USA > Tennessee > Shelby County > Memphis > A history of the yellow fever : the yellow fever epidemic of 1878, in Memphis, Tenn., embracing a complete list of the dead, the names of the doctors and nurses employed, names of all who contributed money or means, and the names and history of the Howards, together with other data, and lists of the dead elsewhere > Part 16
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fied to be, as General Lee declared it, the best word in our language. The railroad companies, later on, when the fever had taken nearly every white person in the city-when there was no longer any food for it, and its decline was so perceptible as to encourage the beneficent organizations in the belief that they could turn their attention to the suffering communities near by- crowned all their previous liberality by placing daily hospital trains at the dis- po-al of the Howard Association and Citizeny' Relief Committee, on which were carried nurses, doctors, medical supplies, and food to places but lately invaded by the decimating disease. The dreadful visitation had thus its bright side. Humanity and benevolence enlisted the active coopera- tion of all sorts and conditions of men, and of corporations that, though suffering severe losses at that season of the year when they should have been making up for the dullness and deficiency of summer, spared no expense, counted no cost where a life could be saved and the charity of the world was to be dispensed to a sick and dependent people. Heroism was the rule in all the walks of life, neglect and desertion the exception. Forbearance, fidelity, and fortitude were qualities that were illustrated every day, and by persons widely separated by birth, education, habits, condition, and experience. This was most apparent in the beneficent organization known as the Citizens' Relief Committee, which, with the Howard Association, was looked to by all classes, not only for help and sustenance, but for protection. An organization better calculated for the purposes which called it into existence could not have been devised, nor could one have been more faithfully managed. It is not too much to say that but for its officers anarchy, confusion, robbery, arson, and murder would have prevailed to increase the burdens of a period, every hour of which was freighted with special horrors, and that perhaps the city would have been destroyed .* A clamorous and hungry mob, which did not hesitate to threaten, and support its threats, with a manifestation of disposition as cruel as its words, were prevented from carrying these threats into execution by the prompt and determined orders of the Citizens' Relief Committee, for
* Of this organization, but a few members survived the epidemic-these were Messrs. Luke E. Wright, Jas. S. Prestidge, C. F. Conn. W. W. Thatcher, D. F. Goodyear (acting Mayor), J. M. Keating, and D. T. Porter, Charles G. Fisher, so long the President of it, died of the fever. One of the first among the merchants of the city, he would not yield to the importunities of his relatives or friends. He helped to organize the asso- ciation, and he would not desert his self-selected post. He was a tireless worker. Not content with the performance of the duties devolving upon him as president, he made a hospital of his residence, and there, while giving to the sick the hours he should have devoted to sleep and rest, he contracted the fever and died, after but a few days sick- ness. No more generous, warm-hearted man ever lived than Charles G. Fisher-no man, of all those who illustrated the best qualities of our race by self-sacrificing devo- tion to the cause of humanity, stood higher than he with his fellow-soldiers. Calm amid despair, self-contained and self-poised, he was prepared for any emergency, and when the summons came. met it with the resignation of a Christian. Beloved by his illow-citizens, his death was a staggering blow to the few who survived him, and who ha! learned to know how strong, how reliable, how earnest, how truthful, honest. and good he was.
