Pox Americana

A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across North America when the War of Independence began, and until now, we have known almost nothing about it. Elizabeth Fenn is the first historian to reveal how deeply this disease affected the outcome of the war in every colony and the lives of everyone on the continent. Her remarkable research shows us how the disease devastated the American troops at Quebec and kept them at bay during the British occupation of Boston, and how it ravaged slaves in Virginia who had escaped to join the British forces.