Not every one fled, however. Leading citizens remained, forming a relief
committee, and some brave helpers came from outside. Thus the sick and
needy were attended to, though of course many of the volunteers
contracted the disease and perished.
Added to the epidemic there was, as so often happens in such
circumstances, an outbreak of thievery and other crime, which had to be
put down. It is related that in the height of the epidemic hardly any
one was seen upon the streets save an occasional nurse, doctor, or
other member of the relief committee; household pets starved to death
or fled the city; among the newspapers the staffs were so reduced that
only two or three men were left in each office, and in the case of the
"Appeal," but one, that one Colonel J.M. Keating, the proprietor, who
stuck to Memphis and for a time wrote, set up and printed the paper
without assistance, feeling that refugees must have news from the city.
The next year the epidemic came again, but in less violent form, there
being, this time, but 2,000 cases. However the effect was cumulative.
Memphis dropped from a city of nearly 50,000 to one of 20,000 and the
reputation of the place was such that a bill was proposed in Congress to
purchase the ground on which the city stood and utterly destroy it as
unfit for human habitation.
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