I think I posted the info an links I had so far.
I also had a chance to talk with one of the physicians on the board of the Society of Civil War Surgeons. They felt the most likely cause of the eye infections were probably pink eye... infectious conjunctivitis. It would probably be the best bet since it spread through so many of them in such as short time period.
I'm still looking into the chronic lung problems a large number of them acquired during that 121 mile march from Helena, AR to Little Rock. The lung problems were simply attributed to asthma by their local physicians but the lung problems stayed with them for the remainder of their lives. But I find the asthma explanation less likely since dozens, if not more than 100 of the men on that march came up with the same affliction at the same time. I was thinking something like anthrax in the soil and dust.... but some of the physicians in the Civil war group thought pneumonia or some type of bronchitis might be a better explanation.
If so much time had not passed, it would have been interesting if they could have examined my gggf who suffered miserably from both problems.
I clearly did not understand what it must have felt like to have a severe, chronic eye infection and blindness from corneal scarring until I had an eye injury myself last week.
Just a tiny little 1/32 inch hair, like a bee bristle, in my eye for 4 days and corneal abrasion from the ER trying to get it out... was unimaginably painful. You could not use your good eye to see because every time you moved the good eye, it would cause excruciating pain in the bad one. For a week, the pain was intolterable and the eye watered incessantly. The vision was like looking through an inch of vaseline and damaged the vision so bad that you could not identify a couch from a car. In my case, I finally got the object out of the eye, they had placed a contact over the cornea to protect it and 10 days later it completely recovered, the abrasion healed and 100% restoration of sight... but during that time, I truly understood what these soldiers went through for the remainder of their lives. My gggf survived about 20 years with those afflictions and total blindness except to light and dark. The doctors had him using poultices of rotten apple and I would have thought the acid would be further damaging to the eye. He had to stay in darkened rooms, wore shaded goggles when he did go out, but could not see to walk.
It was quite an ordeal for all of them. I'm now interested in learning what I can about the ailments the 77th went through.
I am also interested in seeing if we can find any photos of them. I would like to see if I might get a glimpse of my gggf from the description I have of him. He was fairly tall for that time era and it would be interesting to see any images. So far I have not seen any photos of their regiment. Let me know if anyone comes across any photos.