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It was unusually warm as the final preparations for the 1878 Mardi Gras were under way. Clusters of white sprang from the branches of the peach and pear trees, crocuses and daffodils had blossomed in January and long ago dropped their petals. And the Mississippi River gave off the scent of silted water warm with sunshine.

The curious heat wave only enlivened the festivities; planks of fresh pine were piled along Main Street as skeletal bleachers took shape among the buildings. Crates of champagne arrived, and fine wines hidden during Yankee occupation surfaced. Costumes from Paris were unpacked, and Confederate gray not seen since the end of the war was pressed. Lowenstein and Brothers advertised silks, evening brocades and satins, not to mention the accompanying opera fans, cloaks and kid gloves. This year’s Mardi Gras would even boast the new, brilliant effect of artificial light at night. Memphis prepared for what would surely be the grandest of all Mardi Gras celebrations. In 1878, $40,000—by today’s standards, well over $1 million—would be spent through private funding on the extravagant parade celebrating the King and Queen of Memphis society.

Not everyone in Memphis would take part in Carnival—after all, the city may have had 115 saloonkeepers, 18 houses of prostitution and roughly 3,000 dope addicts, but it also had close to two dozen churches. The temperance supporters opposed the drinking that accompanied the festivities. Considered a heathen celebration, Mardi Gras was blasted from the pulpits with dire predictions of wrath and doom. Colonel Charles Parsons preached no such warnings, however. One week before the parade was to begin, Charles Carroll Parsons stood in full uniform before the Chickasaw Guards, a civilian military corps, as their chaplain. In fact, the Chickasaw Guards would be among the local corps to march in the parade.

Parsons was a lean man with a soldier’s build. He had carved cheekbones, fair hair, a handlebar moustache and a tender smile. His eyes were deep-set and gave the appearance of sincerity, but there was also something intense in his expression. He was once described as having a look near fanaticism in his face, a passion for what he believed to be his calling and duty. Not a single surviving letter or description describes him as anything other than gentle and great; and in spite of being a Yankee, Charles Parsons was one of the most beloved rectors in Memphis.

During the war, Parsons had been a northern officer and a hero. At the Battle of Perryville in Kentucky, he continued operating a gun, single-handedly, after all of the officers and men in his company had fallen. When the Confederate artillery approached, Charles Parsons held his sword at parade rest and awaited fire. The Confederate colonel, impressed by his courage, ordered his men to hold their fire and allowed Parsons to walk off the battlefield. “That man,” the colonel exclaimed, “is too brave to be killed.”

After the war, Parsons taught at West Point and served with General George Custer in the western campaigns. Custer, a friend and admirer, tried to persuade Parsons to remain in the military, but Parsons felt a different calling. He soon took his orders as an Episcopal priest from Tennessee Bishop Charles T. Quintard, another veteran of the Battle of Perryville, but one who fought on the other side. Parsons came to Memphis to grieve the loss of his first wife, who died in childbirth, and start anew as rector for Grace Church, where this Union officer now preached to a congregation that included Jefferson Davis and his family.

On that late day in February 1878, in a city filled with the sound of hammers and the scent of lumber, Parsons preached not about heathen celebrations or temperance, but about the character of men: “There will come to each of you a time, I trust far away, when the scourge of affliction may fall heavily upon you . . . wealth, or power, or skill, or even fond affection in the utmost stretch of tenderness, can supply no companion to the soul in its journey through the valley of death.” He spoke with the confidence of a soldier who had survived the Civil War, the death of a wife and the loss of a son to scarlet fever; for all intents and purposes, he had been to that valley and returned. Parsons did not know at that moment what lay ahead, that the greatest American urban disaster to date awaited them, that when the fever would finally take him, he would have to read his own last rites.

The room was still as Parsons spoke of measuring a man’s spirit and strength against the darkest moments, and then he ended his sermon “. . . I was about to say, God send us such a man. I think it is better that I pray—God make us to be such.”

