The Summer of the Pestilence. A History of the Ravages of the Yellow Fever

by George Dodd Armstrong

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194 pages, Hardcover

First published December 28, 2009

About the author

American minister and author (1813-1899)

Reviews

[Stuart Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a series of letters written by a faithful man, my great-great-great-grandfather, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Norfolk during the summer of 1855 in which thousands died of the brutal yellow fever. His is a powerful witness of a a steadfast life, a man holding fast to the truths and convictions of the gospel of the Lord’s benevolence amidst the darkest of hours in which the majority of his congregants, among them his beloved wife and two of his daughters, are taken by the brutal pestilence. “I know not what to compare the sudden withering of all my earthly happiness to, save the withering of Jonah’s gourd, ‘destroyed in a night’... Yet it is even so. God help me to say - ‘Thy will be done.’”

Excerpt on the death of his wife:
“On Wednesday morning she had her two remaining children brought to her bedside, and, after giving them certain mementos of herself, told them, as her parting wish, when in the coming years they should think and speak of their mother, it should be not of that mother as in the grave, but of their mother with Christ in heaven. And when, a little later, as I was sitting with her, I said, ‘It will be pleasant to meet you again with your mother, and our dear little ones, who have been take. Before to our Father’s house,’ she lay for a moment as if reflecting, and then replied, ‘Yes, it will be pleasant to meet with loved ones again; but a pleasanter prospect than that, as it now appears to me, is that I shall soon ‘see Jesus as he is and love him as I ought.’’”

Reflections on the sympathy and aid given by outsiders to those afflicted in Norfolk:
“In my childhood, I recollect to have read an old fairytale, in which the murmurings of streams are represented as fashioning themselves into articulate sounds to the ear of those who stooped to drink of their waters. Methinks the fancy of the old fairytale has here its realization; and the words this flowing stream utters are ‘We are all brethren.’”

[Miles Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A readable and incredibly important primary source on the Yellow Fever epidemic that killed thousands in Virginia in 1855. Especially important and interesting to read in light of the Coronavirus pandemic.

[Kathryn Judson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read about how an epidemic devastated a community, and how people reacted at various stages of the crisis. (Much of it parallels current reactions to Covid-19, by the way...). At the end, the author speculates about the disease itself, and how it spreads, which provides a peek into 19th century understandings/misunderstandings about disease; this is interesting from a historical viewpoint, but not nearly as interesting to me as the accounts of how people dealt with the disease and with their neighbors.

Noted: I read a different edition than this one. I read what I presume is the original edition, as found at Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=neV...