 From ice on the river to soldiers needing discipline to a president in pain, things don't seem to have changed much in 150 years. Here's the latest from Memphis in 1864: In recognition of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, “Civil War-Era
Memories” features excerpts from The Memphis Daily Appeal of 150 years
ago. The Appeal is publishing from Atlanta. Perspective from our staff
is in italics. Jan. 27, 1864 Distinguished Arrivals (in Memphis) — Major Gen. W.T. Sherman arrived
on Sunday by a gunboat, and is now stopping at the Gayoso House. Jan. 28, 1864
From the Memphis Bulletin of the 7th — The Mississippi River was full
of floating ice yesterday, the cakes ranging in size from six inches
square to half an acre in extent. It was not thick enough to materially
impede navigation, but sufficiently observable to form a remarkable
incident for this latitude ... We hear that in Wolf River the ice in
some places is frozen six inches thick.
Jan. 29, 1864 Rags Wanted — The highest market price, either in money or
subscription, will be paid for clean cotton or linen rags, white or
colored, delivered at the APPEAL counting-room, Atlanta. (Before the
late 19th century, paper was often made from textile fibers, like cotton
and linen, taken from recycled rags. The APPEAL supplied rags to its
paper vendors who produced paper that was often more durable than that
made later from wood pulp).
Jan. 30, 1864
The cavalry in Mississippi has been divided into two parts: all north
of Grenada and in West Tennessee is under command of Major-Gen.
Forrest; all south of an imaginary line running through Grenada, east
and west, and in Louisiana, is under command of Major-Gen. S.D. Lee.
General Forrest’s headquarters will be at Como, Panola County and Gen.
Lee’s at Jackson (Miss). Feb. 1, 1864 Letters from Mississippi — Gen. Forrest is busily engaged organizing
and bringing under proper discipline and restraint the troops which he
brought out of West Tennessee. They need it.
Feb. 2, 1864
Lincoln’s Cares — No man in this agony, says the “Boston Watchman,”
has suffered more and deeper, albeit with a dry, weary patient pain that
seemed to some like insensibility. “Whichever way it ends,” he said to
the writer, “I have the impression that I shan’t last long after it is
over.”
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