WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED
An article on Memphis, published in the year 1855, gives the population
of the place as about 13,000 (one quarter of the number slaves), and
calls Memphis "the most promising town in the Southwest." It predicts
that a railroad will some day connect Memphis with Little Rock,
Arkansas, and that a direct line between Memphis and Cincinnati may even
be constructed. This article begins the history of Memphis in the year
1820, when the place had 50 inhabitants. In 1840 the settlement had
grown to 1,700, and fifteen years thereafter it was almost eight times
that size.
Your Memphian, however, is not at all content to date from 1820. He
begins the history of Memphis with the date May 8, 1541--a time when
Henry VIII was establishing new matrimonial records in England, when
Queen Elizabeth was a little girl, and Shakespeare, Bacon, Galileo and
Cromwell were yet unborn. For that was the date when a Spanish gentleman
bearing some personal resemblance to "Uncle Joe" Cannon--though he was
younger, had black hair and beard, was differently dressed and did not
chew long black cigars--arrived at the lower Chickasaw Bluffs, from
which the city of Memphis now overlooks the Mississippi River. This
gentleman was Hernando De Soto, and with his soldiers and horses he had
marched from Tampa Bay, Florida, hunting for El Dorado, but finding
instead, a lot of poor villages peopled by savages whom he killed in
large numbers, having been brought up to that sort of work by Pizarro,
under whom he served in the conquest of Peru. It seems to be well
established, through records left by De Soto's secretary, and other men
who were with him, and through landmarks mentioned by them, that De Soto
and his command camped where Memphis stands, crossed the Mississippi at
this point in boats which they built for the purpose, and marched on to
an Indian village situated on the mound, a few miles distant, which now
gives Mound City, Arkansas, its name. One hundred and thirty-two years
later Marquette passed by on his way down the river, and nine years
after him La Salle, but so far as is known, neither stopped at the site
of Memphis, though they must have noticed as they passed, that the river
is narrower here than at any point within hundreds of miles, and that
the Chickasaw Bluffs afford about as good a place for a settlement as
may be found along the reaches of the lower river, being high enough for
safety, and flat on top. The first white man known to have visited the
actual site of Memphis after De Soto, was De Bienville, the French
Governor of Louisiana, who came in 1739. De Bienville found the
Chickasaw village where De Soto had found it two centuries earlier; but
whereas De Soto managed to avoid battle with the inhabitants of this
particular village, De Bienville came to attack them. He fought them
near their village, was defeated, and retired to Mobile.
Thus this part of the United States belonged first to Spain, and then to
France; but in 1762 France ceded it back to Spain, and in the year
following, Spain and France together ceded their territory in the
eastern part of the continent to England. The next change came with the
Revolution, when the United States came into being. The Spanish were,
however, still in possession of the vast territory of Louisiana, to the
west of the Mississippi. In 1795, Gayoso, Spanish Governor of Louisiana,
came across and built a fort on the east side of the river, but was
presently ousted by the United States. In 1820, as has been said, the
settlement of Memphis had begun, one of the early proprietors having
been Andrew Jackson. Some of the first settlers wished to name the place
Jackson, in honor of the general, but Jackson himself, it is said,
decided on the name Memphis, because the position of the town suggested
that of ancient Memphis, on the Nile.
In 1857 Memphis got her first railroad--the Memphis &
Charleston--connecting her with Charleston, South Carolina. About the
time the road was completed there were severe financial panics which
held the city back; also there was trouble, as in so many other river
towns, with hordes of gamblers and desperadoes. Judge J.P. Young, in
his "History of Memphis," tells of an interesting episode of those
times. There were two professional gamblers, father and son, of the name
of Able. The father shot a man in a saloon brawl, and soon after, the
son committed a similar crime of violence. A great mob started to take
the younger Able out of jail and lynch him, but one firm citizen,
addressing them from the balcony of a hotel, persuaded them to desist.
Next day, however, there was a mass meeting to discuss the case of Able.
