Washington’s Army, Women, and Cleanliness

Cowboy, despite his youth, was hired as ranch manager for a small operation a few hours beyond the middle of nowhere.  Work began in the middle of September.  Unfortunately, the previous ranch owners were a little reluctant to leave.  Cowboy and Ellie were relegated to taking up temporary residence in the bunk house while they waited for the previous owners to pack up and clean.  Three weeks became six, during which Ellie patiently waited because she wanted them to do as much cleaning as possible.  Thank goodness they did that much, because Ellie spent nearly a month cleaning before she could move her family in, and that was with the new ranch owner’s family coming to help for a few days. 

Ellie wondered how people could live in such filth.  I wouldn’t call myself a clean freak (and no one else would, either), but I do believe in being clean and taught my children to clean as well, much to their horror for most of their young lives.  My paternal grandmother was nigh unto obsessed with cleaning.  I recall more than a few somewhat judgmental remarks from her about the cleaning habits of other women in the neighborhood.  I couldn’t risk somebody’s grandmother somewhere saying the same things about me. 

Hold that thought.

With all the driving I did this summer, I finally took the plunge and started listening to audio books, and my second title was Washington’s Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer.  I’d read it the old-fashioned way about 20 years ago; with our nation’s 250^th anniversary coming up next year, it seemed a good bit of history to review. 

What stood out most to me this time was the difference in cleanliness and disease between the British and American camps.  The British and Hessian troops on Staten Island were quite healthy.  They protected their water supply and sanitation was strictly enforced. 

On the other hand, Americans have a propensity for doing just what they want to do.  Even though the American officers understood the importance of field sanitation, they could not enforce it.  “[The American troops] polluted their camps and fouled their water supply.  The result was a polydemic of dysentery, ‘putrid fevers,’ typhoid fever, malaria, and enteric diseases.”[1]  In September 1776, 32 % of the American troops in New York City were too sick to serve.  Many more were ill but still able to be on duty. [2] 

In 1775 and 1776 there were few women with the American forces, who were thought to have been the worse for it.  “Several observers attributed the filthy appearance of the army at Boston and New York and its miserable camp sanitation and very high rates of illness to the absence of women.”  By 1777, the number of women in camp increased dramatically.  They cooked and cleaned, worked as nurses, and gleaned the battlefield. [3]   

So I thought about Ellie’s adventures in housecleaning in the context of a few snippets of history shared by Mr. Fischer in Washington’s Crossing.  The high rates of illness were attributed to the absence of women in Washington’s forces.  The British and Hessians, who had a significant number of women as camp followers, didn’t appear to suffer as much.  The difference was the women.  Women who cooked and cleaned.  Women who refused to live in such filth. 

Being clean helps prevent disease.  We know that.  Our ancestors practiced it.  Did those of previous generations who were not so clean experience a higher mortality rate?  I don’t know, but I assume that was the case.  We see so many people choosing to live in filth.  They don’t know how or don’t want to clean their surroundings.  What will become of our current population when previously eradicated diseases return?  The ones that are truly deadly?  Will the mortality rate skyrocket in part because so many today are not especially clean?

It makes me wonder.

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[1] David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 2004, 87. 

[2] David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 2004, 87. 

[3] David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 2004, 384.