Direct from Memphis

(From the St. Louis News, March 1st.)

We had an opportunity, yesterday, of conversing with a gentleman, who left Memphis last Saturday, and reached St. Louis yesterday morning.  He came to New Madrid by boat, thence by land to Price’s Landing, where he crossed the river to Illinois, reaching the Central Railroad.  He has been a citizen of St. Louis, but for some time past has been living at Memphis.

He says there was much depression at Memphis caused by the late rebel defeats, particularly those on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers; and it was generally admitted that Memphis was in great danger.  All the gold and silver in the Banks, and the treasures of private individuals, had been sent off to New Orleans for safety.  Confederate money, Tennessee notes, and shinplasters had gone down – or rather, all commodities had gone up.  There was no money to be had but paper notes and shinplasters, and of course they had to circulate at their variable value, being indicated not by their own fall, but the rise in price of all articles of trade and consumption.

He says gold could not be bought at any price, and even silver change had entirely disappeared from circulation.  The people of Memphis, however, show no signs of yielding, but say they will defend their city.  All persons of military age turn out at two o’clock in the afternoon every day for the purpose of drilling.  Only a few shot guns were to be had in the city.  A large number of pikes were being manufactured, and with these they hope to compete with the minie rifles and muskets of the Federal troops.

There are no fortifications at Memphis.  The design is to protect the city, if possible, by a defence at Fort Pillow, just below Randolph, sixty miles above Memphis.  At this point there is a bold and nearly precipitous bluff, abut eighty feet above the level of the river, commanding a stretch of the river for three miles above, while the land approach to the fort is protected by a rugged conformation of the ground, and by the Hatchee river, which empties into the Mississippi a mile above the fort.  A call has been made for several thousand negroes from the neighboring counties to complete the works at Fort Pillow.

There were no troops at Memphis.  At New Madrid, there is a fort just below the town, defended by a force whose strength our informant had no means of ascertaining.  He understood that the post was under the command of a Gen. Grant.  It is a mistake, our informant states, to suppose that many St. Louisians who went to Memphis, last summer, are in the army.  Very few of them are, but are living in Memphis as private citizens, making a living as best they can.

There is no great scarcity of necessaries at the South, though many articles such as tea, coffee, butter and salt, are high.  Sweet potatoes are abundant and cheap, and many persons make them their chief article of food. – Leather has become cheaper since the erection of tanneries throughout the country.  Nearly all articles of clothing and other fabrics of general use, formerly imported, were being manufactured in the Southern States.  The stores, however, are destitute of the find goods formerly sold, and the apothecary shops are almost entirely bare.

The rebels have established powder mills in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, and have an abundance of powder, such as it is – a weak article, and deficient in power.  As an evidence of this, it may be stated that many of the Federal soldiers wounded at Fort Donelson, picked the buck-shot out of their merely skin-deep wounds without the assistance of surgeons.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 2