At this meeting the hotheads prevailed, and Able was taken from the jail
by a mob of three thousand men. When the noose was around his neck, and
he and his mother and sister were pleading that his life be spared, the
same man who had previously prevented mob action, stepped boldly up, cut
the rope from Abel's neck, and assisted him to fly, standing between him
and the mob, fighting the mob off, and finally getting Able back into
the jail. When the mob stormed the jail, furious at having been
circumvented by a single man, the same powerful figure appeared at the
jail door with a pistol, and, incredible though it seems, actually held
the mob at bay until it finally dispersed. This man was Nathan Bedford
Forrest, later the brilliant Confederate cavalry leader. Forrest and his
wife are buried in Memphis, in a square called Forrest Park, under a
fine equestrian monument, by C.H. Niehaus.
Before the war Forrest was a member of the slave-dealing firm of Forrest
& Maples, of Memphis. Subjoined is a photographic reproduction of an
advertisement of this firm, which appeared in the Memphis City
Directory for 1855-6.
[Illustration:
CITY DIRECTORY. 251
--------------------
#FORREST & MAPLES,#
#SLAVE DEALERS,#
#87 Adams Street#,
Between Second and Third,
#MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE#,
Have constantly on hand the best selected assortment of
#FIELD HANDS, HOUSE SERVANTS & MECHANICS#,
at their Negro Mart, to be found in the city. They are daily
receiving from Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, fresh supplies of
likely Young Negroes.
#Negroes Sold on Commission#,
and the highest market price always paid for good stock. Their Jail
is capable of containing Three Hundred, and for comfort, neatness
and safety, is the best arranged of any in the Union. Persons
wishing to purchase, are invited to examine their stock before
purchasing elsewhere.
They have on hand at present, Fifty likely young Negroes, comprising
Field hands, Mechanics, House and Body Servants, &c.
]
When the Civil War loomed close, sentiment in Memphis was divided, but
at a call for troops for the Union, the State of Tennessee balked, and
soon after it seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy. Many
people believed, at that time, that if the entire South united, the
North would not dare fight. When the war came, however, Memphis knew
where she stood; it is said that no city of the same size (22,600)
furnished so many men to the Confederate armies. In 1862, when the Union
forces got control of the river to the north and the south of the city,
it became evident that Memphis was likely to be taken. A fleet of Union
gunboats came down and defeated the Confederate fleet in the river
before the city, while the populace lined the banks and looked on. The
city, being without military protection, then surrendered, and was
occupied by troops under Sherman. Nor, with the exception of one period
of a few hours' duration, did it ever again come under Confederate
control. That was when Forrest made his famous raid in 1864, an event
which exhibited not only the dash and hardihood of that intrepid leader,
but also his strategy and his sardonic humor.
General A.J. Smith, with 13,000 Union soldiers was marching on the great
grain district of central Mississippi, and was forcing Forrest, who had
but 3,500 men, to the southward. Unable to meet Smith's force on
anything like equal terms, Forrest conceived the idea of making a "run
around the end" and striking at Memphis, which was Smith's base. Taking
1,500 picked men and horses, he executed a flanking movement over night,
and before Smith knew he was gone, came careering into Memphis at dawn
at the head of 500 galloping, yelling men--many of them Memphis boys.
There were some 7,000 Union troops in and about Memphis at this time,
but they were surprised out of their slumbers, and made no effective
resistance. The only part of Forrest's plan which miscarried was his
scheme to capture three leading Union officers, who were then stationed
in Memphis: Generals C.C. Washburn, S.A. Hurlbut and R.P. Buckland.
General Hurlbut's escape occurred by reason of the fact that instead of
having passed the night at the old Gayoso Hotel, where he made his
headquarters, he happened to be visiting a brother officer, elsewhere.
General Washburn was warned by a courier and made his escape in his
nightclothes and bare feet from the residence he occupied as
headquarters, running down alleys to the river, and thence along under
the bluff to the Union fortifications. Forrest's men found the general's
papers, uniform, hat, boots and sword in his bedroom, and also found
there Mrs. Washburn. The only things they failed to find were the
general's nightshirt and the general himself, who was inside it. General
Buckland also avoided capture by the narrowest margin. The soldiers
first went to the wrong house to look for him. That gave him time to
escape.
