Before the war Major Gailor had been editor of the Memphis “Avalanche,” a paper which was suppressed when the Union troops took the town.  After the War the “Avalanche” was started up again, and had a stormy time of it, because it criticized a Carpet-bag judge who had come to Memphis.  In 1889 the “Avalanche” was consolidated with the “Appeal,” another famous ante-bellum journal, surviving to-day in the “Commercial-Appeal,” a strong newspaper, edited by one of the ablest journalists in the South, Mr. C.P.J.  Mooney.

When Memphis was captured the “Appeal” would have been suppressed, as the “Avalanche” was, had it been there.  But when it became evident that Memphis would fall, Mr. S.C.  Toof (later a well-known book publisher) who was then connected with the “Appeal,” packed up the press and other equipment and shipped them to Grenada, Mississippi, where Mr. B.F.  Dill, editor of the paper, continued to bring it out.  When Grenada was threatened, a few months later, Mr. Dill moved with his newspaper equipment to Birmingham, where for a second time he resumed publication.  His next move was to Atlanta.  There, when he could not get news-print, he used wallpaper, or any sort of paper he could lay his hands on.  When Sherman took Atlanta the “Appeal” moved again, this time to Columbus, Georgia, where, at last, it was captured, and its press destroyed.  Wherever it went it remained the “Memphis Daily Appeal,” with correspondents in all southern armies.  No wonder a paper with such vitality as that, has survived and become great!

Poor Memphis!  After the War she had Reconstruction to contend with; after Reconstruction, financial difficulties; after that, pestilence.  In 1873, when the population of the city was about 40,000, and there had been a long period of hard times, yellow fever broke out.  The condition of the city was exceedingly unsanitary, and after the pestilence had passed, was allowed to remain so, though at that time the origin of yellow fever was, of course, not known, and it was assumed that the disease resulted from lack of proper sanitation.

In 1878 there was another yellow fever epidemic.  The first case developed August 2, but the news was suppressed until the middle of the month, by which time a number of cases had come down.  The day after the news became known 22 new cases were reported.  Terror spread through the town.  Hordes of people tried to flee at once.  Families left their houses with the doors wide open and silver standing on the sideboards.  People flocked to the trains; when they could not get seats they stood in the aisles or clambered onto the roofs of the cars; if they could not get in at car doors they climbed in through the windows, and sometimes, when the father of a family was refused admittance to a crowded car, he would force a way in for his wife and children at the pistol’s point.

In the first week of the panic there were 1,500 cases, with an average of ten deaths daily; in the next week, 3,000 cases with fifty deaths daily, and so on into September during which month there was an average of 8,000 to 10,000 cases with about two hundred deaths a day.