Of the 12,920 Union soldiers who died at Andersonville, Georgia only 67 died of small-pox. About half of one percent of total deaths. This appears to be in tribute of Doctor White at Andersonville who put his small-pox cases into a separate holding area three miles away from Camp Sumter. Perhaps partly it was because the small-pox soldiers at Andersonville were exposed to fresh air and partly because of a lack of blankets and clothing that helped carry the deadly disease as well as vaccination by the Confederate doctors.

At Union prisons such as Camp Chase in which about 2,200 soldiers died during the war it had 372 deaths due to small-pox for about 17% of all deaths. At Camp Chase if a soldier had small-pox he was sent to a pest house and quarantined. I've not yet read of anyone who was sent to the pest house at Camp Chase who ever returned to their prison barracks. The pest house at Camp Chase was about 1/3 of a mile from the general prison population. Although it is not known what other northern prisons rate of small-pox deaths were it is my opinion they hovered close to 20%.

The national average for small-pox deaths was much higher than those at Andersonville. The South was doing something correct but when Richmond was set to the torch in April of 1865 so too were the Confederate medical records and any hopes of findings their results and or procedures were lost to mankind. Whether by accident or design the doctors at Andersonville deserve a great deal of credit. Wirz himself had been a prior homeopathic doctor but I don't believe he had anything to do with the low rate of small-pox deaths at Andersonville.

The following came from the medical records of the Union Army in Volume three.

"The presence of small-pox among the troops raised a demand for vaccine virus which was supplied in the form of crusts by the medical dispensaries in the Northern cities. This stock was wholly from infants, and each crust was accompanied by a certificate bearing the name of the dispensary, that of the child from whom it was procured and the date of its removal. A small percentage of the virus used was furnished by Dr. Cutter of Massachusetts, who raised crusts from the calf by vaccinating with humanized virus."

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