Post-war Humanitarian Work
After his acquittal, Blackburn remained in Canada to avoid arrest and prosecution by U.S. authorities. When he learned of a yellow fever outbreak in New Orleans and the Texas Gulf Coast, Blackburn wrote to President Andrew Johnson on September 4, 1867, asking permission to return to the U.S. and help treat the disease. Not waiting for Johnson's response—which never came—Blackburn returned to the U.S., arriving in Louisville on September 25, 1867, en route to New Orleans. After rendering aid during the epidemic, he and his family moved to an Arkansas plantation owned by his wife.
No attempt to arrest Blackburn was made, and he returned to Kentucky with his family in early 1873. The family lived in Louisville's Galt House hotel, and Blackburn resumed his medical practice in that city. During a cholera epidemic in 1873, Blackburn rightly theorized that the disease was spread by the consumption of contaminated water, but most citizens accepted the competing theory that cholera was a miasmatic disease. This theory was espoused by Thomas S. Bell, a better-known physician in Louisville. Thousands died as a result of failing to heed Blackburn's advice to boil potentially contaminated water before drinking it. Blackburn's philanthropic work included treating victims of yellow fever outbreaks in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1873 and Fernandina, Florida, in 1877. He refused to accept compensation for his services in either city, but was presented with gifts from appreciative residents in both cases. Several southern newspapers also carried glowing accounts of Blackburn's service.
Louisville's Courier-Journal carried an announcement of Blackburn's candidacy for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Kentucky on February 11, 1878. It is not clear why, with only meager prior political experience, he decided to seek the office. He may have been influenced by the members of his family who were involved in politics. His brother Joseph was, at the time, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and another brother, James, had served in the Kentucky Senate. Two of his wife's brothers also held political office; Samuel Churchill was Secretary of State under Governors John L. Helm, John W. Stevenson, and Preston Leslie, and Thomas Churchill served as treasurer and later governor of the state of Arkansas. Whatever the reason, even his friends did not believe his announcement was wise due to his political inexperience. He opened his campaign with a speech in Owen County on March 29, 1878.
About the same time as his gubernatorial campaign began, Blackburn appeared before the Kentucky General Assembly to advocate measures to protect the state against disease outbreaks, including the creation of a state board of health and the construction of quarantine centers in the state's border towns. To a large degree, his pleas fell upon deaf ears, with the exception of his proposal for the state board of health, which was created in March 1878. Soon after, news came that yellow fever had appeared in the lower Mississippi Valley earlier than usual; by August 1878, it had reached epidemic proportions. Blackburn advocated implementing quarantines to deal with the influx of people fleeing north to escape the disease, but many of the state's doctors did not believe yellow fever could survive as far north as Kentucky. Some towns in the Jackson Purchase region attempted to implement crude quarantines, but the city of Louisville completely ignored Blackburn's advice and welcomed refugees from the South. Blackburn temporarily halted his gubernatorial campaign and traveled to Louisville to help treat those who arrived there already suffering from the disease.
On September 5, the mayor of Hickman, Kentucky, a small western town along the Mississippi River, telegraphed the state board of health, informing them that yellow fever had reached epidemic levels in the city and requesting that Blackburn be sent to them as soon as possible. Blackburn arrived on September 7 to find that roughly 20 percent of the town's population were ill with yellow fever. He organized cleanup crews to disinfect the town and a squad of Negroes to guard vacated homes. In late September, when it appeared the Hickman epidemic was waning, Blackburn traveled to Chattanooga and Martin, Tennessee, to render aid, but within ten days, he received word that the outbreak in Hickman had resurged and spread to nearby Fulton, Kentucky. Blackburn returned to the area and continued his ministrations until late October, when the outbreak had fully subsided.
Read more about this topic: Luke P. Blackburn
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