Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1882 — The Flood in the Lower Mississippi. [ARTICLE]

The Flood in the Lower Mississippi.

Memphis, March 6. Reports received from the flooded districts in Eastern Arkansas are of the most disheartening character. The damage is much greater than first announced. Refugees from Desha aud Chieoh counties give graphio and thrilling accounts of the floods which drove them from their honies. One man says ho aas awakened at midnight by a roaring sound, and aroused his wife and three children under the impression that a cyclone was sweeping across the plantation. So mo minutes later the house was swept from its foundation, and it floated off on a sea of water. The wreck was almost instantaneous, and the occupants of tho dwelling could not realize the situation until they were forced to seek shelter on the roof. They were rescued the next morning. Many incidents of a similar nature are related. The Governor of Arkansas says the number of persons requiring asssistance in that Blate alone will reach 12,000.

The Governor of Missouri tolegraped the Secretary of War to increase the rations ordered for the flood sufferers. Secretary Lincoln replied that eight days’ supplies had already gone forward to the inundated portion of Missouri, and that the Arkansas Commissioners ask 15,000 rations for forty days, which will exceed the appropriation. Eight army officers will be detailed to investigate the needs of the people, and it is thought that $400,000 will be required. Congress is to be asked to furnish the poor with seedcorn.

Accounts of the floods along the Lower Mississippi country grow gloomier as the days go by. Whole towns have been swept away by the angry waters, plantations destroyed and immense stretches of fertile country in Arkansas and Mississippi inundated. The destruction of property has been appalling, and famine threatens the unfortunate victims of the overflow. A dispatch from Riverton, Miss., says that when the current struck that town it was impossible to pull a boat through, and the people took shelter upon the housetops and upon floating pieces of fences, sides of buildings, eto. It was about an hou r before Rosedale was flooded, and the people there had time to save some of thoir clothing and the most valuable of thoir light personal property. As soon as possible the ladies and children were removed to the wharf-boat at Terrene, where a temporary shelter was found, the men staying by their property and homes, seeing all they possessed swept away by the torrent of angry waters. The colored people fared the worst, and many were lost in the immediate vicinity of Riverton. Hon. L. H. MaDgum, of Arkansas, in an interview with an Associated Press reporter at Memphis, said that in the counties of Mississippi, Crittenden, Lee, Pomsett, Cross, Craighead, St. Francis, Phillips, Desha, Chicot and Monroe, in Arkansas, he bad information of about 20,000 destitute people, who would have to be fed by the Government for at least forty days. These counties do not include -those bordering on the Red river, where great suffering is said to exist. Senator Garland says the cities and towns of the State are responding liberally; but they are burdened by refugees from flooded districts. He also says the present distress is only beginning. Commissioner W. L. Hemingway, of Mississippi, said the inhabitants of Tunica, Coahoma, Desoto, Quitman, Bolivar, Washington, Issaquena, Yazoo, Tallahatchee and Sunflower counties in his State, to the number of 15,000, were in a like suffering condition. Those counties in Mississippi are all above Vicksburg, and there are other counties below that city that have suffered by the floods. Three thousand Tennesseeans residing along the Mississippi river are reported by Gov. Hawkins in a destitute condition. The Governor of Illinois has asked the Secretary of War for relief for the sufferers from the overflow of the Ohio in Pulaski county, 11L; Secretary Lincoln has ordered relief to be sent.

Appeals for aid are being received by the Secretary of War from the sufferers from floods in Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. In Pulaski county, lU., 4.000 persons are in need of assistance. The relief commissioners for Arkansas. Mississippi and Tennessee report 43,000 destitute persons. Reports from every section of the Southern Mississippi valley give accounts of destitution and suffering. Hundreds of poor colored people have been rendered houseless by the water, losing everything, and have positively nothing to eat. The white people are poorly off themselves, nearly all of their stock being lost, and being nearly impoverished owing to the bad crops of last year. The town of Austin, Miss., between Memphis and Helena, has been almost entirely destroyed. Hon. M. C. Harris, who was sent to Desha county, Ark., by Gov. Churchill to aid in distributing supplies to persons rendered destitute by the overflow, reports that the suffering and destitution is beyond description. Scarcely a farm-house or residence in the bottom has escaped inundation. The people have been compelled to build false floors in their houses or seek safety on some of the higher lands, where, iu rudely constructed camps of brush boughs and cane, they sit and wait for starvation and death. It is appalling, and without Government aid, liberally and quickly hastened, there is no telling where it will end. Many persons

have been feeding on carcasses of drowned cattle. Personal investigation, as well as assurances from reputable gentlemen, convinced Mr. Harris that not less than 600 families, averaging say six to the family, in Desha county alone, are dependent upon the charity of the Government. The indications point to a long continuance of the overflow, the most sanguine hardly daring to hope for its subsiding before May. .