For weeks, the Memphis
Appeal
devoted columns to the upcoming parades, their themes, routes and security. The entire police force would be on duty downtown, and concealed weapons would be prohibited. Public drunkenness would not be tolerated, nor would revelers costumed in such a manner that would “shock the decency of the occasion.” But the paper also focused on some important national news. The silver bill before Congress authorizing the minting of the silver dollar had graced the front pages. There were the usual mentions of steamboat disasters, train wrecks and the wearing away of Niagara Falls. On Fat Tuesday itself, the paper even made room to report on the Geographical Society’s year in research, which included headlines about “Mr. Edison’s wonderful phonograph” and “Mr. Stanley’s exploration of the Congo.”

On Monday, March 4, 1878, Carnival began. Hundreds of people arrived by steamboat and railroad on Sunday, and on Monday, thousands more. As the steamboats rounded the bend, past the mouth of the Wolf River, the bluffs grew closer. Flat-bottom boats bobbed at the water’s edge where bands played music on deck. The smokestacks of steamboats crowded the shore like metal tree trunks sprouting smoky limbs. The Memphis skyline was impressive, highlighted by a long row of white, Greek-revival and Italianate structures: There was the exquisite water-pumping station with soaring windows and water fountains; the magnificent Customs House, still under construction, and designed by the architect of the U.S. Treasury; and along Cotton Row, the Gayoso Hotel with its massive columns, still closed for postwar renovations.As though the bluffs had been tipped in frost, the skyline appeared in cream-colored columns, archways and glass. And in the distance, the steeples of St. Mary’s, Grace Church and Calvary towered above. There had been a cloudy start to the day, but now there was sunshine and a turquoise sky as beautiful as a summer day; when the sun set across the river that night, the white skyline was lit by the copper light.

Over 10,000 tourists flooded the streets of downtown. Champagne flowed from the fountain in Court Square and a pyramid of candy, twenty-five feet wide and thirty-five feet high welcomed visitors. Many from the countryside came to the shops, where keepers had dropped prices in anticipation of the crowds. Along Main Street, Lowenstein and Brothers clothing store sprawled across three buildings. Kremer, Herzog and Co., a millinery, sold straw hats, netting, flowers and ribbons. Elsewhere downtown could be found lace mitts, gilt hair ornaments, grosgrain ribbon, lisle-thread hose and fresh French flowers. Tobacco shops carried fine cigars, and liquor stores put out their best whiskey. Lloyd’s offered sodas, pure cream and caramels.

Some pedestrians rode the electric streetcars; others visited the Memphis Exposition Building, which had opened in 1873. Its architecture reminiscent of an Indian temple, the Exposition Building flew flags from six towers and another forty flags fluttered along its roofline. Many tourists strolled past Jefferson Davis’s home on Court Street, while others walked the streets of Adams and Jefferson to admire the most elegant neighborhood in the city. Here, $100,000 was spent building one home. A neighboring house held modern conveniences like airshafts inside its eighteen-inch walls to circulate cool air. Homes in this neighborhood represented contemporary architecture at its best. What would later be known as the Fontaine House, a French Victorian, boasted tin eaves, terra-cotta lintels, and a five-story tower. Its neoclassical neighbor was adorned with Doric columns, and if people strolling the street were to look into the windows, they would see a gaslit Waterford chandelier. Finally, there was a Greek revival with its fluted columns and lotus-leaf carvings. It belonged to the Confederate general Gideon Johnson Pillow.

As the morning progressed, people made their way back downtown, where the excitement was palpable. At noon on Monday, March 4, cannon blasts announced the arrival of Rex and his queen. Observers remarked that as the king appeared in the distance, “the Mississippi trembled underneath her banks.”

Dressed in regal purple, Rex approached Mayor John R. Flippin on the grandstand and when the crowd quieted enough, his voice could be heard: “I do now in the name of the Great Momus, High and Mighty Monarch of Misrule, demand the keys to this, my royal master’s loyal city of Memphis.” The golden key to the city was handed over, the bands struck up and the parade moved forward into the city.

Nightfall began the procession of the Ulks, followed by a magnificent ball. Their theme was the Romances of Childhood, complete with floats of “Hey, Diddle, Diddle,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Old King Cole” and “Rip van Winkle,” among others. As the parade marched by Adams and Second, the First Baptist Church held a lecture on the temperance movement. When the floats passed, the ministers stood outside signing up new volunteers for their “Red Ribbon brigade.” All of this mattered little to the Ulks and their throngs who made their way to the Greenlaw Opera House on the corner of Union.

