Virginia author writes book about yellow fever epidemic in Norfolk and Portsmouth

Delores Johnson / Virginian-Pilot file
Enslaved people and poor people took the brunt of the yellow fever epidemic that hit Portsmouth and Norfolk in 1855. Some Black victims were buried in the oldest part of Norfolk’s West Point Cemetery, the cemetery for Black people that is annexed to Elmwood Cemetery. This photo was made in 2005.

By Colin Warren-Hicks | colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com | Staff writer

UPDATED: August 26, 2024 at 10:25 a.m.

In 1855, the nation turned its attention in shock toward the tragedy unfolding in Norfolk and Portsmouth.

The American public clamored for fresh reports about the latest death tolls in the Virginia port cities, where yellow fever struck with a 33% mortality rate.

The country was horrified by the devastation, now chronicled in a new book, “The Fever: The Most Fatal Plague in American History,” by Lon Wagner.

Wagner, who lives in Roanoke, documents how yellow fever silenced the bustling streets of two flourishing cities and forever altered the trajectory of Hampton Roads.

“Norfolk and Portsmouth both lost key people who would have been leaders for those cities for decades to come,” he said in an interview. “So it makes you wonder how it affected the fate of these two places at a key time of growth, when they were really building.”

On Thursday, Wagner will give a talk at Prince Books in Norfolk about the book, which began as a 14-part series he wrote as a reporter for The Virginian-Pilot in 2005. The book is a culmination of years of research, collecting and cataloguing historical accounts found in 1800s newspapers, personal stories preserved in diaries, and patient histories recorded during the 100-day epidemic by the Portsmouth Medical Center.

Wagner begins his narrative in the hold of the cargo ship Benjamin Franklin. The vessel, transporting coffee, fruit, sugar and passengers to New York City, docked at the Caribbean island of St. Thomas in May 1855 amid an outbreak of yellow fever there.

Yellow fever is believed to have originated in Africa and spread around the globe on board ships — “a curse” of the “international slave trade” — Wagner writes.

The illness begins with headache, muscle pain, vomiting and a fever before attacking vital organs. It shuts down the liver and, Wagner writes, the skin “turns an ashen yellow.”

The cover of Lon Wagner's book about the yellow fever epidemic of 1855 in southeastern Virginia: "The Fever: The Most Fatal Plague in American History" (Koehler Books, 2024). The book grew out of Wagner's 14-part, 2005 series for The Virginian-Pilot. — Koehler Books
Lon Wagner’s book grew out of his 2005 series for The Virginian-Pilot.

Though the crew showed signs of illness, he writes, the captain of the Benjamin Franklin departed the Caribbean port for the United States.

When the ship stopped for repairs in Hampton Roads that June, he lied to health officers about conditions aboard, and the virus was released first into Portsmouth.

“The fever spread like a slow gas leak,” Wagner writes.

It had been 29 years since the last yellow fever outbreak in Hampton Roads, and almost no one here had immunity. When a mosquito that carries the virus bites a human, the human becomes a carrier and passes it to the next mosquito that bites — on and on it goes.

In Norfolk, people reported falling ill as early as July 16.

Norfolk and Portsmouth residents who could afford to flee did — about 75% of the population. The people who were left, the poor and enslaved, suffered the most.

Of the roughly 6,000 people unable to flee Norfolk, around 2,100 died. Of the 3,000 Portsmouth residents who stayed, around 1,000 died. Wagner could not find another U.S. epidemic with as high a mortality rate. Not since the Black Plague in 1300s Europe had a disease death rate been so terrible.

The Fever, Chapter 1: A killer sails into port

Wagner paints a picture of misery through the plight of his book’s characters — reconstructing personalities, based on archived letters and other writings — such as civic leaders, doctors, nurses and a Presbyterian minister, George Armstrong:

“The moment Armstrong stepped off the ferry in Portsmouth, he stopped in his tracks. An apocalyptic scene lay before him … The fleeing residents had dumped food, entrails, leftover milk and anything and everything else that was perishable at the edge of their properties. It hadn’t rained since the mass exodus, so the detritus lay rotting in the summer sun.”

But Wagner also gives readers heroes such as 26-year-old Annie M. Andrews, who traveled from Syracuse, New York, into “the teeth of calamity” to help nurse the sick.

“Though the work was grim, they wanted to get started right away.”