The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-10-22
FEVER DAYS IN MEMPHIS.
Horrors of Plague Which RaVaged
City in 1873 and 1879.

(Memphis Cor. New York Tribune)
No resident of the Mississippi valley
whose memory spans the quarter cen
tury and little more that lies between
the new Memphis and the death valley
of 1873 and 1879, when the plague coy
cred the great delta and spread its pail
far away over the hill country for
miles back of the river and its reeking
swamps, Will faIter in telling how that
plague came up the valley. II was in
another tOWboat. the John Porter She
left New Orleans with empty barges
While the fever was raging in that city,
| in the early summer of 1878. arriving at
| Memphis about ten days later. The
| captain told the authorities here that
there were cases of malignant malarial
| fever on the boat, with which, i'm the
absence of proper remedies and the
skill to apply them, he could not cope.
He requested. therefore, that the pa
tients be received in the local hospital.
The Samaritan City" as Memphis is
known in the delta, did not hesitate,
but took the stricken men to her char
liable bosom. Whether all died OF
. some recovered does not matter now,
but the doomed city was poisoned to the
core.
In a few days the terrible truth was
known and the panic began. The
scenes at the railway stations. few and
inadequate to the ordinary summer
rush. were of the sort that kill all faith
in human kindness. 1t was the frantic
frenzy of a fear-maddened mob; sick
ening, appalling, terrifying. The panic
was not expected and not provided for.
\ train for the east stood under a
tumble-dOwn train shed. One coach.
half smoker. half negro compartment:
another coach for whites. old style and
small, and a ramshackle sleeper made
up the string. Two in a seat, the entire
train might accommodate $50 passen-
gers. Two thousand fought madly for
admission to it.
Every vehicle that could crawl out of
town was put in commission, even TO
the one-mule two-Wheel cotton dray, 10
convey the crazed multitude from the
doomed city. The refugees filled every
farmhouse, hamlet, village and town
within a radius of more than 100 miles,
but an implacable foe invaded their re-
treats. The plague followed where the
pursued fled. Hamlets gave UP their
tens of dead, villages their scores,
towns theirs hundreds. No one was
safe, no place immune from its I'M
curbed course.
whence flowed the polluted streams.
The newspaper men stuck, unrecOrded
heroes, to their posts. and told daily
the names Of those who died These
We're so many that the daily lists ran
into hundreds. Doctors and nurses from
the compassionate north came to help.
They meant well and died heroes
deaths. yet they only added to the VIE
Tins In the thorouehfares that only
MI, I..er F,-t 4
energetic life one might walk for blocks
ana meet no human being save the liv-
ing bearing the dead. But toward the
cemetery was a continued procession.
HearSeS could not meet the demand,
and everything that ran upan wheels
was impTessed-Wag CONS, draws and
trucks. At the hurying places corpses
came so fast that not for months after
ward were hundreds of the graves filed
up, sections and volunteers hurTying
from one burial 10 another. throwing
on sufficient earth to cover the coffin.
or. if there were little more time, they
filled the hole half wav.
Every store was closed, save the COM
missarieS where ratiOns were issued
daily to the destitute and sold to such
as could buy. Such was the day. The
night was far worse. There are no
words known that can tell of the horror
OF a Memphis night in 1878 and 1879. or
that can make known the loneliness.
the desolation, the terror. the despair
that came over the soul in the dark OF
those nights.
From the brow OF the bluffs over
hanging the sullen river man. on IN
h2bitant has watched that silent tide
roll onward in its lonely majesty. even
as the tide OF death rolled over the des-
olate city on its banks, euguldng its
thousands. until from meditation 10
madness seemed but step. Not foot
step, rot q hoofbeat, not whisper,
rot q sigh. Silence 50 absolute that TO
che overwrought mind it could DC felt,
be seen, be heard. No brain could en-
dure il for lOng-that silent flow of wa
ter and that silent flow of death side
by side. Wrecks of brains as well es
wrecks Of bodies were east IN bv the
tides Of those companion flows of 1878
and 1879.