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the suppression of a lawlessness, the dread of which, for a time. weighted the energies of all who were administering public affairs. With the pr- lice and fire departments redneed to a mere handful, it would not have been difficult for those so inclined to have pushed on to the con-mmation of the vilest purposes. With four or five thousand vacant house -. aban- doned by their inmates, or by the death of the servants left to take care of them, hundreds of them filled with valnable family treasures, enough a. excite the cupidity of the criminals who swarmed the unguarded street -. on which, sometimes, not a living thing was to be met with by night or day, it required more than the earnestness and determination of or- li- nary times to prevent the exeesses so much dreaded by thinking men as the worst of the results of the epidemic. It was estimated, at one time. that not less than two hundred tramps and thieves invaded the stricken city, coming from no one could tell where, ultimately going no one could tell whither. They stole the badges of the nurses, and, representing themselves as Howard employés, gained entrance to homes where the fever had parlare ! all it had not killed. It was the operation- of these vagabonds, under -url: circumstances, that first excited inquiry, and finally their expulsion. In a few days, owing to the measures for protection set on foot by the Citize !.. Relief Committee, they disappeared, and with them went all fear- fr the safety of life or property. The police were instructed to arrest all persons. after nine o'clock at night. who could not give a satisfactory account of them- selves-all who were not employed as nurses or doctors, or who were not employed by the telegraph company. or in the several newspaper offices. Two legto military companies were encamped opposite court-square : a train was hell in readiness to bring in the Bluff City Grays, & then doing duty at Camp Joe Williams; and the Chickasaw Guards were recalled to Grand Junction, where they remained until the possible nece -- ity for their aid had passed away. A company of one hundred and five citizens, at Raleigh, in the vicinity of the city, volunteered for service, and a like company in the southern part of the county, near. the Mississippi line. An illustration of the apprehension then existing, furnished by the experience of Captain Mathes, editor of the Ledger, will satisfy skeptics, if any there be. that the information on which these preparations were based was not groundless. This gentleman bad had the fever-a violent, and, for a time, it was feared, fatal attack of it- and was convalescing slowly; he had been, additionally, cursed by several sets of nurses, whose depth of depravity was only in part expressed by the robbery of his stable, his wife's wardrobe as well as his own. and the " cleaning out" of his well-stocked larder. Anxiety for him, as well as the condition in which she found herself-exposed to the vilest association- in the sick-room-pro-trated his wife, and made her an easy prey for the fever. which she bravely fought. however, until her husband was out of danger. So son
* This company, under the command of Captain John Cameron, who was also a valu- able aid of the Relief Committee, lost the following- named members by the fever : ILry.v. lieutenant; Ferguson, corporal; Wheatley, corporal; Goodwin, private; Haynes. W. I., private; Everett, private; Spiegel. private.
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as prudence would permit, he was on his feet- (this ought to be foot, since he left one of his legs on the field of Chickamauga). His presence at her bed- side greatly aided in her recovery. Cheered and comforted by the knowledge that he was safe, she summoned all her strength and overcame the fever. She approached convalescence, but the indiscretion of a most attentive, kitat. and gentle nurse, who had succeeded the vagabonds who had fled or been lriven forth, induced a relapse, and in a few hours, in the house where joy prevailed, mourning had almost succeeded. The survivor of a dreadful civil war, and two previous epidemics, the husband nerved himself for the end,
in all such cases deemed inevitable. While waiting for the call that was to announce to him the death of her who had proven herself worthy to be called wife-to whom he owed his own life -- the nurse broke into his room, aifrighted and nerveless, almost breathless; and in a suppre -- ed tone of voice, called " Fire" His thoughts were at once busy for his dying wife's safety. In a moment his mind pictured for her a fate that made him shudder. He thought, to use his own words, "that perhaps the thieves, by whom he had suffered so much, had begun their threatened work of wholesale crime." He hastened to his wife's room. She was sleeping tranquilly, her face indi- eating the blessed change from death to life. Noiselessly he pulled down the blinds of the windows, so as to exclude the glare of the light from the fire, which he then knew was near by-near enough even to endanger his home - and he turned on the gas, lighting all of the burners of the chandelier. If she should awake, the light of the room wouldl hide that of the fire without, which, in spite of all he could do, found its