“Yellow Jack monster”
From The New-York Times May 7, 1865:
THE YELLOW FEVER PLOT.; Judicial Investigation at St. George’s–The Evidence Against Blackburn Conclusive.
HALIFAX, N.S., Saturday, May 6.
The Bermuda papers contain long accounts of the judicial investigation, now being held at St. George’s, of the attempt of Dr. BLACKBURN to introduce yellow fever into New-York, Philadelphia and other Northern cities.
BLACKBURN visited Bermuda ostensibly on a philanthropic mission in connection with the causes of yellow fever.
The evidence shows that be collected while there, bedding and clothing taken from fever patients; that he purchased and infected new clothing, which he packed in trunks and left in charge of parties with orders to forward them to New-York in the Spring.
One witness testified that BLACKBURN represented himself as a Confederate agent, whose mission was the destruction of the Northern masses. It was also shown that several persons connected with the agency of the Confederate States were cognizant of these facts.
It is stated that there were ten trunks, three of which have been found and their contents buried by the Board of Health.
BLACKBURN is well known in these Provinces as a leading and ultra rebel.
Luke Pryor Blackburn was a physician and Confederate sympathizer from Kentucky. In 1864 he worked in Bermuda to help victims of a major Yellow Fever outbreak. Bermuda was a base for Confederate blockade runners. A Confederate double agent in Canada accused Dr. Blackburn of the plot to send contaminated clothing to the northern United States. Bermuda authorities found trunks of contaminated clothing in a hotel in St. George’s. Dr. Blackburn had allegedly contracted with the hotel owner to temporarily store the trunks. The Times report must be about the hotel owner’s trial in Bermuda. Canadian authorities arrested Dr. Blackburn on May 19, 1865. He was acquitted; much later in his life he said the charges were “preposterous”. Historians disagree about the strength of the charges.
The doctor would later serve as Kentucky’s 28th governor. In 1900 Walter Reed proved that yellow fever was caused by mosquitoes, not contact with contaminated clothing.
