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 25
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A physician in his daily rounds was called upon to visit a negro residing in a portion of the city known as " Fort Pickering." Upon interrogating the patient as to his symptoms, he replied that "there was great indignation of pain in his head." Pursuing his inquiries further, he was informed, with all the gravity of sineerity, that to promote his convalescence his colored uibs must be furnished with a piano !
John Thomas and Miss Beatrice Johnson met each other during the epi- demie; while both were engaged in the noble mission of tending the unfortu- nate sick and distressed, fell in love at first sight, got married, and are living happily and contented.
In this great drama of death, those who played prominent parts were nurse. physician, and undertaker. Let us consider them separately. The nurse, I shall first speak of. The largest number on duty at any time by authority of the Howards was a trifle over four thousand. They came from all sections, included nearly all nationalities, and were good, bad, and indifferent. Between black and white, there was bat little difference in efficiency, except the intelli- gence of the one over the other. Certainly, so far as the record goes, there
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was less rascality among the blacks than the whites. The colored nurses realized that any bad behavior would cause their death. Lamp-posts were their dread, and had any of them been guilty of outrage or theft their speedy doom would have been settled., The whites were bolter: and in their ranks were some of as vicious vultures as ever disgraced humanity or robbed the dead. The colored nurses made up in faithful attention all they lacked in intelligence, and their record is one to be justly proud of. The best nurses are said to have come from Savannah, Ga., and Port Royal, S. C. A Miss D. Murdock is said to have proven a most excellent mirse. She comes from a good family in Louisiana, and when the fever broke ont was teaching school in Milwaukee. Gentle, good, and kind, a woman whose greatest happiness
was in soothing the dying or seeking to save the sick, Miss Murdock went through the entire epidemie, drawing nothing for her services-one in many thousands whose presence in the chamber of death was not caused by the hope of pecuniary benefit. The Catholic and Episcopal sisters renewed their his- tory of the past, gloriously following in the footsteps of their noble predeces- sors. The mortality among the sisters, priests, and brothers, President Lanstaff related to me, was terrible in the extreme. Every volunteer to lend a helping hand was propelled by some motive to Memphis, either noble or vicious. The Catholic and Episcopal sisters were sincere in their professions. and so were some others. There were those persons who, by grief or adversity. sought " surcease from sorrow." Women whose husbands had forsaken them, men whose wives were not what they seemed to be ; this class composed a large ele- ment of the nurses whose names did not find their way on the " black list." " If there were evidences of the fellow-feeling which makes the whole world kin de- veloped," continues the heroic correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, "there were also cases of inhumanity equally pronounced and unprecedentedly brutal. Your readers are familiar with the cases of wealthy men who left the city, and in plares of safety mocked at the calamities of their fellows; of the wealthy lawyer who left his help to be supplied by the Relief Committee; of the land- owner who ordered his emploves' salaries to be cut down; of Donovan, and others. But I have heard of their counterparts. The owner of a eotton- gin, a bachelor and a man of wealth, sporting diamonds and fast horses, was among the first to flee. He left three sisters and an aged father, without means, and subject to the fever. When the epidemic was at its height, and one of the sisters had died, those remaining wrote to him for means to enable them to leave the city. He wrote them a cowardly letter. inclosing 85 and an order on Flaherty & Sullivan, undertakers, for a coffin. After some trouble, the father was sent out of the city on money borrowed from friends, and the sisters were left to take care of themselves."
At 62 Madison Street, September 20th, the remains of a colored woman were found, who had evidently been dead for four or five days. The rats had nearly devoured the corpse. Reports were numerous of corpses lying unburied for two or three days.
Madam Vincent, the wife of Vincent Baccigaluppo, who had died a few days previously, was buried on Sunday, September 22d. She was highly esteemed in Memphis, where, by industry and economy, she had accumulated a large fortune.
Sister Frances, of the Episcopal Church, who had charge of the Church Home, was buried on the 4th of October. She was one of the noblest women who ever faced death. No truer heart ever beat.
The remains of a white man were found, early on the morning of October 9th, at A. J. Vaughn's residence. He had been left in charge of the dwell- ing, and when found had been dead some hours.
