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:

Distinguished Arrivals (in Memphis) — Major Gen. W.T. Sherman arrived on Sunday by a gunboat, and is now stopping at the Gayoso House.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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.”

Does anything in this news article from 150 years ago sound familiar?  I'm almost embarrassed to write anything about the weather because we've been very lucky in Memphis so far this year:  NO SNOW! But our temperatures, like elsewhere, have been unusually low.  We dealt with a frozen pipe after a 9-degree night a week or so ago, but nothing like what the Commercial Appeal reported in 1864!

We have frequently heard of our troops “charging the Yankees,” but they have invariably been fortified with muskets and fixed bayonets. It remained for (Gen. Nathan Bedford) Forrest to inaugurate charging an enemy without a weapon of any description. In his recent retreat from Jackson, Tennessee, he was attacked by the Yankees near the line of the Memphis and Charleston railroad, and his armed forces being small, he ordered the new recruits, two thousand in number, who had not received arms, to charge the enemy. They immediately rushed forward, and the Yankees, astounded at the force coming toward them, fled in all directions, leaving Forrest a clear road to Oxford.

An account from Jan. 23 describes the charge in more detail: (Forrest) divided his men into two columns, one of which he sent, under Col. Faulkner, across the railroad, within five miles of Memphis. The other he commanded in person, taking the Bolivar route, and crossing the railroad near Collierville. Near Bolivar, he met Col. Hatch’s Yankee cavalry, and though they largely outnumbered his force, he charged them with a yell, causing them to scatter in every direction ... Not more than a third of Gen. Forrest’s men were armed, but he mixed up the armed with the unarmed men, and ordered the whole to charge at once. His men were nearly all raw recruits, while the Federals had, from their own accounts, not less than twenty thousand disciplined men after him.

Letter from Mississippi (Grenada) — The weather continues intensely cold. The managers of the hospitals are taking advantage of the heaviest ice ever known in Mississippi to lay in a supply for next summer. Travel and mails have been much interrupted by water and mud freezing over the railroad tracks.

Memphis Intelligence — The cold was severe in Memphis — 10 below zero ... On President’s Island about eighty negroes perished. A detachment of ten soldiers from Fort Pillow, chasing after deserters, were frozen, as were also five on a sandbar in the river ... At Cairo the mercury stood at 15 degrees below zero, at St. Louis 25 below.

Letter from Richmond — Gen. John Morgan is the lion of the day (Morgan escaped from a Yankee prison in November 1863). Yesterday he was formally received by the civil authorities ... was made to ride up Main street in an open carriage, the mercury being twelve degrees below freezing; was violently assaulted in a set speech by the Mayor; was cruelly compelled to respond, and was afterwards carried back to the hotel. Gen. John Morgan, I fear, is a good deal bored by his lionization ... he must write his autograph in numberless albums of admiring young ladies and eat ever so many leaden lunches, dismal dinners and stupid suppers — need we wonder if the hero should yawn over the hospitable board and wish himself for the nonce back again in the Ohio penitentiary.

Not a Lock Left — A lady asked General John H. Morgan for a lock of his hair, when he pulled off his hat, and showed her that had none to give her, the Yankees having shaved his head in the Ohio penitentiary.

A soldier in Gen. Lee’s army, in complaining of camp life, says he is one of “Lee’s Miserables.”

A Noble Example Set — Right glad we are that the famous old hundred and fifty-fourth Tennessee has taken the initiative. As it was among the very first to enter the service, it evinces a determination to be the last to leave it: An enthusiastic meeting of the old 154th senior regiment volunteers, was held today, at which stirring resolutions were unanimously passed, tendering their services to the Confederate States as long as the war lasts. (The 154th Tennessee included many soldiers from Memphis and Shelby County).

Specially proud are we that the old one hundred and fifty fourth Tennessee regiment, made up of our friends and neighbors and commanded by the immortal Smith, the gallant Vaughan, and now by the chivalrous Magevney, should be the illustrious exemplar.

In order to accommodate our subscribers and that portion of the public supplied by the Augusta and Macon and Western roads, we have determined to issue both a morning and evening edition of the APPEAL.

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.

Nov. 11. 1863

From the Army of Tennessee (near Chattanooga) -- The army at present is in a mountain region — the rainy season prevailing, with seven clear days in the past thirty — the limestone mud deep and sticky — mules and horses starving ... We visited the 16th regiment ... and we have only to say that there are one hundred and fifty men in it destitute of blankets; two-thirds of the regiment are without tents. There are many barefooted men.

Nov. 12, 1863

The Field After the Fight — It is five weeks after the battle ... The entire battlefield is yet encumbered with heaps of dead and unburied Yankees ... In most cases the flesh had fallen from the bones, and the mere skeleton remains ... Years hence, children, now unborn, in their sports upon this field will find a skull, or a bone, of these poor victims, and wonder and ask what it is. And then some grandfather will tell them of the great battle of Chickamauga ... Our own dead are buried upon the very spot where they fell. In most cases their names, company and regiment are written in pencil upon a headboard.

Nov. 16, 1863

Col. Forrest Not Dead — We are greatly gratified to learn that Col. Jeff Forrest, (a younger brother of Nathan Bedford), whose death we announced last week, is not dead, but still lives. The Register says he was shot through the hips, and is at the house of Capt. Steele, a mile and a half from Tuscumbia, and is doing well. On the first day of his series of fights he had with him five men, and Forrest, pursued by a large number, took refuge in an inaccessible cave. He and his comrades killed twenty-eight of the enemy, among them a colonel, a major and two captains.

n 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

Resignation of Gen. N.B. Forrest — It seems to be established that Gen. Forrest has tendered his resignation to the War Department. With us, the country will regret to learn that such is the case, as he has rendered services inferior to those of no other officer in the service, and has very justly been regarded as one of the most efficient. 

(Forrest’s “resignation” speech ranks high on any scale of military insubordination. Eight days after the Confederate victory at Chickamauga, Forrest received an order from Gen. Bragg telling him to turn over his troops to Gen. Wheeler. This was the second command that Bragg had forced him to relinquish. Forrest also was angry that Bragg had not advanced on Chattanooga. Storming into Bragg’s tent, Forrest expressed his outrage. Here’s an excerpt: 

“I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a damned scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any orders to me, for I will not obey them, and I will hold you personally responsible for any further indignities you endeavor to inflict upon me. You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life.” 

Not wishing to lose such an able cavalry leader, Jefferson Davis intervened and had Forrest transferred to northern Mississippi.)

Fashion and Folly — We publish this evening, as a matter of interest to our lady readers, a lengthy report of the “fashions” in New York, as introduced for the winter, and feel assured our fair friends in Dixie, whose tastes are circumscribed by the blockade, will read the notes of the adornments of the “Flora McFlimseys” of the North with curiosity, yet without envy.