Project Gutenberg's The Complete Story of the Galveston Horror, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Complete Story of the Galveston Horror Author: Various Editor: John Coulter Release Date: November 12, 2010 [EBook #34304] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMPLETE STORY--GALVESTON HORROR *** Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Larger Image The Complete Story OF THE Galveston Horror. Written by the Survivors. Incidents of the awful Tornado, Flood and Cyclone Disaster; Personal Experiences of Survivors; Horrible Looting of Dead Bodies and the Robbing of Empty Homes; Pestilence from so many Decaying Bodies Unburied; Barge Captains Compelled by Armed Men to Tow Dead Bodies to Sea; Millions of Dollars raised to aid the Suffering Survivors; President McKinley Orders Army Rations and Army Tents issued to Survivors and orders U. S. Troops to protect the People and Property; Tales of the Survivors from Galveston; Adrift all Night on Rafts; Acts of Valor; United States Soldiers Drowned; Great Heroism; Great Vandalism; Great Horror; A Second Johnstown Flood, but worse: Hundreds of Men, Women and Children Drowned; No way of Escape, only Death! Death! Everywhere! Edited by John Coulter, Formerly of the N. Y. Herald. Fully Illustrated with Photographs. UNITED PUBLISHERS OF AMERICA. Copyright, 1900, by E. E. Sprague. PREFACE. In presenting to the people of this country and the world a chronicle of the frightful visitation of hurricane and flood upon the beautiful and enterprising City of Galveston, which unparalleled calamity occurred on September 8, 1900, the Publishers wish to say that the utmost care has been taken to make the record of the catastrophe complete in every particular. No expense has been spared to obtain the facts; the illustrations contained in the work are from photographs taken by artists on the spot; the experiences of survivors were obtained from the victims themselves, their language being faithfully reported, while what they wrote is reproduced without a single change being made. The situation in the stricken City of Galveston is portrayed day by day exactly as it existed, and is not the product of imaginings of writers who put down what the conditions should have been; the storm has been followed from its inception, just south of the island of San Domingo, to Galveston, through Texas and then along its course until it disappeared in the broad Atlantic off the Eastern coast; the horrors of the gale, the cruel killing of thousands by the winds and waters, the wrecking of thousands of buildings and the drowning of helpless men, women and children, are all given in graphic and picturesque language. The fearful mutilation of the dead by the ghouls and vandals who afterward despoiled the corpses of their valuables and the swift vengeance which followed these unutterable crimes when the troops shot the vampires and harpies by the score, are told in the most vivid way; the disposal of the dead by casting their bodies into the sea, burying them hastily in the sands along the beach or cremating them by burning upon vast funeral pyres erected in the principal streets of the city are painted in the ghastly colors of truth; the wave of insanity which swept over the city and claimed hundreds who had escaped the perils of the deluge and the hurricane is set forth most graphically. What caused the mighty elemental disturbance, the possibilities of its recurrence and the danger which constantly hangs over other seacoast cities are given in detail; the pestilential conditions set up in Galveston by the catastrophe, the panic-stricken people flying from the scene of death and desolation, the horrible spectacle of hundreds of dead bodies floating in Galveston bay and the Gulf of Mexico, the generous response of the people of the United States to the appeal for help—these are pictured with minuteness. Nothing is wanting to make this work reliable and correct; it contains a full list of the identified dead, which is a feature no other publication has been able to do; in short, it is the story, well and accurately told, of a disaster which has not its like since the world began. The Publishers are confident this volume will meet the approval of the country. THE PUBLISHERS. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Preface 4 CHAPTER I. West Indian Hurricane Descends Upon Galveston, Causing Immense Losses of Life and Property—Catastrophe Unparalleled in the History of the World —A Night of Horrors and Suffering 33 CHAPTER II. Sad Scenes in All Parts of the Ruined City—Corpses Everywhere—A Sombre, Solemn Sunday—People Apathetic, Dejected and Heartbroken 51 CHAPTER III. Crowds of Refugees at Houston—Fed and Housed in Tents—Regular Soldiers Drowned—Government Property Lost—Fears for Galveston’s Future 64 CHAPTER IV. Thrilling Experiences of People During the Great Storm—Eighty-five Persons Perish by Being Blown from a Train—Adventures of Survivors at Galveston 89 CHAPTER V. Relief Sent from All Parts of the World as Soon as the True Situation of Affairs Was Made Known—Millions of Dollars Subscribed and Thousands of Carloads of Supplies Forwarded to the Desolated City 117 CHAPTER VI. Cremating Bodies by the Hundreds in the Streets of Galveston—Negroes Faint While Handling the Decayed Corpses—How Some of Those Rescued Escaped with Their Lives 133 CHAPTER VII. Lives Lost and Property Damage Sustained Outside of Galveston—One Thousand Victims and Millions of Value in Crops Swept Away—Estimates Made 149 CHAPTER VIII. Business Resumed at Galveston in a Small Way on the Sixth Day After the Catastrophe—“Galveston Shall Rise Again”—How the City Looked on Saturday, One Week After the Flood 159 CHAPTER IX. Galveston Nine Days After—Great Changes Apparent—Life in a Business Exhibited—Systematic Efforts to Obtain Names of the Dead 172 CHAPTER X. Magnitude of the Relief Necessary—Twenty Thousand Persons to Be Clothed and Fed—System of Relief Organization—How the Storm Effected Trade 180 CHAPTER XI. Insanity Follows Frightful Sufferings of the Poor Victims—Five Hundred Demented Ones—Indifferent to the Loss of Relatives 188 CHAPTER XII. Serious Danger from Fire—Scarcity of Boats to Carry People to the Main Land—Laborers Imported into Galveston—Untold Sufferings on Bolivar Island—Experience of a Chicago Man 196 CHAPTER XIII. Two Women Tell How They Were Affected at Galveston—One Arrived After the Catastrophe, While the Other Was in the Storm from Beginning to End 206 CHAPTER XIV. Twenty Thousand People Fed Every Day at a Cost of $40,000—Incidents at the Relief Stations—Applicants and Their Peculiarities—Great Mortality Among the Negroes 216 CHAPTER XV. Total Dead and Missing at Galveston and Vicinity 8,661—Five Million Dollars in Relief Necessary to Carry the Survivors Through the Fall and Winter to Spring 246 CHAPTER XVI. Galveston’s Inhabitants Refuse to Heed the Lessons Taught by Their Experiences—Carelessness in Failing to Provide Against the Recurrence of Catastrophes 261 CHAPTER XVII. Galveston’s Storm Flies Over the United States and Does Great Damage— Many Lives Lost—It Finally Disappears in the Atlantic Ocean 267 CHAPTER XVIII. The World Not So Heartless as Supposed—People Give Generously to Aid the Suffering—A Social Phenomenon—Value of the United States Weather Bureau 271 CHAPTER XIX. Galveston Island Directly in the Path of Storms, With No Way of Escape— What is the City’s Future?—All Coast Cities in Danger—New York Will Be Flooded—Hurricane Foretold—Galveston’s Settlement—Storm Will Recur 281 CHAPTER XX. Comparisons Between the Galveston and Johnstown Disasters—The Latter Not So Horrible in Its Features—Frightful Plight of the Texas Victims 294 CHAPTER XXI. Great Calamities Caused by Flood and Gale During Past Century—Millions of Lives Lost Through the Fury of the Elements 299 CHAPTER XXII. Overwhelming of Johnston, Pa., by the Waters from Conemaugh Lake—One of the Most Peculiar Happenings in History—Actual Number of Deaths Will Never Be Known—About Twenty-five Hundred Bodies Found 321 CHAPTER XXIII. Not More Than Half the Bodies of Victims Identified—Hundreds of Corpses of the Unknown and Nameless Cast Into the Sea—Others Buried in the Sand and Cremated—List of Identifications 361 Larger Image THE GALVESTON STORM RAGING Larger Image SISTERS OF MERCY FOUND TIED TO THE LITTLE CHILDREN WHOM THEY TRIED TO SAVE Larger Image BLOWN OUT INTO THE GULF Larger Image WHEN THE WATERS REACHED THE ORPHAN ASYLUM Larger Image A RACE WITH THE WIND AND TIDE AT GALVESTON Larger Image SOME WERE SAVED IN THE GALVESTON DISASTER BY FLOATING ON BOX CARS Larger Image VANDALS ROBBING THE DEAD Larger Image GATHERING THE KILLED AND INJURED AFTER THE STORM Larger Image DROWNING OF GALVESTON SUFFERERS BY THE TIDAL WAVE Larger Image DEATH ON THE GALVESTON SHORE AFTER THE STORM Larger Image THE STORM DEALING DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IN ITS PATH Larger Image FURY OF THE STORM AND DESPERATE PREDICAMENT OF RESIDENTS Larger Image AT DEATH’S DOOR IN THE GALVESTON STORM Larger Image SURVIVORS, NEARLY STARVED, RANSACKING A GROCERY STORE FOR FOOD THE GALVESTON HORROR. [Pg 33] CHAPTER I. West Indian Hurricane Descends Upon Galveston, Causing Immense Losses of Life and Property—Catastrophe Unparalleled in the History of the World—A Night of Horrors and Suffering. The frightful West Indian hurricane which descended upon the beautiful, prosperous and progressive, but ill-fated, city of Galveston, on Saturday, September 8, 1900, causing the loss of many thousands of lives and the destruction of millions of dollars’ worth of property, and then ravaged Central and Western Texas, killing several hundred people and inflicting damage which cost millions to repair, has had no parallel in history. When the gale approached the island upon which Galveston it situated, it lashed the waves of the Gulf of Mexico into a tremendous