But one outrage of a most serious nature is related, and it remains for this
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to be proven true. In this instance the patient was a lady, the nurse a man. Her fever was at its most critical point. The man drank until intoxicated. The woman's delirium coming on, she kicked the covering and clothing from her person. The drunken nurse, with champagne bottle in hand, was found, mm- conscious from the effects of drink, stretched across the body of the woman, who died before others came in. The early decomposition which follows death by yellow fever, and the fact that but a few days before the woman had given birth to a child, prevented ascertaining by outward signs satisfactory evidence that crime had been committed by the unrse, yet he was arrested and was held upon the charge of rape. Investigation afterward proved that he was inno- cent.
Said a nurse : " I came from Shreveport on Sunday, got here Monday, weut to work Tuesday, Wednesday my patient was beautiful, Thursday he was tolerable, Thursday night he was restless. Friday he was dead, and Saturday he was in hell, for all that I know. Oh, I tell you, them was times when they went to heaven and the other place by telegraph, and not over the wires either-no, indeed."
" The medical hero of the great epidemic was Dr. R. W. Mitchell, the Medical Director of the Howard Association. Although sorely pressed, Dr. Mitchell gave me," says the correspondent of the Louisville Courier-Journal. "an hour of his time, and to his valuable fund of information is due much of the contents of this letter. Dr. Mitchell has not made up his mind as to the first case, and will say nothing yet as to the best treatment to pursue. 'Dor- tor, can you give me any idea of the mortality here in the present year from fever?' ' From the reports of my physicians, of whom at one time there were sixty on duty, who were required to keep accounts of all cases, deaths, and persons remaining, I judge and am convinced that the estimate is very nearly correct that 16,000 persons remained in Memphis for the fever to feed upon.' .And the mortality among these?' 'Was simply terrible; the Howard phy- sicians, including many brave volunteers, took a census of all persons in the different wards, camps, and suburbs. Upon the report of one physician, who worked in a section where less cases occurred than in the other, the number taken with the fever is reckoned at 89.2 per cent. This is where the fever made its last invasion. In the section where it was first felt the per cent. of persons taken down is reckoned at ninety-nine per cent. of those remaining.' 'How about negroes?' . They were especially imprudent. If they bad not been so imprudent, I think they wouldn't have had six deaths in a hundred cases.' 'Then it would be a good thing to be a negro in such epidemics ?" ' Yes,' laughed the physician, 'if you could get over a colored man's love for champagne. That is what killed this class. The moment they were con- valescent they began work on the champagne, and never knew when to quit. Indeed, there are instances where they came from the country and ran the risk of taking the fever to get champagne. Even poor white people caused their own deaths by wanting it when convalescent, and I at one time prevented its distribution, except when orders were indor-ed by myself and a few trusted physicians in my lot.'"
A trading-boat, the George O. Baker, for some time lying up at Hen-and- Chickens' Island, came down, on the night of October 10th, to the foot of Market Street, with all sick on board. When the boat arrived at the levee, and word had passed to the Howards, instant succor was rendered. There were six persons on the boat, all sick. One of them, a beautiful young lady, had the black vomit.
"In regard to the large number of good deeds done in the flesh, I may say," write- the correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, "that they were not confined to those representing the upper walks of life, and many of the heroes who
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perished in their Samaritan work were gathered in from the slums of society. Gamblers, ontcasts, and outlaws among the males, with those among the females who were marked with the scarlet letter, felt as keen sympathies, labored as heroically, nursed as tenderly, and died as bravely as those who, in the garb of purple and fine linen, forgot caste, station, and all the attractions of social superiority, to lend their efforts and presence to encourage the af- flieted, with a self-denial characteristic of the times. The Tribune readers are familiar with the facts concerning Annie Cook, whose grave, strewn with flowers, is among the prominent features of the Howards lot in Elmwood. She did the best she could, and, after a troubled life, the prayers of hundreds throughout this broad land go up this bright morning to the Throne, that she sleeps in peace :
" Let sweet-voiced Merey plead for her Who silent lies beneath the sod; Nor let proud, erring man assume The province of her Judge, Her God.