way in. Leaving his wife to the nurse, with injunctions to keep from her what was passing beyond. he went out to find his garden filled with burning shingles, the air thick with smoke and sparks. To prevent the ignition of his own premises, he was kept busy for hours, and not until the fire died out. and the danger had passed away, did he think of his condition and a possible relapse. But he, as well as his wife, passed even that dreadful crisis. How great was his relief to learn from the papers of the next day that the fire, which had such terrors for him, was the only mishap of the kind in the previous twenty-four hours, and that the Citizens' Relief Committee had amply provided for a contingency, even the thought of which had blanched his cheek, and made him afraid indeed! To pass safely such a test is an ordeal that seldom occurs in the life of the most adventurous; but it was only one of many that followed in the train of the Mwstilence. Information of the military preparations, and the shooting of a ruffianly negro, who attempted to intimidate a colored sollier on guard at the commissary department, had the most happy effect. It proved to those who contemplated crime that, though few in numbers, the men who were manag- ing affairs could not be tritied with, and that, at any hazard to themselves, they would enforce law and order. Ex-Attorney-General Luke E. Wright, who was an active and zealous member of the committee, and who was in the commissary building when the shot was fired, went quickly to the front, and in a tone of voice, distinctly heard above the wails of the terrified Negro woman, thanked the sentry for his devotion to duty, complimented
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his company for its firmness, and assured all present that the shot, which was so well aimed, was merely the prelude to what would certainly follow if any attempt was made to violate the publie peace, or interfere with the business of. or steal the goods entrusted to, the Relief Committee by the people of all the States. It was a perilous moment. The tide seemed for some days to have been with the evil-disposed. The quickly delivered shot of the negro guard, and the brave speech of General Wright turned it, and thereafter there was no trouble. The white man who incited the negro desperado, so summarily made an example of, was, it is said, soon after " lost." He has never been heard of since. Thus warned. the hitherto impudent thieves made their way from a city where they felt themselves besieged, and where they began to realize puni-h- ment swift and sure would be meted out to all of their number arrested for crime. Many citizens, and the press generally, hinted the necessity for a gallows. It was also suggested, by one of the papers, that, since there were no courts, the most summary process would be in order, as a certain means of insuring public safety. There was no time to dally with criminals, and but little disposition to bear with what was wholly inexcusable. No one suffered for food or clothing. Both were in abundant supply, and both were as regularly given as asked for, through the persons employed to see that there was no favoritism indulged in. A. commissary department was organized, which took charge of all sup- plie, that did not belong to the Howard Association. This department was admirably conducted. Order and precision characterized its manage- ment, notwithstanding the clerks died so fast, that for a time those who suc- ceeded to their labors were compelled to work at night as well as by day. Rations were issued on requisitions supplied to the needy by ward committees. These requisitions were filed as vouchers, so that every pound and ounce of food, or bushel of fuel, or suit or part of a suit of clothes was accounted for .* Of course there were complaints. Out of these grew misrepresentations that were gross libels upon a committee whose usefulness and influence was thank- fully and gratefully acknowledged by every class of the citizens of the ill-fated city. Human nature is weak, and every one is liable to err. But the adminis- tration of the Citizens' Relief Committee's affairs challenged the admiration of all who know what it is in ordinary times, when there is no epidemie to disorder the public mind, to minister to the poor. At one time, of all who at first gladly enrolled themselves members of it, only three remained, and of these one had re- covered from a severe attack of fever. Its officers were constantly on duty. As they became known they were appealed to in the streets; but they unflinch- ingly adhered to the rules they had laid down for their own, and the guid- ance of those they employed. They had regular hours, during which they were to be found in their places. Between these hours-from nine A. M. to three P. M .- they indorsed all requisitions that came to them properly authenticated by the ward committees. By this system the bounty of the North, of the
# In the appendix part of the report of the Citizens' Relief Committee, there will be found a tabulated statement by the commissary, Captain J. C. Maccabe, in which every ration (its kind and weight! are given as they were taken from the books, which were kept with as unerring precision as those of any mercantile house in the country.
