On January 1, Cairo reported eighteen feet and rising, while the river was falling from Louisville up the Ohio, was falling at St. Louis, and stationary on the lower Mississippi. From the first day of the year the river rose at Cairo, and in ten days the river had risen thirteen feet.
From Cincinnati down the Ohio increased in volume for four days, and on January 16, at Cairo, it passed the danger line (forty feet) by three-tenths. The rise in sixteen days had been one and three-eighths feet a day. At that time the river was rising slowly from Evansville down, and falling above. A few days later came another rise in the Ohio, aided by the Tennessee and Cumberland, and by the 1st of February the water at Cairo was almost a flood. The volumes of water continued till the lower Mississippi was bank full. By the latter end of February, the danger point had been reached at Memphis, Shreveport, Vicksburg, and New Orleans. Cairo was already in trouble.
On March 12, Cairo reached its maximum, 48.9. The Signal Service Office had given out a prediction of fifty-one feet, but the failure of the upper Mississippi to rise, prevented that stage being reached. The river at St. Louis had then but five feet of water.
On March 14, Chief Signal Officer A. W. Greeley sent out a warning from Washington to the people living on the lower Mississippi. He told them that the rain they had had for four days had been drained into the tributaries of the great river and would swell it considerably. The greatest flood ever known might be expected within a few days. All stock and valuable movable property should be taken to the hills. New Orleans had then higher water than ever before.
The river was then rising in the lower Missouri, and St. Louis was reporting rapid increase in the stage of water. Cairo had fallen, but the upper Ohio and lower tributaries brought back the upper line of the flood to near the maximum stage.
The lower Mississippi tributaries began to swell. The Arkansas and Red Rivers overflowed their banks. Low levees grew weak and succumbed. Low lying towns and plantations were flooded.
Then came the nights and days of terrible struggle along lines of levee that protected vast tracts of lands. Men were pressed into service whether they liked the work or no, and the shotgun patrol was established for the protection of the safer levees from being cut. The upper Mississippi swelled rapidly, and while not reaching a dangerous stage itself, it added enormously to the peril below. Then came floods in Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana.