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