George, there's another bit of insight about one of the principal players of the story of the Minnehaha abandoning her sick that I've run across. That young Lieutenant, William Lewis Nugent, who wrote of his concerns of the potential for a smallpox outbreak along the banks of the Mississippi as a result of this event is the subject of a brief profile (pp 126-128) in the book Soldiers of the Cross: Confederate Soldier-Christians and the Impact of War on Their Faith by Kent T. Dollar, Mercer University Press.

For the record, I have no commercial interest in the book, but wanted to pass along the information to anyone following this thread who may be interested.