May 20, 2012

A Triple Tragedy for the Longstreets, 1861

Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond


The final stop on our Richmond tour was the grave site of three of General Longstreet's children who died of scarlet fever. They died within a week of each other, leaving their parents and an older brother to grieve.

This is an example of how devastating contagious diseases could be during the Civil War years. People did not yet know that germs spread illness and thus antiseptics were not understood and antibiotics were not yet available

1 comment:

  1. i just caught myself looking for orbs on your pic...silly me.

    ReplyDelete

The View from Squirrel Ridge features thousands of views of the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding area. I post frequently so please visit often.

Your comments are appreciated. If you are responding to a post older than a few days, your comment will be held until we have a chance to approve it. Thanks for your patience!

Sorry, anonymous comments cannot be accepted because of the large number of spam comments that come in that way. Also, links that are ads will be deleted.