I was born in 1947 and was the baby of the family. Whatever my siblings caught at school, they came home and gave it to me. I was just a baby when I got chickenpox. My mother said I was covered with them.
I studied the Civil War for many years, wrote a paper for college many years ago that dealt with medical practices and advancements during the war. One thing I learned was that young men who had lived in rural territories of the country, never attended school, and had little contact with outsiders, were extremely susceptible once they went to war. They were the ones who ended up dying from measles, mumps and other diseases, because they had never come in contact with those diseases as children, and the conditions of camp life often-time weakened them and their immune systems, thus making them prime candidates for those diseases.
Doc said the chickenpox virus usually hits you when you are stressed, fatigued, weak and aren’t eating right. Sounds like a civil (it was anything but civil) war soldier. So I have no doubt about what you learned. Getting childhood maladies as a child is one thing but as an adult not so good. I got mumps at 20 years old. The only time I could brag about being hung like a Brahma bull. It was a tough couple of weeks. I was in off crew on my boat at the time. I didn’t feel particularly sick and offered to report for muster at the crew’s office. My COB told me he’d kick my ass and throw me in the brig if I did. He and a few of the officers hadn’t ever had the mumps. My only stint that got me out of muster in the USN. It seems funny now, it wasn’t then. Regards