Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-12-28
Fourteen Steamers and Thirteen
Barges Sunk--225,OOO Bush
els of Coal Lost.
100000 Feet of Logs Swept
Away. and Over 300 Bales of
Cotton Gone Down River.
The City Threatened with Total
Darkness Tonight ON Account
of Loss of Coal.
No Lives LOSt-.--Estimated Total
Loss in the NeighhOrhOOd Of
One Million Dollars.

I AOAfo IL NAAO ANOAt3lAAOA AOOA VI
One Million Dollars.
1t was not surmised or suspected by
anybody in Memphis that the frost,
which was so intense all over the cOun-
try, would have so disastrous effect as
the smashing of halfa dozen steamboats,
at the Memphis wharf, and the sinking
Of aquarter ola million bushels of coal
the only stock of firing in the city at
present, save a few lots here and there
4 inyards- For five days the river has
been covered with floating ice of various
thicknesses, coming down from Cairo
and above, but principally from this side
of Cairo. So thick was the floating ice
in the stream, and so intense the cold,
that every place where an eddy or bend
afforded chance for slack water, there
was a sort Of banking up of the blocks
in every conceivable shape, and in some
cases to a great hight above the river
level. 1t was most difficult for boats to
navigate up the stream, and navigation
down from st. Louis or the Ohio was a
thing of no ordinary merit. Ever since
Saturday night the cold continued to
grow worse and the ice to become more
thick in the river. The gorge above
Belmont broke on Wednesday, and
came down the river sweeping every
thing before it. Anothergorge had been
formed at Randolph, up here a few
miles. The Belmont gorge reached
Randolph Thursday, and Hberating the
ice at that point, came rushing on with
accelerated force and fury, and touched
the landing here about one o'clock yes
| terday morning, where the boats lay
freighted, some of them to the waters
edge, and ready to be sacrificed to the
fury of the frost king. The hight Of
the frosty freshet is variOusly estimated
at from five to ten feet. 1t was not the
hight of it, however, that did the dam
age; it was rather the vast weight of ice
that it carried upon its bosom, filling the
whole river from shore to shore, and so
swelling the flood that every place
where ice had gathered was put into a
state of dangerous cOmmOtiOn.
THE SWEEP PAST MEMPHIS.
At one O'Clock on Friday morning,
while the boats were quietly moored at
the wharf, and all hands were snugly
slowed away for the night, there being
only an odd Waterman out at the time,
the freshet came along in full force, and
following the winding of the river,
swept against the bank above the
mouth of Wolf river, and then being
turned by the bank, it swept along
the levee front from the navy yard clear
past the coal barge landing, by Poplar
street and so on down to Madison, lesv-
ing nothing in all that stretch of over a
mile that was not crunchad and ground
up as if the jaws of some primitive
mastodon had been working on things.
A raft of heavy logs belonging to Zent,
that had just come down the river from
near Cairo, was about the first or among
the first objects that were struck by the
ice 1t would be the work Of genius to
describe how those logs were tossed
about and churned up and down and
back and forth in the food and the ice.
It was ice cream magnifed ten or
twelve millions of times. The moving
body was OF such dimensions and weight
that the largest steamboat, if in its way,
would be crushed as easily as if it were
a paper toy house. From the navy
yard to the foot of Madison street there
were half dozen of various sized steam
beats, and above them in the stream
some dozen coal argos belonging TO
Brown & Jones; sc.ne of these were full,
others half empty. They were swept
down, and in some cases carried literally
over the boats below them. Yesterday
could be seen along the landing wrecks
of flats and bsrges literally snapped in
two like piece of plank. Some were
standing straight upon their side; others
had their prows upon steamboat hulls,
while their stern was buried beneath an
other steamboat. In one case, that of
the West Wind, the boat, stern-wheel
and all, was driven in on the deck of
the little wharfboat. Two coal barges
struck the Walt on the larboard side and
went right into the boiler without stop
ping, twisting round the guards and
ssanchOns like wax. The Belle of
Pike was, perhaps, the worst demon
allied boat on the river. She was injured
in all directions, battered, beat, stove
about and hit in the seyerest way in all |
directions. She was driven up on pair |
of barges that kept her from sinking |
while a good force of men kept working |
the cotton out of her all day, and also |
taking whatever could be got out of her !
cabin. She was gradually sinking all |
day, notwithstanding the fact that four |
or five hundred pounds of cotton were /
lifted out of her deck every two or three /
minutes. Right in front of where the /
Walt, the Belle of Pike, the City of Au- /
gusta and the other boats lay the wharf /
presented 8 dilapidated appearance. |
Those boats had been wrecked and /
their furniture lay round in great piles |
On Tie lGNCCt A4ElADS VI NhdAAH1 DleAlnc /
of crockery, rolls of carpets were strewn /
about in reckless abundance. Even the |
cabin doors had been taken from their |
hinges, the piano was lying on a pile of
dirt, and the water cooler and the bar
fixtures were spread out on a tarpaulin.
These heaps of delicate valuables were
mixed up with great piles of freight of
all sorts, and the officers of the boats,
OvercOated, yet blue, stood here and
there looking after property, or talking
herOically about the incidents of the
previous night. Below Madison the
boats lay comparatively free from dan
ger. The Yaeger happened to have
steam up at the time the ice foe came
down, and she put out in the middle of
the stream, where there was compare
lively clear water, and thus escaped in
jury. She lay at the sandbar ON the
other side ofthe river opposite the city
all day, keeping steam up for any
1.-THE ice gorge" passed
along and swept the river almost clear,
so that early yesterday morning there
was very little ice along that part of the
landing that had been swept by the
food at one O'Clock; but in the course of
six hours afterward the blocked-up
Ice was more thick and farther spread
put than on the previous day. Opinions
varied as to the probability of another
gorge coming down. Many old river
men freely expressed their convictions
that there would beno more gOrges; that
he presest crop of ice would slough off
bit by bit, and rot under the influence of
more genial weather approaching, while
some gave it as their convictions that
here would be another smash-up in less
han twenty-fOur hours, and then not
hing at the levee could be saved.