Yellow fever In 1873, Shreveport, Louisiana lost 759 citizens in an 80-day period to a Yellow fever epidemic, with over 400 additional victims eventually succumbing. The total death toll from August through November was approximately 1,200, In 1878, about 20,000 people died in a widespread epidemic in the Mississippi River Valley. That year, Memphis had an unusually large amount of rain, which led to an increase in the mosquito population. The result was a huge epidemic of yellow fever. The steamship "John D. Porter" took people fleeing Memphis northward in hopes of escaping the disease, but passengers were not allowed to disembark
Yellow fever the Louisiana Purchase to the US in 1803. In 1804, Haiti proclaimed its independence as the second republic in the Western Hemisphere. The yellow fever epidemic of 1793 in Philadelphia, which was then the capital of the United States, resulted in the deaths of several thousand people, more than 9% of the population. The national government fled the city, including President George Washington. Additional yellow fever epidemics struck Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York City in the 18th and 19th centuries, and traveled along steamboat routes from New Orleans. They caused some 100,000–150,000 deaths in total. In 1853, Cloutierville, Louisiana, had