The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-07-16

VNHE Ladies' Society in aid OF the Suf-
IL fcrinG 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 are daily received from the South,
from the Generals Commanding, Govern
ors, ministers and eminent citizens, fur
nishing the most heart-rending details of
the actual want, famine and starvation in
their immediate ncighborhood. The fol-
lowing few extracts from the very many
letters received by tho Secretary and Ma
nagcrs of the Society are respectfully re-
fcrrcd to:
H'DQUARTERs, 4TH MILITARY DIST,
(MIsSISSIPPI AND ARKASSAS,)
VICKsBURG, Miss, May 13, 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.
1ou, Madam, surrounded with the plenty
and comforts of a wealthy city, can scarcely
appreciate the fact that, i'll many parts of
the South, whole communities are, by a
failure i'll crops and the absence of money
or its equivalent, left Ill want of the neces-
sarics 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 10 40 OF WHcrc 10 go lOr lOou;
but are left i'll the soltudes of these South
ern forests, i'll rags and gaunt with hunger,
subslsting on what the mother or 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 i'll
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
starvelinSs 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 q Southern State, during
the past year, who had starved to death III
their lonesome cabins. These cases of
great distress are rare in Southern cities,
for there, even the most delicately bred can
generally lind some work which they can
do to keep the wolf from the 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 all taken by the
war, the famine, the floods, or the thieves,
who in such times infest a country, and the
distressed families are often, by the time
necessity makes them want to leave, too
sick to travel Oh foot, and there is no other
way to go.
Your proposed entertainment, Madam,
should it produce only funds enough to re-
lieve q small fraction of the dcstitution 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 tho horrors
which follow i'll the tracks of great armies
of invasion. God speed your society in the
good work, is the wish of, Madam, yours
truly, L. .. C. ORD,
Brcvet Major General.