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Sontb, and of Europe, found its way to the really needy, as was intended by the donors. There was no extravagance, no waste, no unnecessary delay ; nothing that could be avoided, nothing that would needlessly intervene between those who needed the charity and those who gave it. Without money or price. these gentlemen, braving the epidemic, labored in the public behalf. They had no reward to expect other than that which is the recompense of every good action -- the satisfaction of its performance. No honors awaited them. No government stood ready to decorate them as heroes. An approving conscience and the indorsement of those who knew what they were doing. how faithfully and honorably they did it, and with what largeness of sympathy for those to whom they were almoners they accompanied it -- that was all. They preserved order and saved property from the touch of the thief and the house-breaker and the torch of the incendiary. They prevented, by a timely precaution, by an exhibit of determination, by an array of troops, the destruction, perhaps, of the city, and so saved the lives of thousands who, in the excitement of riot, would have per- ished on the streets, perhaps in the flames of their burning dwellings. It is no exaggeration to say that, had it not been for the firmness of this committee, chaos would have ensued upon the panic of August, and the most frightful exces ses would have resulted. They enforced order and obedience to law, and reassured all who were engaged with the sick and the dead, that they could labor in peace, in absolute security, with none to make them afraid. With such an auxiliary, under the protection of such strength and firmness, the Howard _1-ociation felt free to prosecute its beneficent work without the dread, greater than that of death, which springs out of the existence of lawlessness, license, and disorder; could peacefully pursue its work and continue to stem the torrent of death and desolation. It could rely with certainty upon the will and resources of the Relief Committee, and rest secure that its beneficent and sacred task would not be interrupted or interfered with.
VI.
The Howard Association of Memphis, like its prototype of New Orleans, grew out of the necessities incident to an epidemic of yellow fever, which found the people of the city unprepared to cope with it. The first visitation of this disease, which occurred in 1855," although it made a very profound im- pression upon the people of Memphis, was not of so serious a character as to call for or compel any thing like associated effort in behalf of those exposed to it. Memphis was then a small town of not more than twelve thousand five hundred inhabitants, and of these nearly all were personally known to each other, and were in the daily habit of those neighborly offices which distinguish the conduct of intimates and acquaintances. They, therefore, shared the bur-
# It is said to have prevailed epidemically in 1828 at Fort Pickering, now a suburb of Memphis.
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dens of a calamity that claimed between -ixty and seventy-five victims and brought, perhaps, two hundred and fifty persons under treatment. Besides, there was not then the dread of the fever which has since prevailed. Up to that time, and for as many years as the place had any existence, passengers from New Orleans were allowed to land without question at all seasons of the year, and persons who had contracted the fever in New Orleans, and in whom it only developed on their way up the river en route to their homes, were al- lowed to be landed and taken in vehicles through the streets to the hospital. or to private houses for treatment. The notion that prevailed throughout the country, and that still has hold on many otherwise well-informed persons. that there is a yellow fever zone, beyond the limits of which the dreaded disease can not flourish, had a great deal to do in the encouragement of a bardihood which, during 1878, cost Holly Springs and other places every life that was lo-t by yellow fever. The atmosphere and unclean conditions under which the disease is propagated did not exist, or the poison was not imported when they did exist until 1855, consequently, it was braved with reckless indifference, the almost yearly immunity strengthening the assumption of the zone theory and blinding the people to the possibilities of the plague that had swept New Orleans just two years before (in 1853) like a besom of destruction, costing her the lives of seven thousand nine hundred and seventy persons, and in the year following (1854, two thousand four hundred and twenty-three live-, and in that year (1855), two thousand six hundred and seventy lives. Inter- vening between the first and second visitations of yellow fever to Memphis came the civil war and the subsequent political trials, during which the im- pressions left by the epidemic of 1855 had passed from the minds of a popula- tion that had more than doubled, and whose very traditions had been swept away by the great tide of revolution. The problem of social and political lite exclusively monopolized attention and consideration. The rehabilitation of homes and hearths, well nigh ruined, was of more importance to them than any other, or all the rest of the issues of life. Every thing was forgotten in the struggle for existence, aggravated, as it was, by the merciless attitude of the Northern States, the cunningly-devised agitation of political leaders, and by the shadow of the first of a series of commercial disasters by which Met- phis suffered in common with all the other cities of the Union. Thus, sitting amid the ruins of the past, overwhelmed by the memories of a war, on the re- sults of which all had been staked, by the gloom engendered by defeat. and by the foreshadowing cloud, of a future, that proved worse than the most for- lorn eroakers could conjure, with an almost criminal negleet of the simplest sanitary laws, Memphis was for the second time. in September. 