It is recorded that, later in the day, under a flag of truce, Forrest
sent General Washburn his sword and clothing with a humorous message,
informing him, at the same time, that he had 600 Federal prisoners
without shoes or clothing, and that he would like supplies for them.
The supplies, we are told, were promptly forthcoming.
Forrest waited until he was sure that news of the raid had been
telegraphed to General Smith in the field. Then he cut the wires. Smith
immediately came back toward Memphis with his army, which was what
Forrest desired him to do. The Confederates then retired from the
immediate vicinity of the city.
Judge Young, in his history, reports that when General Hurlbut heard of
the raid he exclaimed, "There it goes again! They superseded me with
Washburn because I could not keep Forrest out of West Tennessee, and
Washburn cannot keep him out of his own bedroom!"
* * * * *
After the War there was corruption and carpet-bag rule in Memphis, and
Forrest was again to the fore, becoming "Grand Wizard" of the famous Ku
Klux Klan, the mysterious secret organization designed to intimidate
Scalawags, Carpet-baggers and negroes, whose arrogance had become
intolerable. General George W. Gordon prepared the oath and ritual for
the Klan, which was founded in the town of Pulaski, Giles County,
Tennessee. General Forrest took the oath in 1866, in Room 10 of the old
Maxwell House, at Nashville.
It is my belief that the Ku Klux Klan has been a good deal maligned.
Many of its members were men of high type. I have been told, for
instance, that one southern gentleman who has since been in the cabinet
of a President of the United States, was active in the Ku Klux. I
withhold his name because the purposes of the Ku Klux Klan, and the
urgent need which called it into being, are not yet fully understood in
the North, and for the further reason that depredations committed by
other bodies were frequently charged to the Ku Klux, giving it a bad
name. So far as I can discover the Ku Klux endeavored to avoid violence
where it could be avoided. Its aim seems to have been to frighten
negroes and bad whites into behaving themselves or going away; though
sometimes, of course, bad characters had to be killed. It must be
remembered that the ballot was denied former Confederate soldiers for
quite a period after the War, that they were not allowed to possess
firearms, and that, at the same time, negro troops were quartered in the
South. In many parts of the South the government and the courts were in
the hands of third-rate Northerners (carpet-baggers) who had come down
to dominate the defeated section, and who used the Scalawags (disloyal
southern whites) and negroes for their own purposes. Obviously this was
outrageous, and equally obviously, a proud people, even though defeated,
could not endure it. The service performed by the Ku Klux Klan seems to
have been comparable with that rendered by the Vigilantes of early
western days. Something had to be done and the Klan did it.
In 1869 General Forrest ordered the Klan to disband, which it did; but
owing to the fact that it was a secret organization, and that disguises
had been used, it was an easy matter for mobs, not actually associated
with the Ku Klux, to assume its costume and commit outrages in its name.
* * * * *
In writing of Raleigh I referred to the post-bellum activities of the
Confederate cruiser _Shenandoah_. Captain Dabney M. Scales, a
distinguished citizen of Memphis, was on the _Shenandoah_. Born in
Orange County, Virginia, in 1842, Captain Scales was appointed to the
Naval Academy by L.Q.C. Lamar. He was a classmate of Captain Clark,
later of the _Oregon_. When the war broke out, young Scales was in his
second year at the Academy, but like most of the other southern cadets
he resigned and offered his services to the South. When commissioned he
was the youngest naval officer in the Confederate service. Eight months
after the War was over, the _Shenandoah_ was still cruising in the South
Seas, looking for Federal merchantmen. In January 1866, somewhere south
of Australia, she overhauled the British bark _Baracouta_, taking her
for a Yankee man-o'-war flying the British flag as a ruse. Young Scales
was sent in command of a boarding party, and was informed by the skipper
of the _Baracouta_ that the Civil War had terminated months and months
ago. The _Shenandoah_ then made for Liverpool. In the meantime a Federal
court had ruled that her officers were guilty of piracy--a hanging
offense. Naturally, they did not dare return to the United States. Young
Scales went to Mexico and remained there two years before coming home.
