Memphis, Tennessee

“ In the southwestern corner of Tennessee, just above Tennessee Chute and the northwestern corner of Mississippi, was the fourth of the Chickasaw Bluffs. On it sat Memphis, a city with churches, banks, and the "electromagnetic telegraph." Its twelve thousand people of that day are a hundred and thirty-five thousand now and have taken in almost out of remembrance the small settlement of Pickering, or Fort Pickering, on the down-stream end of the bluff, where the Votaress that beautiful morning landed and laid to rest Madame Marburg, the bishop, and Basile. ”

“ A few years before the outbreak of the Civil War it began to appear that Memphis, Tennessee, was going to be a great tobacco entrepot--the wise could see the signs of it. At that time Memphis had a wharf boat, of course. There was a paved sloping wharf, for the accommodation of freight, but the steamers landed on the outside of the wharfboat, and all loading and unloading was done across it, between steamer and shore. A number of wharfboat clerks were needed, and part of the time, every day, they were very busy, and part of the time tediously idle. ”

“ February 16.—At 9 A.M. we were abreast of the city of Memphis, on the Tennessee side of the river. Higher up there is Cairo. These slave-holders, who retain their fellow-men in worse than Egyptian bondage, seem to have a great partiality for Egyptian names. Memphis is pleasantly situated on high "bluffs," and is a great point for the shipping of cotton. It does not, however, thrive by honest industry. ”

“ I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some -- some very sad news for all of you -- Could you lower those signs, please? -- I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee. ”

“ Memphis—Out from the Reconstructed. Of the trip between Jackson, Mississippi, and Grand Junction, Tennessee, I only remember a dismal night of thumpings over broken rails, and lurches and contortions of the cars, as if we were really trying in our motion to imitate the course of the rails the Yankee raiders had twisted. At one point all were waked up, hurried out into the mud of a forlorn little village, and informed that, some way or another, they must get over the burnt bridge to the train half a mile on the other side. ”

“ It was fifteen minutes past eight when the train arrived at Grenada, and I believe that city is just one hundred miles from Memphis. That is the place where the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad connects with the New Orleans, St. Louis and Chicago Railroad, and we would have to take the Mississippi and Tennessee road to go to Memphis. ”

“ BROWN, JAMES W., Pvt. 1st class, 889 Estival Place, Memphis, Tenn. BROWN, WILLIAM P., Pvt. 1st class, 1501 Riverside Drive, Knoxville, Tennessee. BUCKHAULT, JAMES D., Pvt., Ovett, Mississippi. BUFFALOE, ROBERT B., Pvt., Gates, Tennessee. BURNETT, FRANK C., Pvt., Riverside Park, S. Parkway West, Memphis, Tennessee. CAMPBELL, JAMES E., Pvt. 1st class, 587 7th St., Memphis, Tennessee. CARTER, JOHN W., Pvt. 1st class, Route 4, Clarksville, Tennessee. CASH, SAM C., Pvt., Beulah, Mississippi. CERRITO, MICHEL M., Pvt., 546 Alabama St., Memphis, Tennessee. CLARK, GEORGE W., Pvt. ”

“ Apropos of Arkansas, I am reminded that Memphis is not only the metropolis of Tennessee, but is the big city of Arkansas and Mississippi, as well. The Peabody Hotel in Memphis, a somewhat old-fashioned hostelry, is a sort of Arkansas political headquarters, and is sometimes humorously referred to as "Peabody township, Arkansas." ”

“ Corinth, the position from which our forces had advanced to Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing, and to which they had now retired, was a small village in the northeast corner of the State of Mississippi. It was ninety miles east of Memphis and twenty or twenty-two west of the Tennessee River. The Memphis and Charleston Railroad ran from west to east through it, and the Mobile and Ohio road from south to north. The country between it and the Tennessee River was quite rugged, broken into ridges, and covered with a heavy forest. ”