"Another case, similar in many respects, came under my observation. the de- tails of which may not be uninteresting. Lorena Mead is the name of a Louis- iana girl of rare personal attractions and accomplishments, whom the war left bankrupt and helpless. She went down the Jericho road, and when the epi- demie raised its hideous head. instead of consulting safety in flight, che re- mained to aid in its destruction. And a veritable ministering angel ha> >le proven herself to be. There are bodies rotting in the potter's field she dressed for their narrow home, and there are convalescents walking the streets to-day, who speak her name with gratitude and veneration. She has gone home to re- new her life of virtue, and, amid the scenes of her childhood, attempt to re- deem herself from a bondage unutterably wretched. . The trials through which I've passed, and the suffering I've witnessed and participated in, have made a Christian of me,' she says, 'and my future life, so far as I can make it, will be devoted to redemption and reformation.'"
" How do you account for all this?" remarked the correspondent of the Louisville Courier-Journal to a physician. " Champagne did it ; this wine was the most demoralizing agent in the epidemic. Many a colored fellow risked the plague to taste, and, when convalescent, lost his life trying to get hold of it." "" Had I had twenty-five acclimated nurses when the fever came," said Dr. Mitchell, "I could have done more good than a whole State full of such nurses as invaded Memphis."
Instances are related where watches and all manner of valuables were stolen by nurses. The boldest of yarns were brazenly told to cover up rascality. The general story was the valuables shown had been " given " by patients. Drunkenne>> and desertion were every-hour occurrences, and theft was ex- tremely coninou.
There were many remarkable cases reported, which not only defied the phy- sician's skill, but all precedent. One of these was that of H. E. Crandell. a printer, who suffered from the black vomit three times, and was given up for dead by his physician. But his nurse, a Mrs. Smith, from New Orleans, re- fused to be governed by this opinion, and labored on him with such good re- sules that he is to-day well and at work.
Jefferson Davis, Jr., died at five o'clock, on the evening of October 16th, at Buntyn Station, near Memphis. He was a noble boy, inheriting the talents and genius of his illustrious father. His funeral took place the day following. at Elmwood Cemetery, and was attended by fifteen persons, which was the largest throng that had congregated at any one burial since the beginning of the epidemic.
An almost inexplainable fact in regard to the great scourge was the abject
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fear of all the residents of the cities, villages, and country generally. Men stood in Memphis, day by day, caring for the sick, shrouding and burying the dead victims of the plague, but the country and suburban mind was so stricken with fear that their victims, too, had, in most instances, to be cared for by Memphian hands. The Howard special relief trains passed out daily on all the railroads from Memphis, affording frequent illustrations of the fearful con- dition of mind prevailing in the country.
A heavy black frost was the pleasing spectacle that gladdened the sight of the many who were on the lookout for it, on the morning of October 19th. This harbinger of returning health to Memphis caused unalloyed joy.
Two little bootblacks lived in Memphis before the fever, and when it was declared epidemic one of the two was numbered among the carly cases. The other would not leave him, but insisted on nursing his companion, until he himself was stricken, and was removed to another street. One recovered, and was told that his friend was dead. He believed this until, at the close of the epidemie, the two met unexpectedly, near Court Square. A thrill of senti- ment, almost to the verge of weeping, went through the dozen spectators who had their attention drawn to the two little fellows, who, despite the crowd, despite the dust of the street, the jingle of the street-car bells, the hum and confusion incident to reviving Memphis, embraced each other, their joy finding utterance in the shedding of copious tears.
Of the Rev. Louis S. Schuyler, rector of the Church of the Holy Innocents. who volunteered and came to Memphis to assist his brethren of the Episcopal ministry during the plague, the New York World says: " Mr. Schuyler was the son of Rev. Dr. Montgomery Schuyler, the rector of Christ Church, St. Louis. After graduating at Hobart College, Geneva, he entered the ministry. He was for some time an assistant to Bishop Doane, at St. Peter's Church, Albany. He went to England in 1867, and joined the Episcopal Brotherhood of St. John the Evangelist, at Cowley, Oxford. . Soon after his return to this country, last winter, he was called to assist in the Church of the Holy Inno- cents. On the first of July he took charge of the House of Prayer, in New- ark, in the absence of the rector, Dr. Goodwin, and had entered on his duties at the Church of the Holy Innocents only a few days when the call from Memphis came. It had been proposed to Mr. Sword by the members of his congregation, mostly people in moderate circumstances, to present Mr. Schuyler with a testimonial on his return. His brother, M. Roosevelt Schuyler, left for the South on hearing of his illness."