When the Spanish War came, Captain Scales volunteered and was made
navigating officer of a naval vessel. At the time of our visit he was a
practising lawyer in Memphis, and was in command of Company A of the
Uniform Confederate Veterans, a body of old heroes who go out every now
and then and win the first prize for the best drilled organization
operating Hardee's tactics.
Another distinguished citizen of Memphis who has lively recollections of
the Civil War, is the Right Reverend Thomas F. Gailor, Episcopal Bishop
of Tennessee. Bishop Gailor, who succeeded the famous Bishop Quintard,
is my ideal of everything an Episcopal bishop--or I might even say a
Church of England bishop--ought to be. The Episcopal Church seems to me
to have about it more "style" than most other churches, and an Episcopal
bishop ought not to look the ascetic. He ought to be well filled out,
well dressed, well fed. He ought to have a distinguished appearance, a
ruddy complexion, a good voice, and a lot of what we call
"humanness"--including humor. All these qualities Bishop Gailor has.
In the bishop's study, in Memphis, hangs the sword of his father, Major
Frank M. Gailor, who commanded the 33rd Mississippi Regiment. Major
Gailor was killed while giving a drink of water to a wounded brother
officer, and that officer, though dying, directed a soldier to take the
Major's sword and see that it reached Mrs. Gailor, in Memphis, within
the Union lines. A young woman, a Confederate spy, took the sword, and
wearing it next her body, brought it through to Mrs. Gailor. Somehow or
other it became known that the widow had her husband's sword, and as the
possession of arms was prohibited to citizens, a corporal and guard were
sent to the house to search for it. They found it between the mattresses
of Mrs. Gailor's bed, and confiscated it. Mrs. Gailor then went with
another lady to see General Washburn. Her friend started a long harangue
upon the injustice which had been done, but Mrs. Gailor, seeing that the
General was becoming impatient, broke in saying: "General, soldiers came
to my house and took away my dead husband's sword. I can't use it, nor
can my little son. I want it back. You would want your boy to have your
sword, wouldn't you?"
"Of course I would!" cried Washburn. "Thank God for a woman who can say
what she has to say, and be done with it!"
The sword was returned.
In the Spring of 1863, when Bishop Gailor was a child of about seven
years, he accompanied his mother on a journey by wagon from Memphis to
Jackson, Mississippi. The only other member of the party was a lady who
had driven in the same wagon from Jackson to Kentucky, to get the body
of her brother, a Confederate soldier who had been killed there. The
coffin containing the remains was carried in the wagon. When it was
known in Memphis that Mrs. Gailor was going through the lines, a great
many people came to her with letters which they wished to send to
friends. Mrs. Gailor sewed many of the letters into the clothing of the
little boy. ("I remember it well," said the bishop. "I felt like a
mummy.") Also one of Forrest's spies came with important papers, asking
if she would undertake to deliver them. Only by very clever manipulation
did Mrs. Gailor get the papers through, for everything was carefully
searched. After they had passed out of the northern lines they met one
of Forrest's pickets. Mrs. Gailor told him that she had papers for the
general, and before long Forrest rode up with his staff and received
them. Then the two women and the little boy, with their tragic burden in
the wagon, drove along on their two-hundred mile journey. And later,
when Jackson was bombarded, they were there.
Before the war Major Gailor had been editor of the Memphis "Avalanche,"
a paper which was suppressed when the Union troops took the town. After
the War the "Avalanche" was started up again, and had a stormy time of
it, because it criticized a Carpet-bag judge who had come to Memphis. In
1889 the "Avalanche" was consolidated with the "Appeal," another famous
ante-bellum journal, surviving to-day in the "Commercial-Appeal," a
strong newspaper, edited by one of the ablest journalists in the South,
Mr. C.P.J. Mooney.
