The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-07-25
NATIONAL ENTERTAINMENT,
For the Benefit of the
LADIES' SOCIETY
In Aid of the
Suffering and Destitute Poor Of The South,
viii take place
In Washington, D. G.. August l, '67.

FINiE Ladies' Society i'll aid of the Suf-
Il fering and Destitute Poor of the South"
would respectfully and earnestly call the
attention of the generous Northern public
to the great distress and fearful suffering
now prevailing in the Southern States.
Letters arc daily received from the South,
| from the Generals Commanding, Govern
ors, ministers and eminent citizens, fur
nlshing the most heart-rending details of
tho actual want, famine and starvation i'll
their immediate neighborhood. Tho fol-
lowing lew extracts from the very many
letters received by tho Secretary and Ma
nagcrs of the Society arc respectfully re-
fcrrcd to-:
H'poUARTERs, It'll MILITARY Dist,
(AlIssIssIPPI AND ARKANsAs,)
NICKsDUEG, Miss, May 49, 1867.
am glad to sec that the attention Of the
gentle and humane ladies' of tho North is
being turned towards the sad and desolate
condition of this once happy land.
You, Madam, surrounded with tho plenty
and comforts of a wealthy city, can scarcely
appreciate tho fact that, in many parts of
the South, whole communities are, by q
failure i'll crops and the absence of money
or its equivalent, left Ill want of the ncccs-
sarles Of life; and that poor women, with
large families of helpless children, SO ac-
customed to depend on the labor of others,
that now, with no husband, brother or
servant to help, and no money, they do not
know what to do or where to go for food:
but are left in the solitudes of these South
ern forests, in rags and gaunt with hunger,
subsistinS on what the mother OF larger
children can shoot or pick up in the woods,
or on what the few ncighbors, nearly as
poor as they are, can bring them.
Officers of my acquaintance have met
with such mothers, long after dark, out in
the woods, with an old gun just fired, and
the coon or possum just killed; have gone
home with them and met the group of little
starvciinSs waiting patiently mothers re-
turn with some of the only sort of food
they had tasted for weeks; and women and
children have been found within sixty miles
of the capital of Southern State, during
tho past year, who had starved to death in
their lonesome cabins. These cases of
great distress are rare III Southern cities.
for there, even the most delicatcly bred can
generally find some work which they can
do to keep the wolf from the door; but the
farms or plantations i'll the South arc pc
culiarly secluded, with miles of forest OF
swamp between them, poor roads, and the
stock and animals nearly all taken by the
war, the famine, the floods, or the thieves
who IN such times infcst n country, and the
| distressed families are often, by the time
necessity makes them want to leave, too
sick to travel on foot, and there is no other
| way to go.
| Your proposed entertainment, Madam,
should it produce only funds enough to re-
licvc small fraction of the destitution of
this country, will be good beginning, and
may be followed in other cities North by
similar appeals to people who have happily
never felt the desolation and the horrors
which follow in the tracks of great armies
of invasion. God speed your society in the
good work, js the wish of Madam, yours
truly, Z. o. c. ORD,
Brevct Major General