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Sometimes the most mundane of historical documents can have very interesting stories attached to them. A good example of this is the following petition from the Stewart sisters of Holly Springs, Mississippi, who wrote Provisional Governor William
L. Sharkey in the summer of 1865, seeking to have the tax on their business waived.
William L. Sharkey had been appointed governor of Mississippi immediately after the Civil War by President Andrew Johnson. Sharkey was faced with the thankless task of trying to rebuild a war-torn, impoverished state. To raise the money toward this goal, the governor made the following proclamation in July 1865:
"Whereas it becomes necessary to raise revenue for the support of the Provisional Government of the State of Mississippi, and to meet the expenditures incident to the assembling of the Convention, which has been called in obedience to the Proclamation of the President of the United States, which can be done only by taxation; and whereas there is no legislative body in existence which can impose taxes, and consequently the execution of this power necessarily devolves upon the Provisional Governor, therefore: I, William L. Sharkey, Provisional Governor of the State of Mississippi, do declare and ordain that the following taxes shall be collected by the Sheriffs of the several counties..." (Daily Mississippian, August 9, 1865)
Among the taxes instituted by Governor Sharkey was a $50.00 tax on "Dry goods, grocery, or provision store," a $25.00 tax on every "Public Inn or tavern," and a $1.00 tax on "Every bale of cotton taken or sent to market." Sharkey realized when he made this proclamation that there were a number of businesses in the state that had been ruined by the war, and this tax might bankrupt their owners. He therefore included a provision in his proclamation to deal with this situation:
"As cases of hardship may arise in the assessment and collection of the taxes hereby directed, I reserve the power to give relief to parties on proper showing." Many business owners took Sharkey up on his offer, and the governor's official correspondence is filled with letters from across the state asking that the tax be reduced or waived entirely.While most of the writers were men, there were a few female correspondents as well, including the following letter written by the Stewart sisters of Holly Springs, Mississippi:
To his Excellency, W.L. Sharkey, Provisional Governor of the State of Mississippi
The petition of Mary Stewart and Annie M. Stewart respectfully showeth:
That some years prior to the beginning of the late war they became citizens of Holly Springs, Mississippi, and there commenced business, on a very small capital, as Dry Goods merchants and Milliners, that by industry, economy and perseverance, they gradually increased their stock in trade, so that by the latter part of the year 1862, they had become the owner of two or three improved lots in town, including the house in which they did business, and a stock in trade, which altogether were reasonably worth not less than $18,000.
Petitioners had taken no part whatever in politics, but continued quietly to attend to their own private affairs, until the 20th day of December, 1862, when the Confederate forces under Genl. Van Dorn, having made a raid upon the town of Holly Springs, (then occupied by a portion of the Federal army commanded by Genl. Grant) fired the magazine of the Federal army, and thereby caused a conflagration which destroyed the dwelling and out houses and business house and stock of goods, furniture, and almost everything else that petitioners then possessed and owned. In this way, in the course of one hour, petitioners were reduced to poverty, and as yet on account of their said losses, they have received no compensation whatever. By the kindness of friends and relations, petitioners were soon given the use of a few hundred dollars, and by industry and care, they have been enabled since to support themselves, and to realize an inconsiderable amount of profits, (not exceeding the sum of $750.00.)
Under these circumstances, and in view of the almost indigent condition of petitioners they respectfully ask that they may be exempted from the payment of the tax imposed by the circular of your excellency dated July 17th, 1865.
And as in duty bound, &c
Annie M. Stewart
Mary R. Stewart
The undersigned, citizens of Holly Springs, have been acquainted with the Misses Stewart, the forgoing petitioners, since some years prior to the beginning of the late war. The statements contained in their said petition they believe to be true. They are personally cognizant of the heavy losses they sustained as stated by them, and their condition has excited the sincere sympathy of this whole community. By their unexceptionable deportment and lady-like conduct, they have won the regard and confidence of all who know them. And the undersigned most earnestly unite in the prayer of their petition in the premises.
Holly Springs, Aug. 8, 1865
Jno. W. Watson
A.B. Bradford
John Chew
Jno. C. Atkinson
J.F. Weaver
Kinloch Falconer, Major C.S.
J.J. Hill
E.H. Valentine
G.H. Mondey
Jno. D. Ferrell
J.R.M. Carroll
J.B. Parks
R.L. Watson
James F. Trotter
J.J. Gateley
J.W. Diggs
Thos. G. Polk
Judging from the men who signed the Stewart's petition, the sisters had some very influential friends in Holly Springs. Among the names listed on the document were John W.C. Watson, who was a Senator in the Confederate States Congress; Kinloch Falconer, who was Adjutant of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, and who would soon become Mississippi's Secretary of State; Alexander B. Bradford, a Mexican War officer, Confederate congressman, and member of the Mississippi legislature; James F. Trotter, a United States Senator, Circuit Court judge, and judge on the Mississippi High Court of Errors and Appeals; and Thomas G. Polk, a Major General of North Carolina militia and cousin of President James K. Polk. (Information on these men comes from their individual listings on Findagrave.com)
(Series 771, Box 956, Folder 2, Mississippi Department of Archives and History)
I did some research, and found the Stewart sisters in the 1860 U.S. Census for Holly Springs, Mississippi. Annie M. Stewart listed her age as 25, and her sister Mary R. Stewart gave her age as 20. Both sisters reported their place of birth as Ireland, and they listed their occupation as milliner. The Stewart's also declared that they had a personal estate valued at $5,000.