fury, causing them to rise to all but mountain height, and then it was that, combining their forces, the wind and water pounced upon their prey. In the short space of four hours the entire site of the city was covered by angry waters, while the gale blew at the rate of one hundred miles an hour; business houses, public buildings, churches, residences, charitable institutions, and all other structures gave way before the pressure of the wind and the fierce onslaught of the raging flood, and those which did not crumble altogether were so injured, in the majority of cases, that they were torn down. Such a night of horror as the unfortunate inhabitants were compelled to pass has fallen to the lot of few since the records of history were first opened. In the early evening, when the water first began to invade Galveston Island, the people residing along the beach and near it fled in fear from their homes and sought the highest points in the city as places of refuge, taking nothing but the smaller articles in their houses with them. On and on crawled the flood, until darkness had set in, and then, as though possessed of a fiendish vindictiveness, hastened its speed and poured over the surface of the town, completely submerging it—covering the most elevated ground to a depth of five feet and the lower portions ten and twelve feet. The hurricane was equally malignant, if not more fiendish and cruel, and tore great buildings and beautiful homes to pieces with evident delight, scattering the debris far and wide; telegraph and telephone lines were thrown down, railway tracks and bridges—the latter connecting the island and city with the mainland—torn up, and the mighty, tangled mass of wires, bricks, sections of roofs, sidewalks, fences and other things hurled into the main thoroughfares and cross streets, rendering it impossible for pedestrians to make their way along for many days after the waters and gale had subsided. Forty thousand people—men, women and children—cowered in terror for eight long hours, the intense blackness of the night, the swishing and lapping of the waves, the demoniac howling and shrieking of the wind and the indescribable and awful crashing, tearing and rending as the houses, hundreds at a time, were wrecked and shattered, ever sounding in their ears. Often, too, the friendly shelter where families had taken refuge would be swept away, plunging scores and scores of helpless ones into the mad current which flowed through every street of the town, and fathers and mothers were compelled to undergo the agony of seeing their children drown, with no possibility of rescue; husbands lost their wives and wives their husbands, and the elements were only merciful when they destroyed an entire family at once. All during that fearful night of Saturday until the gray and gloomy dawn of Sunday broke upon the sorrow- stricken city, the entire population of Galveston stood face to face with grim death in its most horrible shapes; they could not hope for anything more than the vengeance of the hurricane, and as they realized that with every passing moment souls were being hurried into eternity, is it at all wonderful that, after the strain was over and all danger gone, reason should finally be unseated and men and women break into the unmeaning gayety of the maniac? Not one inhabitant of Galveston old enough to realize the situation had any idea other than that death was to be the fate of all before another day appeared, and when this long and weary suspense, to which was added the chill of the night and the growing pangs of hunger, was at last broken by the first gleams of the light of the Sabbath morn, the latter was not entirely welcome, for the face of the sun was hidden by morose and ugly clouds, from which dripped, at dreary intervals, cold and gusty showers. Thousands were swallowed up during the darkness and their bodies either mangled and mutilated by the wreckage which had been tossed everywhere, left to decompose in the slimy ooze deposited by the flood or forced to follow the waves in their sullen retirement to the waters of the gulf. Dejection and despondency succeeded fright; the majority of the business men of the city had suffered such losses that they were overcome by apathy; nearly all the homes of the people were in ruins; the streets were impassable, and the dead lay thickly on every side; all telegraph and telephone wires were down, and as miles and miles of railroad track had disappeared and the bridges carried away, there was absolutely no means of communication with the outer world, except by boat. The strange spectacle was then presented of the richest city of its size in the [Pg 34] [Pg 35] [Pg 36] richest country in the world lying prostrate, helpless and hopeless, a prey to ghouls, vultures, harpies, thieves, thugs and outlaws of every sort; its people starving, and the putrid bodies of its dead breeding pestilence. SKETCH OF THE CITY OF GALVESTON. The