Robert P. Watson is the author of many books on American politics and history including, most recently, Escape! The Story of the Confederacy's Infamous Libby Prison and the Civil War's Largest Jail Break (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), George Washington's Final Battle: The Epic Struggle to Build a Capital City and Nation (Georgetown University Press, 2021), The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn: An Untold Story of the American Revolution (Da Capo Press, 2017, and The Nazi Titanic: The Incredible Untold Story of a Doomed Ship in World War II (Da Capo Press, 2016), which is currently being made into a motion picture. He resides in Boca Raton, Florida.

"In 1793, the interim capital city of Philadelphia was struck by a mysterious malady that ended up killing at least one-tenth of the population, prompting an evacuation, and shutting down the nascent federal government, resulting in shocking parallels to recent pandemics and offering important political lessons"--