Daily AncestorCamp fever
Camp fever meant a fever spreading in army camps; it could be typhus, but in the US Civil War it was more often typhoid fever.
Camp fever was the name soldiers and doctors gave to deadly fevers that swept crowded, dirty military camps. Dictionaries define it as typhus.
In the American Civil War, however, typhoid fever was the more common cause of what soldiers called camp fever. The two are different diseases, so the term alone cannot tell you which one it was.
As seen in a recordRegimental death record, Civil War
Pvt. Jas. Hale, Co. B, 14th Ind. Inf., died of camp fever, Sept. 1862
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Daily Ancestor. "Camp fever." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/causes-of-death/camp-fever. Last checked 2026-10-01.