When Memphis was captured the "Appeal" would have been suppressed, as
the "Avalanche" was, had it been there. But when it became evident that
Memphis would fall, Mr. S.C. Toof (later a well-known book publisher)
who was then connected with the "Appeal," packed up the press and other
equipment and shipped them to Grenada, Mississippi, where Mr. B.F. Dill,
editor of the paper, continued to bring it out. When Grenada was
threatened, a few months later, Mr. Dill moved with his newspaper
equipment to Birmingham, where for a second time he resumed publication.
His next move was to Atlanta. There, when he could not get news-print,
he used wallpaper, or any sort of paper he could lay his hands on. When
Sherman took Atlanta the "Appeal" moved again, this time to Columbus,
Georgia, where, at last, it was captured, and its press destroyed.
Wherever it went it remained the "Memphis Daily Appeal," with
correspondents in all southern armies. No wonder a paper with such
vitality as that, has survived and become great!
Poor Memphis! After the War she had Reconstruction to contend with;
after Reconstruction, financial difficulties; after that, pestilence. In
1873, when the population of the city was about 40,000, and there had
been a long period of hard times, yellow fever broke out. The condition
of the city was exceedingly unsanitary, and after the pestilence had
passed, was allowed to remain so, though at that time the origin of
yellow fever was, of course, not known, and it was assumed that the
disease resulted from lack of proper sanitation.
In 1878 there was another yellow fever epidemic. The first case
developed August 2, but the news was suppressed until the middle of the
month, by which time a number of cases had come down. The day after the
news became known 22 new cases were reported. Terror spread through the
town. Hordes of people tried to flee at once. Families left their houses
with the doors wide open and silver standing on the sideboards. People
flocked to the trains; when they could not get seats they stood in the
aisles or clambered onto the roofs of the cars; if they could not get in
at car doors they climbed in through the windows, and sometimes, when
the father of a family was refused admittance to a crowded car, he would
force a way in for his wife and children at the pistol's point.
In the first week of the panic there were 1,500 cases, with an average
of ten deaths daily; in the next week, 3,000 cases with fifty deaths
daily, and so on into September during which month there was an average
of 8,000 to 10,000 cases with about two hundred deaths a day.
Not every one fled, however. Leading citizens remained, forming a relief
committee, and some brave helpers came from outside. Thus the sick and
needy were attended to, though of course many of the volunteers
contracted the disease and perished.
Added to the epidemic there was, as so often happens in such
circumstances, an outbreak of thievery and other crime, which had to be
put down. It is related that in the height of the epidemic hardly any
one was seen upon the streets save an occasional nurse, doctor, or
other member of the relief committee; household pets starved to death
or fled the city; among the newspapers the staffs were so reduced that
only two or three men were left in each office, and in the case of the
"Appeal," but one, that one Colonel J.M. Keating, the proprietor, who
stuck to Memphis and for a time wrote, set up and printed the paper
without assistance, feeling that refugees must have news from the city.
The next year the epidemic came again, but in less violent form, there
being, this time, but 2,000 cases. However the effect was cumulative.
Memphis dropped from a city of nearly 50,000 to one of 20,000 and the
reputation of the place was such that a bill was proposed in Congress to
purchase the ground on which the city stood and utterly destroy it as
unfit for human habitation.
Stricken as she was, however, Memphis "came back." A great campaign for
sanitation was begun; city sewage-disposal was installed, and after a
few years, artesian wells were bored for a new water supply. And though,
as we now know, yellow fever does not come from the same sources as
typhoid, nevertheless the new sanitary measures did greatly reduce the
city's death rate.
Memphis, like all other cities, has her troubles now and then, but since
the great pestilence there has never been a real disaster. The city has
grown and thriven. Indeed, she had become so used to growing fast that
when, in 1910, the Federal census gave her but 131,000, she indignantly
demanded a recount, for she had been talking to herself, and had
convinced herself that she had a great many more than that number of
inhabitants. However, the census was taken again, and the first count
proved accurate.