This incident illustrates the romantic side of the epidemic: Dr. W. F. Besancny, a young physician, hailing from Jonestown, Mississippi, offered his services to Medical Director Mitchell. His credentials were perfect, and coming at a time when physicians were most needed, were readily accepted. Just as all the preliminaries had been settled satisfactorily, a messenger entered the office in great haste, in search of a physician to attend Miss D. P. Rutter, a young lady who had been stricken with the fever at her residence on Adams Street. Dr. Mitchell turned to the gallant young physician, and remarked that he could immediately be placed on duty, if he so felt disposed. Dr. Besaneny unhesitatingly accepted the call, and at once accompanied the mes- senger to the young lady's residence, where he found her prostrate with a bad case of the fever. It is unnecessary to go through the details of the lingering illness, suffice it to say that the young doctor's attention was close and faithful, finally resulting in the young lady's recovery. Soon afterward the doctor was stricken down. True to the instincts of her womanly nature, doubly intensified by her self-acknowledged indebtedness to him for having saved her life, she went to his bedside, and there remained, giving such attentions as only a woman can bestow upon the sick, until the glad tidings was announced that he
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had passed the crisis, and bid fair to recover. He passed through the tedious hours of convalescence, until entirely recovered. Nothing more was known or thought of the matter by the few intimate friends of the young lady until yesterday afternoon, when the doctor, accompanied by Esquire Quigley and a few friends, drove up to the residence, and in less time than it takes us to write this paragraph, the two were joined together in the holy bonds of wed- loek. Such a union, consummated under such circunstances, can not fail to abound with happiness.
Savannah News. - " We regret deeply to announce the death, from yellow fever. in Memphis, of Dr. Langdon A. Cheves, of this city, who was one of the first to respond to the call of distress from the atHieted city. The infor- mation of this sad event was received through a private telegram sent by Dr. McFarland, and is also given in our associated press dispatches. Dr. Cheves entered the Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, in the summer of 1869, and graduated with distinction in July, 1873. His high moral char- aeter, elevated sense of honor, and gentlemanly courtesy commanded the re- speet and affection of the faculty and of his fellow-cadets. He was exceedingly modest and quiet in his demeanor, of strong will and marked characteristics, which were strengthened and confirmned by his military education. On his re- turn to Savannah, he studied medicine in the office of Dr. T. J. Charlton for several years, and then left for Baltimore city, where he entered the medical college, and graduated with honor in March last, and subsequently took an extra course of lectures in that city. On returning again to Savannah, he at once entered upon his profession, with the promise of a brilliant future, when the summons for assistance from the plague-stricken city of Memphis induced him to abandon his own interest and hasten to the relief of distressed humanity, in which noble cause he has fallen a martyr. Dr. Cheves was about twenty- four years of age, was a grandson of Hon. Langdon Cheves, president of the United States Bank, and son of Colonel Langdon Cheves, who was killed at Battery Wagner, Morris Island, in 1863. His father was a large and suc- cessful rice planter and a civil engineer of considerable note. He leaves a mother and two sisters-Mrs. Charles N. West, now residing in Baltimore, and Mrs. Gilbert A. Wilkins. He was first cousin of Judge Haskell, of the Su- preme Court of South Carolina, and of Captain J. C. Haskell, of Savannah, and a relative by marriage of Governor Magrath, who married his aunt. He was in Savannah during the epidemic of 1876, and rendered efficient and zealous service during that terrible period, being himself stricken down in the midst of his good work. In the formation of his individual character he seemed to keep constantly in mind the supreme law of truth and probity, and was in every respect a high-toned, honorable gentleman, useful citizen, a physician of rare promise, and a devoted son. His sad death will be deeply lamented by a large circle of friends and relatives."
