L.C. BAKER
Silver Member
The National Hotel epidemic was a mysterious sickness which afflicted persons who stayed at the National Hotel in Washington, D.C. beginning in early January 1857. At the time, the hotel was the largest in the city. By some accounts, as many as 400 people became sick and nearly three dozen died.
The illness was considered by some medical experts to have originated from an attempt to poison hotel boarders. It affected mostly patrons of the hotel's dining room and not those who frequented the bar. It began to spread more noticeably by the middle of January 1857. New cases of the illness began to decrease in number by the end of January 1857 and continued to abate until the middle of February. When the numbers of guests increased for the presidential inauguration of March 4, 1857, the sickness returned again forcefully.
The National Hotel epidemic's first occurrence coincided with the President-elect of the United States James Buchanan's first stay at the National Hotel. When Buchanan returned home to Wheatland, reports of new cases of the sickness stopped. Upon his return two weeks later the illness returned with intensity. This is quite possibly the first use of germ warfare by Americans, on Americans! This was the kind of news in those days that fueled the fires of the succession, and cause waves of hate for the "BLACK REPUBLICANS".
Among the three dozen or so deaths from the mass poisoning were several members of Congress including non other than
Representative John Quitman ( Knight of the Golden Circle) of Mississippi, who died July 1858 from the disease’s aftereffects.
Henry Clay lived at the National for many years and died in his room (Room 116) in 1852. The room seems to have been kept up as a sort of memorial to him for quite some time afterward. It was well known that the hotel was a headquarters for Southerners in Washington. During the Civil War, the War Department’s official news censor kept his office at the National, since it was close to the telegraph office, but the Union presence didn't discourage well-to-do Southern sympathizers from taking rooms there. The dapper John Wilkes Booth, for example, stayed in Room 228 while plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. The hotel was an easy walk from Ford's Theater.
L.C. Baker
The illness was considered by some medical experts to have originated from an attempt to poison hotel boarders. It affected mostly patrons of the hotel's dining room and not those who frequented the bar. It began to spread more noticeably by the middle of January 1857. New cases of the illness began to decrease in number by the end of January 1857 and continued to abate until the middle of February. When the numbers of guests increased for the presidential inauguration of March 4, 1857, the sickness returned again forcefully.
The National Hotel epidemic's first occurrence coincided with the President-elect of the United States James Buchanan's first stay at the National Hotel. When Buchanan returned home to Wheatland, reports of new cases of the sickness stopped. Upon his return two weeks later the illness returned with intensity. This is quite possibly the first use of germ warfare by Americans, on Americans! This was the kind of news in those days that fueled the fires of the succession, and cause waves of hate for the "BLACK REPUBLICANS".
Among the three dozen or so deaths from the mass poisoning were several members of Congress including non other than
Representative John Quitman ( Knight of the Golden Circle) of Mississippi, who died July 1858 from the disease’s aftereffects.
Henry Clay lived at the National for many years and died in his room (Room 116) in 1852. The room seems to have been kept up as a sort of memorial to him for quite some time afterward. It was well known that the hotel was a headquarters for Southerners in Washington. During the Civil War, the War Department’s official news censor kept his office at the National, since it was close to the telegraph office, but the Union presence didn't discourage well-to-do Southern sympathizers from taking rooms there. The dapper John Wilkes Booth, for example, stayed in Room 228 while plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. The hotel was an easy walk from Ford's Theater.
L.C. Baker
