April 22
On this day in 1862, Joseph P. Jordan (1830-1862), Captain of Company G, 35th North Carolina Infantry, died suddenly of typhoid fever. A 32-year old unmarried attorney from Hendersonville, Jordan had earned his law degree from Wake Forest in 1847 and later served as Henderson County’s state representative. In February 1861, he proposed the bill establishing Transylvania County (carving it out of parts of Henderson and Jackson Counties). When war broke out, he helped recruit the “Henderson Rifles” in October 1861, and was elected its captain. The company joined the regiment at Camp Crabtree near Raleigh, and trained until it was ordered to New Bern on January 8, 1862. Camp had been a seasoning time, as an officer noted that their numbers were reduced “by sickness, primarily measles and mumps.” Those communicable diseases raced through camp and afflicted the rural farm boys who had not been exposed to them as children. As one Confederate officer marveled, “The large number of country boys who never had the measles” also “ran through the whole category of complaints that boyhood and babyhood are subjected to.” But more deadly diseases lurked. Captain Jordan contracted typhoid fever in early March, likely from drinking contaminated water in the New Bern camp. Moved to the Yarborough House–Raleigh’s premier hotel, which had been converted to a hospital–Jordan missed the battle of New Bern on March 14. The bacterium Salmonella entericum, which left him so weakened he could barely move, caused a burning fever, wracking body aches, diarrhea, and a rose-colored spotted rash that covered his body. After several weeks of suffering, doctors believed he was improving, reporting he “was better and likely to recover.” But it was false hope. On Tuesday morning, April 22, Jordan experienced typhoid’s fatal symptom, acute kidney failure, and he died unexpectedly. He was not unique, Confederate medical officer Dr. Joseph Jones estimated that typhoid fever killed 25% of all Southern soldiers who died of disease. The young, robust Jordan was another victim of disease, which claimed two-thirds of all Civil War fatalities.
Photo:
Captain Jordan died in a hospital ward, wracked by fever and organ failure.
Sources: Weymouth T. Jordan, Jr., comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 9:354, 419; Judkin Browning and Timothy Silver, An Environmental History of the Civil War (2020), 9-17; 1860 U.S. Census: Henderson County; Joseph P. Jordan, Transylvania County Library; North Carolina Standard, April 30, 1862
