By September a well organized Army could have slowed the epidemic to a controllable level.

Bollocks. Armies always spread epidemic disease. The Scottish army brought the Black Death to Scotland after a raid on England, the armies sacking Italy around 1500 spread syphilis round Europe, 19th century armies spread typhus, the Americans spread gonorrhoea round South-East Asia in the Vietnam War.

Soldiers are rapists and looters, however "well organized". That is not safe behaviour in an epidemic.