The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-06-27
GRAND
In Aid OF The

dSAOe60 DV0e6 y
In Aid OF the
Suffering and Destitute Poor Of the South,
Will take place
In Washington, D. c., August l, '67.
NNHE 'Ladies' Society in aid of tho 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 i'll the Southern States.
Lctters are daily received from the South,
from the Generals Commanding, Govern
ors, ministers and eminent citizens, fur
nlshinS the most heart-rendinS details OF
| the actual want, famine and starvation in
their immediate neighborhood The fol-
! lowing few extracts from the very many
letters received by the Secretary and Ma
nagers of the Society are respectfully re-
ferred to:
u'DQCARrEaS, It'll MILITARY DIST,
(MIssIssiprI AND ARKANsAs,)
VIcKsBURG, Miss, May -, 1867.
am glad to see that the attention OF the
gentle and humane ladies of the North is
being turned towards the sad and desolatc
condition OF this once happy land.
You, Madam, surrounded with the plenty
and comforts of 2 wealthy city, can scarcely
appreciate the fact that, i'll many parts of
the South whole communities are, by d
failure in crops and the absence of money
or it's equivalent, left In want of the neces-
saries of life; and that poor women, with
large families of helpless children, so ac-
customcd 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 arc left in the soltudcs of these South
ern forests, in rags and gaunt with hunger,
subsisting on what the mother or larger
children can shoot or pick up in the woods,
or on what tho few neighbors, 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
home with them and met the group of little
starvelings 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
the past year, who had starved to death in
their lonesome cabins. These cases of
great distress arc rare in Southern cities,
for there, even the most delicately bred can
generally find some work which they can
do to keep the wolf from tlle door; but the
farms or plantations in the South are pc
culiarly secluded, with miles of forest or
swamp between them, poor roads, and the
stock and animals nearly ali taken by the
war; the famine, the floods, or the thieves,
distressed families ore often Inv thn t;nno
necessity makes them want 10 leave foo
sick to travel on foot and there is no other
wav to 60.
Your proposed entertainment. Madam
should it produce only funds enongh to re-,
licye n small fraction of the destifntion of
this country will he n ,rood heoinnin~ and
NAV be followed in oihcr cities NoTil Inv
similar appcals to pcoplo who have hann;Iy
never felt the desolntion and thc horrors
which follow in the tracks of great armies
of invasion. God snced your society in thc
good work. is the wish of. Madam. yours