After the Civil War:
QUOTE
At least one quarter of the four million former slaves got sick or died between 1862 and 1870, Professor Downs writes, including at least 60,000 (the actual number is probably two or three times higher, he argues) who perished in a smallpox epidemic that began in Washington and spread through the South as former slaves traveled in search of work — an epidemic that Professor Downs says he is the first to reconstruct as a national event.
It's hard for us to realize from this distance, but that war simply has to be the most awful thing to happen to this country. Ever.
EDIT: Crap, they didn't all die from smallpox; mods plz fix title
Edited by thibodeaux on Jun. 14 2012,05:15