1867. visited by a plague, the origin of which is still a question, the progress of which is still in doubt, the best method of curing which is still debated, the sad restilts of which are alone apparent. It made its appearance late in the season, vet it lasted more than seventy days, the first two deaths occurring in the week ending September 29th, and the last three in the week ending Decem- ber 1st. More than two hundred and fifty people died, and there was, per- haps, a total of' fifteen hundred sick. The necessities of this dread emer-
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gency, unlooked for and unexpected, suggested the organization of the Howard Association, which took place on the twenty-ninth of September, 1867. 1 call which appeared in the city press was promptly responded to by the fol- lowing named gentlemen : R. W. Ainslie, William Everett, HI. Lonargan, John Heart, C. T. Geoghegan, J. K. Pritchard, A. D. Langstaff, J. B. Wasson. J. P. Gallagher, Jack Horn, E. J. Manstord. John Park, Rev. R. A. Simp son, Dr. P. P. Fraime, J. P. Robertson, T. C. MeDonakl. J. T. Collins, E. M. Levy. W. A. Strozzi. E. J. Corson. Dr. A. Sterling, A. A. Hyde, G. C. Wersch, W. S. Haniffton, A. H. Gresham, Fred Gutherz, W. JJ. B. Lons- dale, and J. G. Lonslale. Sr. These, fully understanding and appreciating the work of the immortal philanthropist, John Howard, resolved to follow his example and devote themselves under his name to the succor of the sick, the relief of the suffering, and the burial of the dead .* After the officers were elected, on the 30th, announcement was made through the press that the Howard Association of Memphis was prepared to provide medical attend- ance, nurses, and medicines for the indigent sick. Physicians and ministers of religion were requested to cooperate and report all the fever cases coming to their attention which needed the help of the Association, which soon found its hands full. All the members were shortly employed, and before the end of the second week it became necessary to call for aid and assist- ance. This call was promptly responded to by the citizens of Memphis and the surrounding towns, so that the Association was at once enabled to employ killed nurses, among them several from New Orleans. Great good was accomplished. The total amount of money subscribed was 84,996.56. all but $130 of which was expended. and the number of patients taken charge of and relieved was 244. The labors of the epidemie were not without sad and sorrowful results to the Association. Of the twenty-five who composed its membership, two died-laid down their lives that others might live. The beneficent experiences of 1867, and the high favor in which they were held by the public, determined the members to perpetuate the Association. They, therefore, applied to the legislature for, and obtained, a charter,f which gave
R. W. Ainslie was elected President, John Heart, 1st Vice-President, C. T. Geoghegan, 2nd Vice-President, William Everett, Recording Secretary, H. Lonargan, Corresponding Secretary, and J. K. Pritchard, Treasurer.
*SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That John Park, R .A. Simpson, J. ti. Lonsiale. Sr., John Heart, E. T. Geoghegan, R W. Ainslie, J. P. Galla- gher. T. E. MeDogald. A A. Hyde, and J. P Robertson and their associates be, and they are hereby declared, a los politic and corporate. with ninety-nine years succession, by the late of the HOWARD ASI ATION OF MEMPHIS, Whowe o jeer shall be to provide nurses and Heces- satrie for those who may be Liken sick, who are winont means and without funds, and par- ticularly during the prevalence of epidemies, said Association, by this name max contract and be contracted with. my ste and be sted in aff courts, as other chartered corporations. in all matters whatsoever, and have full power to acquire. hold, possess, and enjoy, by gift. grant, or otherwise, and the same to sell and convey any or all such real, personal, or mixed estate, and invest and re-invest the sine from time to time, as may be necessary for the ben- Ptit. support, and purpose of said HOWARD ASSOCIATION OF MEMPHIS, OF which may be con- veg ed to the salario the security of payment of any debt or debts which may become due and owing to aid Aso ciation, and may make, have, and use a common val, and the same break. alter, or renew at pleasure; Porided, That the property, funds, and revenue of salt HOWARD ASSOCIATION OF MEMPHIS Shall not be used for any other than the purposes of said Association. and that all of said real, personal. or mixed estate shall be exempt from State, county, and corporation taxes and assessments, as the sole object of the Association is relier of the destituir.
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