Most of the soldiers at Camp Hope were from rural east Texas and had very little immunity to any disease. These men after enlisting and forming into larger units preparing for their trip to Arkansas started to succumb to disease even before they left Texas. They left a trail of sick and dead men from eastern Texas to central Arkansas. Once they went into camp at Camp Hope the conditions were right for the epidemic that followed. The large numbers of men in a confined area with a limited water supply, that became polluted and throw in poor hygiene, lack of immunity; diseases like typhoid fever, measles, dysentery, and probaly a few others ran rampant. Another thing that didn't help doctors were handing out freely a mercury based medicine called Calomel, which the men took much, as in the case of 1st Lieut Duncan A. McCallum 19th Texas Inf co"H". The approx. number of dead at Camp Hope, (Camp Nelson) is 1500. There is no way of knowing the role Calomel had in these numbers.