Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1882 — MISSISSIPPI FLOODS. [ARTICLE]

MISSISSIPPI FLOODS.

Death and Desolation Prevalent Throughout the Van* Flooded District —A Harrowing Story. [Telegram to Chicago Time*.] The half has not been told about the innndar tion of the Mississippi valley. For a distance of 1,000 miles it is under water to a width of from ten to 120 miles. No such flood has occurred in history, according to the accounts of old river men. The Times' correspondent has talked with several old pilots and Captains, and with one accord all unite in saying that the overflows of 1862, 1867 and 1874 did not compare with the floods which are now laying waste hundreds of thousands of acres of the most fertile land the sun ever shone on. _ln 1817 there was a great overflow of the Mississippi, but less damage resulted than has already occurred this spring. The freshet has been gathering in torce for two mouths. The Illinois, Wabash., Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland, on iho east, and the St. Francis, White, Arkansas and Red rivers on the west, together with Bcores and hundreds of lesser streams, have been emptying torrents into the Father of Waters for a long time. Since the Ist of January the fall of rain has been continuous throughout the whole region west of the Alleghenies and the southern extension of that range, and south of a line running east and and west through Central Illinois. The deluge has averaged from ten to twenty-fiye inches on a dead level. Insignificant creeks have swollen to the proportions of raging rivers. Through Southern Missouri and Illinois it has not been so bad, bat in Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana the destruction of bridges and roads, to say nothing of buildings and other property, has been enormous and beyond computation. The flood has been little less disastrous in many sections than the war. The greatest suffering on account of the flood is found between Memphis and Vicksburg. The section of river country in Ken* tucky and Tennessee is overflowed, and the in - habitants are living on rations contributed by the Government, and by benevolent societies. As far south as the Mississippi line, the bluffs, or highlands, as a general thiiig, are not further back than a mile or two, and oftentimes above the main channel of the river. After passing Memphis, on the way south, the face of tho country changes, and only patches of high land are to be seen. There is not an inch of bluff on the west side of the Mississippi, from a point above Cairo to the guir. Accepting at the town of Helena, there is low, flat land on either side of the river, extending back from twenty to seventy-five and one hundred miles. This immense country is under water, and almost isolated from the rest of the world, and but for the forests it would be simply a great lake. The Arkansas has been boiling like a mountain torrent, washing away railroad tracks, telegraph lines, and cutting a swath of destruction through the State from one remote corner to the other. The sufferings of tho population of the Mississippi and Arkansas inundated districts have not been exaggerated nor adequately described ; they have only been guessed at. Thousands of families living a few miles back from the river in little settlements for twenty, thirty, forty and even fifty miles in the interior, have been cut off from succor for the reason that they have no means of letting the world know their situation, and because those who are safe can not reach them with provisions. The loss of life is already known to have been large, and the lowest estimate places the number at 100. The Government relief boats cannot reach the piaces where the suffering is greatest. They can only tomah at a few of the landings. Thousands of human beings are left like drowning rats to perish. Tho picture is not overdrawn. The victims deferred fleeing to the highlands until it was too late, trusting that every inch of rise in the inland sea would mark flood tide. The cruel waters kept creeping up and up, and encroaching upon territory that had been considered safe, and finally cutting off means of escape and surrounding them with a dead waste off back-water. The ground, saturated to its lull limit, held the water like a cement floor. It can only get out the way it came—by flowing back again into the Mississippi. Oapt. Corville, of the steamer Dick Jones, has just arrived from St. Francis and the sunk lands, and tells a tale of woe almost incredible. There is very little communication between those points and Helena, and thus far no aid has reached the people from without. The people of these districts are chiefly white. They cultivate a good grade of cotton and were well off. Now they are drifting about on rafts with no subsistence whatever, actually starving, and even devouring dead beasts tnat have been floating in the water for several days. As their carcasses pass them, they are eagerly sought after and devoured. The bodies of the dead animals have large slices cut from tuem where the starving have been butchering them. For 300 miles there is not visible a spot of land, except four Indian mounds, which rise so high that their tops are out of water. The Tyronga is tributary to the St. Francis, and is settled by families from Kentucky and other Southern States. Above this small tributary is Little river and Buffalo island, where here and there settlements are to be found. These, of course, are like the others. They cry piteously for help and food, but it is heart-rending to see strong men so give way under their afflictions. They have literally nothing of their former homes left, and they are now roaming about in the water, exposed to the fury of the wind and weather, and with no food. The rations sent from here a’ ew days since to their relief did not reach so far, so many hundreds between here and there meeting and looking for the supplies, and they were wholly insufficient to fill the demand. When supplies reach them they will have to be placed on the tops of the Indian mounds, as these are the only possible landings.