Napoleon had assigned the defence of the city to General Rapp, who performed the task with great valour and ability. On the return march from Russia, some 40,000 men of Macdonald’s corps had congregated in Danzig, and 5,000 of them were sent away by Rapp; in the middle of January the total number of men in the garrison, including the military officials, was 35,934, consisting of Frenchmen, Poles, Bavarians, Westphalians, Spaniards, Italians, and Dutchmen. While Macdonald’s corps had fared pretty well, comparatively speaking, in the Russian campaign, the men were all very much exhausted, and furthermore, typhus fever was prevalent among them. As early as the latter part of January, accordingly, the number of sick soldiers was very large; in fact, only about 10,000 men were healthy and able to bear arms. ‘As there were no hospitals, beds, or remedies,’ says Friccius,[328] ‘many died from lack of care, and at the same time infectious diseases broke out and made great havoc. A heap of dead men and horses was a common sight in the streets, and in a short time many thousands of the troops, as well as of the inhabitants, were carried away.’ In January the death-rate remained comparatively low; of the garrison about 400 men died in the course of that month. But in February, which was a very cold month, typhus fever spread abroad with great rapidity, so that toward the end of the month some 130 soldiers died every day; no less than 15,000 men lay sick, and the total number of deaths for the entire month amounted to 2,000. When it began to thaw on February 24, the number of patients and deaths increased still more, so that 4,000 men died in March and 3,000 in April. From April on, the condition of health in the garrison improved, although the number of deaths in the month of May was still no less than 2,000.[329] As early as February typhus fever had spread to the civil population, which before the siege had numbered some 40,000; a great many civilians, however, had fled from the city before the investment was yet complete. In the months of February and March, according to Blech,[330] some 200–300 persons died every week, ‘including representatives of all classes—physicians, preachers, jurists, merchants, down to the humblest people.’ The pestilence raged most furiously among the civil inhabitants in the latter part of March. ‘Almost every family was in mourning, and many families were wiped out entirely; the best and most estimable young men were carried away in the prime of their lives. Whole families perished, especially in certain streets which the pestilence seemed to have selected for its chief dwelling-place.’[331] These were especially the streets inhabited by the poorer classes.