bluff was called Front Row, and was filled with stores and business
houses. This street was the principal cotton market, and here the
article which, in those days, was personified as the commercial "king,"
was bought and sold, and whence it was shipped, or stored, awaiting an
advancing price. The completion of the Memphis and Charleston railroad
was a great event in the history of the city. It was termed the marriage
of the Mississippi and the Atlantic, and was celebrated with a great
popular demonstration, people coming from the surrounding country for
many miles. Water was brought from the Atlantic ocean and poured into
the river; and water taken from the river and poured into the Atlantic
at Charleston. It was anticipated that this railroad connection between
the two cities would make of Charleston the great shipping port, and of
Memphis the principal cotton market of the southwest. The expectation in
neither of these cases has been fully realized. Boss, in common with
planters and business men throughout that whole region, was greatly
excited. I attended him and thus had the opportunity of witnessing this
notable celebration.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER III.

SLAVERY AND THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.


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