(1860 U.S. Census for Marshall County, Mississippi, Page 145, accessed on Ancestry.com, January 7, 2019)
The war may have wiped out their business, but the two sisters were able to rebuild with the support of their friends in Holly Springs. By the time the 1870 Census was taken, the sisters once again reported a personal estate worth $5,000, and they even had a live-in domestic servant. (1870 U.S. Census for Marshall County, Mississippi, Page 328B, accessed on Ancestry.com, January 31, 2019)
Before the decade was out, however, the Stewart sisters faced a new threat, one even more deadly than the Civil War; the dreaded yellow fever returned to the Mississippi Valley in 1878. Mississippi had faced a number of outbreaks of the fever in the 19th Century, but the 1878 outbreak was the worst. At the time the cause of the disease was unknown; it is now understood that yellow fever is carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Yellow fever first appeared in New Orleans in May 1878, and Mississippi River towns from Memphis to Natchez set up
quarantines to try and prevent the spread of the disease. These measures proved ineffective, however, and the first yellow fever victim was reported in Vicksburg in early August. The fever spread quickly, and soon cities throughout the state of Mississippi were reporting casualties of the outbreak.
Mississippi author Sherwood Bonner was a resident of Holly Springs, and she wrote a moving account of how the epidemic affected her hometown. Bonner described the hysteria in Holly Springs when the first cases of yellow fever were confirmed in the town:
"A panic - do you know what that means? Did you ever see people flying from a burning house? Can you imagine the streets of a city in which a pack of wild beasts had suddenly been turned loose? All you can have seen or imagined of sudden and deadly peril is as nothing compared to the flight of a people from a plague-stricken place...So the town was left with the sick, the dying, the poor who could not leave, and the few who would not." (The Youth's Companion, April 3, 1879)
She went on to describe the horror of a town ravaged by disease:
Of the first hundred cases in Holly, ten only survived...Daily the desolation deepened. In the streets there was no sound save, perhaps, the frantic clatter of a horse's hoofs, as some one from the country rode in to implore the attendance of a doctor, or the rapid rolling of the hearse-wheels, as a corpse, followed by no mourner, was borne to its grave. Very ghastly and shocking were the scenes enacted day by day in each house."
In her article, Bonner wrote of the last days of many of the residents of Holly Springs. Among those she documented were the Stewart sisters:
"Two sisters - English or Scotch women - had lived in Holly Springs for twenty or twenty-five years. They had kept a little shop, and by careful attention and pinching economy, had saved enough to build a house. It was finished in August. It was a
pretty home, a model of neatness and order, and it was charming to see the sisters' pride in the 'home of their own' to which they had been looking forward all their lives; and to hear their plans for the comfort and happiness of their declining years. All their money had been spent in furnishing their house, and they could not bear to leave the home they had worked so hard to get. Whatever the reason, they did not go away. Soon the younger sister sickened and died. When they came for the body, the other one, half-crazed, clung to it, and begged them not to take it away. 'Let her stay - let her stay,' she begged. 'I will lock her up in a room, and no one will know she is here. It cannot be long before I am dead too; do not separate us; only let her stay until I can be buried with her.' Of course the piteous prayer could not be heeded, and she was left desolate. The sisters were Scotch Presbyterians, and had always been very bitter against the Roman Catholics. But in this sore straight the Catholic sisters came to her aid, and took her with them to their convent home, and there they tended her gently, until, as she had forseen, her summons came, and she followed the sister she had loved so well."
Both Mary and Annie Stewart are buried in Hill Crest Cemetery in Holly Springs. Both graves are unmarked; in the wake of the 1878 epidemic, there were simply too many dead for all of them to receive proper headstones. Thanks to modern technology however, the Stewart sisters do have their graves listed on Findagrave.com so that memory of them will not completely fade away.
Cold weather eventually brought the 1878 epidemic to an end, and the last cases were recorded in Mississippi in December. By the time it was over, yellow fever had hit at least 46 towns and killed approximately 3,000 people in the state. Nationwide the toll was even greater: 74,000 people infected, and almost 16,000 dead. Although yellow fever would return periodically for the remainder of the 19th Century, none of the outbreaks approached the severity of the 1878 epidemic. U.S. army doctors discovered the cause of yellow fever in 1900, and the last epidemic in the country occurred at New Orleans in 1905.