Jackson (Tenn.) Tribune and Sun .--- " Young Howlett, aged ten years, a grandson of Mr. Pledge. the hotel man of Grand Junction, passed up to Milan. a few days ago, where his grandfather was staying. Being from an infected town, although having staved in it only a few hours, he could not remain in Milan. His grandfather, therefore, rented an isolated cabin, some mile or more from town, and hired a negro woman to take the boy and stay with him until the days of his quarantine were completed. The first night the poor boy at- tempted to stay in the cabin was a terrible one in his experience. A few per- sons, whom fear and cowardice had made brutes, went to the cabin at night, brickbatted it, shot into it, and ran the poor little boy out into the darkness, and fired shot after shot at him as he fled in wild terror. The little fellow, frightened almost out of his life, remained all night in the woods, wandering and hiding in terror, shivering in the pitikes cold, and almost crazed with a
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sense of loneliness and danger, and expecting every moment to be murdered. Next morning, he crept into Milan, and his grandfather took the terrified. child to a place of safety. Now, we respect quarantine, we respect the fears of the people in these terrible times, but such treatment as this little boy re- ceived is simply inhuman, and damns the authors, brutes and cowards. We know that the respectable people of Milan condemn the acts denounced by us fully as much as we do, and we further know that the Milan authorities and quarantine officers are guiltless of any connection with the perpetrators, but they should hunt down the guilty and see that they are punished. They are evidently worthless and low-down characters, and no community is safe that holds them. For the facts upon which our remarks are based we have re- sponsible authors."
Memphis Appeal .- " There was the case of the fever-stricken man in a rail- road ear, which was uncoupled and left on a side-track, near the National Cemetery, where, but for the ministrations of a brave friend and timely assist- ance from Memphis, he would have died, as the poor fellow did who, left in a box-car, near Stevenson, was beset by a cowardly mob, possessed of only one idea, that of self-preservation. Then we had the cases of the negro men, poor fellows, driven forth by a few inhuman persons, some of whom have since died of the fever they thus inhumanly sought to fight off. The three victims of their cowardice died miserably by the wayside, giving evidence, by the con- tortions of their bodies, that they passed away in nameless agonies. Horrible to think of, such an incident six weeks ago would have been scouted as im- possible by the very persons who participated in it. Then there is the case of a poor negro woman who, dying of the fever, was rolled in a blanket and unceremoniously dumped into a hog-hole, by her terror-stricken husband and kinsfolks. Bad enough that those who died within the limits so well served by the Howard Association and Citizens' Relief Committee should some days ago, on account of the want of laborers and coffins, have had to lie for two and three days, poisoning the air with a nameless stench, and sending forth count- less billions of spores to feed on the vitals of the faithful few who have done such noble service in battling with the scourge ; bad enough that these horrors should exist, to appall the living, and help to increase the awful mortality, but when to them we add the wanton inhumanity of stoning and shooting at a de- fenseless boy of only ten years, driving helpless fever-stricken patients frem the only shelter they have, and shaming our common humanity by leaving bodies in hog-holes, fool for the hogs, we are overcome with shame for a brave people, a generous and noble people, who, after enduring all the trials of a great war, and attesting both their moral and physical courage, should have their fair escutcheon soiled by a brutalism without parallel. We have already referred to the cases-alas! too many-where fathers have deserted their families, and have called attention to the callous neglect of each other by near relatives, who, before the epidemic came to test the strength and sincerity of their affections, would have scorned the possibility of conduct that has secured some few a longer lease of life, at the cost of a desertion that hastened the death of others. Only a few days ago we saw a little child of, perhaps, three years, that had been surrendered to the keeping of one of our noble volunteer doctors by a mother who now fills a nameless grave in potter's field. She was an outcast-had thrown herself away because abandoned by her husband- and finding herself fast sinking from the combined effects of the most loath- some disease and the yellow fever, gave her child to her physician, that it might find the home and care the cowardly father had denied to her and it. How shocking to every sense. Hearing such things, one wonders if our civili- zation is really a failure, and we are going back to the days of the London plague, when all the bonds of society were loosened, and besides the disease,
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