“ In Western Tennessee, along the Mississippi, nearly all of the people, on the other hand, were in favor of secession.
At Memphis they were very wild and fierce. Union men were mobbed, tarred and feathered, [Pg 282] ridden on rails, had their heads shaved, were robbed, knocked down, and warned to leave the place or be hung. One man was headed up in a hogshead, and rolled into the river, because he stood up for the Union! Memphis was a hotbed of secessionists; it was almost as bad as Charleston.
A Memphis newspaper, of the 6th of May, said:—
“Tennessee is disenthralled at last. ”

“ Mummies suggest Egypt. So, though less directly, does corn. If a caché of mummies had been discovered on the banks of the Mississippi it would be easy to account for Memphis. If Tennessee were a great wheat state one could imagine settlers saying "There is corn in Egypt, according to the Scriptures. Let us call our new city by an Egyptian name." But I doubt whether cotton suggested Memphis. It certainly did not suggest Cairo, for Cairo is not a cotton place. I was told,—though without any strong conviction—that the sight of the Mississippi reminded somebody once of the Nile. ”

“ Memphis was one of the three points at which the Southern railway system touched the great river and communicated with the States beyond—Vicksburg and New Orleans, much further south, were the others. Knoxville again is a point, by occupying which, the Northern forces would have cut the direct railway communication between Virginia and the West, but for this move into Eastern Tennessee Lincoln had other reasons nearer his heart. The people of that region were strongly for the Union ”

“ Thompson's chickens killed Leila's chickens. Eva does sleep in my bed. I do love good girls. Good-by HELEN KELLER. The next two letters mention her visit in January to her relatives in Memphis, Tennessee. She was taken to the cotton exchange. When she felt the maps and blackboards she asked, "Do men go to school?" She wrote on the blackboard the names of all the gentlemen present. While at Memphis she went over one of the large Mississippi steamers. TO DR. EDWARD EVERETT HALE Tuscumbia, Alabama, February 15th 1888. Dear Mr. Hale, I am happy to write you a letter this morning. ”

“ The first paper in Memphis was The Memphis Advocate and Eastern District Intelligencer, which first appeared on January 18, 1827. The Times was established soon after and later the two papers were united with the title of The Times and Advocate.
Journalism began in Nashville in 1797, when The Tennessee Gazette appeared under the editorship of a Kentucky printer named Henkle. A year later the paper was sold and the name changed to The Clarion. The Hamilton County Gazette, which later became The Chattanooga Gazette, was brought from Knox- ville to Chattanooga by flatboat in 1838. ”

“ Nothing could be gained on the National side by attacking elsewhere, because the territory already occupied was as much as the force present could guard. The most anxious period of the war, to me, was during the time the Army of the Tennessee was guarding the territory acquired by the fall of Corinth and Memphis and before I was sufficiently reinforced to take the offensive. The enemy also had cavalry operating in our rear, making it necessary to guard every point of the railroad back to Columbus, on the security of which we were dependent for all our supplies. ”

“ The state of Tennessee, in 1846, created a corporation by the name of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad Company. The legislature of Alabama subsequently passed an act entitled 'An act to incorporate the Memphis & Charleston Railroad Company.' That act referred to the act of the Tennessee legislature, and granted to said company a right of way through Alabama, to construct its road between certain points named, declaring that it should have all the rights and privileges granted to it by the said act of incorporation, subject to the restrictions therein imposed. ”

“ From the Ohio River to Vicksburg, a distance of six hundred miles, it is asserted that there is no other site for a commercial city: so Memphis, though isolated, enjoys this advantage, which has, in fact, made her the busy cotton-shipping port she is to- day. Her population is about forty thousand. As Memphis is connected by railroads with the towns and villages of all the back country, in addition to her water advantages, she may be called the business centre of an immense area of cultivated land. ”

“ Thus Charles Mackay describes Memphis; but it impressed me as the pleasantest city of the South. Though its population was only thirty thousand, it had the air and promise of a great metropolis. The long steamboat landing was so completely covered with cotton that drays and carriages could hardly thread the few tortuous passages leading down to the water's edge. Bales of the same great staple were piled up to the ceiling in the roomy stores of the cotton factors; the hotels were crowded, and spacious and elegant blocks were being erected. ”

