Apr 17, 2012 - Sale 2276

Sale 2276 - Lot 126

Price Realized: $ 28,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 20,000
DIRECTING A MASSIVE SMALLPOX INOCULATION WASHINGTON, GEORGE. Letter Signed, "G°:Washington," to "Commanding Officer at Alexandria" [Brigadier General George Weedon], ordering troops to report to camp for inoculation against smallpox. With franking signature "G:Washington" (slightly worn) on address leaf; body of letter in the hand of Tench Tilghman. 2 pages, 4to, with detached address leaf; short closed separations at folds, minor edge wear, address leaf worn with small seal hole. "Head Quarters Valley Forge" [PA], 20 March 1778

Additional Details

Washington offers detailed instructions for moving troops into camp for smallpox inoculations: "I desire that you will suffer none of them to be detained at Alexandria or George Town for that purpose. If the small pox should be in either, the troops are not to halt at or enter them. The officers commanding the different detachments are to be directed to march them slowly that they may not be overheated by exercise and thereby put in a habit prejudicial to innoculation. They are to make diligent enquiry whether the small pox be at any houses upon the road, and if it is to avoid them carefully. When the officers arrive within a day or two's march of the camp, they are to inform the surgeons, that proper accommodations may be prepared for them." Published in Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, 14:235-6.