The Romanesque Greenlaw had seen better days. The four-story opera house had been built with greatness in mind: a ballroom that could accommodate three hundred couples; an opera house with eight-foot-wide doors operated by pulleys and counterweights; an auditorium with fifty-foot ceilings. Its builders had visions of the country’s finest musicians, theater and modern lectures. But by 1878, it had become a nickel-and-dime hall whose main lectures were those of the temperance movement. Instead of violin concertos, patrons heard a man play his cornet imitations and listened to a sermon on the temperance cause. That year, Mardi Gras breathed a little life and sophistication back into the Greenlaw.

The Greenlaw had been decorated like a childhood fairyland with evergreens, hundreds of imported flowers and caged canaries. A revolving pyramid, three tiers high, repeated the themes of the parade floats. The newspaper reported that “fans fluttered and diamonds flashed.” In fact, the only drawback to the evening seemed to be the number of ladies carrying stylish feather fans, which as they quivered, set off tufts of fleecy clouds all over the room. To the intoxicated revelers, it must have seemed like part of the magic.

The biggest attraction, the parade of the Memphi, was yet to come. By Tuesday morning, March 5, costumed people began lining the streets at 10:00 a.m. The costumes were beautiful as often as they were grotesque, and ladies carried horsewhips for their own protection. Again, it was a clear, sunny day, and by twilight, police on horseback marched through the city pushing back the crowds and reminding storekeepers to extinguish the lights inside. In a dark city filled with anticipation, the light show began. Rockets and fireworks exploded over the bluffs, spelling MEMPHI in the night sky. At the water’s edge, flat-bottom boats floated like vessels shuddering with candlelight. Street corners were lit by beacons of blues, reds, greens and golds from burning calcium lights.

Bleachers lined the muddy thoroughfares of Main Street where Wilkerson’s apothecary, Harpman and Brother Cigars, and McLaughlin’s grocery stood. On every rooftop men dangled their legs over parapet walls and cornices. Women and men crowded in the windows above Barnaby Furnishings and McClelland Drugs, waving streamers. And hundreds of gas lamps, like globes glowing against the March sky, illuminated the streets.

Long before the parade came into view, the trumpets could be heard. The smell of kerosene-laced smoke drifted from torches. The scent of manure was heavy in the air as 3,000 horsemen made their way through downtown, the horse hooves thumping against hard, packed mud. Fireworks ignited the nighttime sky, adding to the dizzying haze and tinderbox smell.

As the first float came into view the cheers of the crowds turned to a roar. The floats were horse-drawn wagons carrying wooden stages, several stories high, draped in vibrant bunting, tapestries and ribbons. Coils of smoke rose from dampened torches to appear as though the floats hovered on clouds. Memphis prided itself on educating its people through the Mardi Gras celebration and float designs. This year, the Mardi Gras theme was the Myths of the Aryan People, which was a relatively modern idea grafting legends and lore of Asia with Europe. “From identity and language, we know that what now constitutes many and mighty nations there all descended from one common stock,” the Memphis
Appeal
wrote as way of explanation. Fifty years later, Adolf Hitler would usurp the term
Aryan
for his own definition of pure, Nordic descendants.

That night,
Blue Danube
and
Golden Slippers
could be heard through open windows as orchestras throughout the city played. Every building or residence with a ballroom hosted a party, but the grand masked ball took place at the theater on Jefferson Avenue.

It was to attend Rex’s ball that one needed the coveted, gilded invitation, hand delivered by servants. The men attended in lavish costumes or Confederate uniforms, while the women wore gowns of silver brocade and rich velvets; ornate fans of ostrich feathers, organza and rice paper fluttered in their hands. The invitation marked not only entry to the ball but also access to the innermost circles of Memphis society. Here, owners of those Victorian mansions on Adams gathered, where the Overtons, Toofs, Trezevants, Snowdens and many other oft-mentioned names would celebrate the fortune of their city.

Of course there were problems; the town was $4 million in debt. There was not enough money to remove garbage and refuse from the streets. There were cotton crops to be planted and gambling debts to be paid. But for these two days, both ends of the economic spectrum donned masks and overlooked their discontent. Blacks and whites, immigrants and southern elite, businessmen and boatmen could only see the brilliant parade before them, the electrifying colors, the baskets of champagne, the intoxicating sense of well-being.