“ Memphis is a handsome city, attractively laid out, the residential section having spacious lawn-bordered avenues, and there being an attractive park in the centre, the Court Square inhabited by numerous squirrels and adorned by Andrew Jackson's 400 bust. Memphis has seventy thousand people, and a large trade both by river and railroad, being a leading cotton-shipping port, whence steamboats take vast amounts down to New Orleans for foreign export. Among its attractions are the cotton compresses and cotton-seed oil mills. ”

“ And this is all that remains of Memphis, eldest of cities—a few huge rubbish-heaps, a dozen or so of broken statues, and a name! One looks round and tries in vain to realize the lost splendors of the place. Where is the Memphis that King Mena came from Thinis to found—the Memphis of Ouenephes, and Khufa, and Khafra, and all the early kings who built their pyramid-tombs in the adjacent desert? Where is the Memphis of Herodotus, of Strabo, of Abd-el-Latîf? ”

“ Out of these shady demesnes rose the great white temples of Ptah and Apis, and the palaces of the various Memphian Pharaohs.
About these, the bazaars and residences, facade above facade, and tier upon tier, as the land sloped up to its center, shone fair and white under a cloudless sun.
Memphis was at the pinnacle of her greatness in the sixth year of the reign of the divine Meneptah. She had fortified herself and resisted the great invasion of the Rebu. Her generals had done battle with him and brought him home, chained to their chariots. ”

“ Having already spoken of a number of Memphis' interesting citizens, I find myself left with an ill-assorted trio of names yet to be mentioned, because, different as they are, each of the three supplies a definite part of the character of the city. First, then, Memphis has the honor of possessing what not many of our cities possess: a man who stands high among the world's artist-bookbinders. ”

“ The people were all more or less in sympathy with our enemies, and there was a strong prospect that the whole civil population would become a dead weight on our hands. Inasmuch as the Mississippi River was then in our possession northward, and steamboats were freely plying with passengers and freight, I caused all the stores to be opened, churches, schools, theatres, and places of amusement, to be reestablished, and very soon Memphis resumed its appearance of an active, busy, prosperous place. ”

“ The wealth and importance of the cities of Southern America are not to be estimated by their population. Memphis, in its palmiest day, had less than twenty thousand population, but the wealth and business were immense. ”

“ Memphis was then a great city; in its crowded streets, its palaces and temples, it was second only to Alexandria. A little to the west stood the pyramids, which were thought one of the seven wonders of the world. Their broad bases, sloping sides, and solid masonry had withstood the weather for ages; and their huge unwieldy stones were a less easy quarry for after builders than the live rock when nearer to the river’s side. The priests of Memphis knew the names of the kings who, one after the other, had built a new portico to their great temple of Phtah ”

“ At nine o’clock, having been joined by three more white men, we finally rolled into Memphis.
CHAPTER XXVII
Memphis—A City’s Fault and a Nation’s Wrong “Society must necessarily look at these things because they are created by it.”—Hugo.
On my arrival in Memphis I was greeted by a severe storm. Although chilled and almost starving my first desire was to secure my baggage, which I had sent on from Cleveland, and go to a hotel. But there were the conditions of the homeless and needy of Memphis to be studied. ”

“ By-and-by the green plain begins to grow narrower; we are coming to the end of the Delta, and entering upon the real valley of Egypt. Soon we pass a great city, its temples standing out clear against the deep blue sky, with their towering gateways, gay flags floating from tall flagstaves in front of them, and great obelisks pointing to the sky; and our pilot says that this is Memphis, one of the oldest towns in the country, and for long its capital. Not far from Memphis, three great pyramid-shaped masses of stone rise up on the river-bank, looking almost like mountains ”

“ So, except for a short excursion at New Orleans, I did not go a-sailing on the waters of the Mississippi.
Memphis is a much brighter, cleaner, more alert and prosperous-looking place than Louisville. |Charity and Colour.| There are shops on Main Street that would make a good figure in Paris; and at night it is as gay with electricity as the “Great White Way” of New York. When I arrived, Memphis was evidently in the thick of some excitement. ”