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Wait. WAIT. #bioweapons twitter - am I the only person who didn't know someone tried to assassinate Abe Lincoln with yellow fever?! And that the rest of DC was just gonna be collateral? #ELBI?
Okay, okay, this is what I read: that Luke Pryor Blackburn, a physician, went to Bermuda to treat a yellow fever epidemic. While there, the Confederate supporter collected linens and other things he thought contaminated with yellow fever*, and shipped them to a co-conspirator.
The co-conspirator was supposed to arrange for the EIGHT TRUNKS of soiled and presumably contaminated items to be distributed - 5 to DC, including the largest to an auction house, 1 each to two Union strongholds in Virginia & North Carolina, and 1 to Lincoln.
*No, they didn't know yellow fever was a mosquito-born disease until a few years after this plot. Blackburn supported a fomite theory of disease.
His coconspirator chickened out and turned him in, but despite the evidence, Blackburn was acquitted. Why?…
His coconspirator chickened out and turned him in, but despite the evidence, Blackburn was acquitted. Why?…
Seems he wasn't in the right jurisdiction at any time to charge him with anything, and so he just... got off. And then went home and was elected governor of Kentucky. 
Apparently one historian, Edward Steers, thinks the whole thing was financed and condoned by Jefferson Davis.
Apparently one historian, Edward Steers, thinks the whole thing was financed and condoned by Jefferson Davis.
So I'm reading The Weaponizing of Biology by Marc Vargo, because I owe @EmTumilty words. (Fantastic job I'm doing there, eh?) Apparently Edward Steers wrote a book by the name of Blood on the Moon, about the Lincoln assassination, and he thinks the story about Blackburn is true.
There's a brief 101 about Blackburn's involvement in this kind of bizarre yet believable attempt to unleash yellow fever on the Union and Lincoln on Blackburn's Wikipedia page, for those who want more details.
(This is one of the earliest modern examples of biowarfare.)
(This is one of the earliest modern examples of biowarfare.)