and dreams. They brought cholera.
Cholera probably began in India and spread around the world along trade routes. It first appeared in America in the 1800s. Many western emigrants suffered from the dreaded disease. Various indigenous tribes who met these newcomers suffered major losses to their population. Cholera rarely spread from person to person, but through the contamination of water sources.
In the mid-1830s reports of cholera lessened. However, the disease reappeared during the Gold Rush of 1849. Historian George Groh wrote the “Gold Rush was to cholera like wind is to fire.” St. Louis was struck in early 1849. By the end of the summer, estimates of dead ranged from 4,500 to 6,000.
In 1859 the losses appear to have been greater. One Missouri newspaper estimated that along a stretch of the Overland Trail one person per mile died from the disease. Historian Merrill Mattes estimated the possibility of four graves per mile along the Platte River route.
The disease was particularly deadly at the frontier outposts. In 1855, cholera struck Fort Riley killing the coming officer, Major E.A. Ogden. For the next ten years, the plains remained relatively free of cholera. It reappeared on the military posts in 1866 and 1867. It was equally devastating to civilian populations in the communities that had recently appeared in response to the railroad construction and cattle shipping in central Kansas. Panic-stricken people fled their homes when the dreaded words were uttered.
Elizabeth Custer, detained at Ellsworth, Kansas on her way east to Fort Riley, reported that it was so bad there was not enough lumber for coffins, and that crude receptacles were fashioned from hardtack boxes. Her husband, George Armstrong Custer, left his post at Fort Wallace to journey to Fort Riley and was later court marshaled. One of his excuses was fear for his wife’s safety. The last major epidemic in the United States occurred in 1873.
“The Cholera Outbreak at Fort Riley”
Gaylynn Childs, retired Executive Director of the Geary County Historical Society, compiled information in this article which was published in the J.C. Union newspaper in 1993.
Fort Riley was established in 1852. Percival G. Lowe, a former soldier who lived through that epidemic, shared a personal account about the sequence of events during the early days of that epidemic. Lowe stated “The Congress that adjourned March 4, 1855, had made appropriations for preparing Fort Riley for a cavalry post by erecting new quarters, stables for five troops of cavalry, storehouses, etc. the plans of which were prepared in Washington and Major E.A. Ogden was ordered to take charge of the work. The buildings were all to be of stone to be taken from quarries in the vicinity of the post.
Major Ogden was quick to report a letter about the slow progress on the buildings in his dispatch to the Quartermaster General dated Fort Riley, August 1st, 1855. Ogden wrote stated that ‘Now that these preparations are made and the material and tools forwarded by Major Sigley are at least arriving so that I might proceed briskly with the work, the cholera has unfortunately made its appearance among us and the death by that disease of 11 persons in the last three days has created panic among the men which, I fear, will result in many desertions’.
Percival Lowe stated that “This was the last dispatch the Major would send. Major E.A. Ogden died from the cholera before the following day had ended.
The morning of August 2 dawned on a camp in great anxiety and distress. Major Ogden had been taken sick and although every effort was made to keep this information from spreading, it flew like wildfire and caused a panic. I knew that distress was great enough to justify sending an express to Fort Leavenworth for medical assistance. The doctor was utterly unable to meet the demands upon him at Fort Riley.”
Lowe continued with “I went to the hospital where appointed nurses were promised extraordinary pay for their work, and they were trying to do their best. The hospital steward was a good man and had stuck to his post, but the doctor seemed to have given up and had not been seen around the sick since morning. Later, I called at the doctor’s quarters. He came to the door himself. I saw that he was nearly a physical and mental wreck. The doctor said, ‘Mr. Lowe, I am unstrung – unfit for anything. I want to take my family to St. Mary’s Mission. I wish you would send me an ambulance. I want to get off as quickly as possible.’ Lowe stated, “I told him I had no ambulance – in fact there was not then an ambulance on the post.”