City of Galveston is situated on the extreme east end of the Island of Galveston. It is six square miles in area, its present limits being the limits of the original corporation and the boundaries of the land purchased from the Republic of Texas by Colonel Menard in 1838 for the sum of $50,000. Colonel Menard associated with himself several others, who formed a town site company with a capital of $1,000,000. The City of Galveston was platted on April 20, 1838, and seven days later the lots were put on the market. The streets of Galveston are numbered from one to fifty-seven across the island from north to south, and the avenues are known by the letters of the alphabet, extending east and west lengthwise of the island. The founders of the city donated to the public every tenth block through the center of the city from east to west for public parks. They also gave three sites for public markets and set aside one entire block for a college, three blocks for a girls’ seminary, and gave to every Christian denomination a valuable site for a church. The growth of the city in population was slow until after the war of the rebellion. It is a remarkable fact that for the population Galveston does double the amount of business of any city in America. The population in 1890 was 30,000, showing an increase of over 400 per cent in thirty years. At the time of the disaster the population was estimated at 40,000. Galveston has over two miles of completed wharfs along the bay front and others under construction, all of which are equipped with modern appliances. The Galveston Wharf Company, which owns practically all the wharfage, has expended millions during the last five years for improvements in the way of elevators and facilities for handling grain and cotton. During the cotton season, Sept. 1 to March 31 inclusive, large ocean-going craft line the wharves, often thirty or more steamers and as many large sailing vessels being accommodated at one time, besides the numerous smaller vessels and sailing craft doing a coastwise trade. Manufacturing is one of the chief supports of the city. In this branch of industry Galveston leads any city in the State of Texas by 50 per cent in number and more than 100 per cent in capital employed and product turned out. Of factories the city has 306, employing a capital aggregating $10,886,900, with an output of $12,000,000 a year. The jetty construction forms one of the chief features of its commercial advantages. The construction began in 1885, progressing slowly for five years, when the desire of the citizens for a first-class harbor led to the formation of a permanent committee, which succeeded in getting a bill through Congress authorizing an expenditure of $6,200,000 on the harbor. The bill provided that there should be two parallel stone jetties extending nearly six miles out into the gulf, one from the east point of Galveston Island, the other from the west point of Bolivar Peninsula. The jetties are fifty feet wide at the bottom and slope gradually to five feet above mean low tide, and are thirty-five feet wide at the top, with a railroad track running their entire length, which railroad is the property of the Federal Government. The immediate effect of early construction of the jetties was to remove the inner bar, which formerly had thirteen feet of water over it, and which now has over twenty-one feet of water. The principal business street of Galveston is the Strand, which is of made land 150 feet from the water of the bay, in the extreme northern end of the city. Besides being the principal port of Texas, Galveston is the financial center of the State, and some of the largest business houses in Texas have their offices in the Strand. Among the business houses on this street are the following: Sealy, Hutchins & Co., bankers; most modern banking building in Texas; four-story structure, in which is also located the office of the Mallory steamship line, and also the offices of Congressman R. B. Hawley, one of the Republican leaders in the State. H. Kempner, cotton broker; four-story brick building. First National Bank, J. Runge, President. Mr. Runge is also President of the Cotton Exchange, President of the Galveston Cotton mills, and President of the City Railway Company. W. L. Moody & Co., bankers and cotton factors; four-story brick. Mr. Moody is an intimate friend of W. J. Bryan and periodically entertains him at Lake Surprise, a duck hunting ground fifteen miles inland from Galveston; a famous hunting ground. General offices Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway and the Galveston, Henderson and Houston Railway, which is the gulf terminus of the International and Great Northern Railway. Adoue & Lobit, bankers; four-story brick. Island City Savings Bank and Gulf City Trust Company, M. Lasker, President; four-story brick. Texas Loan and Trust Company and Flint & Rogers, cotton factors; four-story brick building. [Pg 37] [Pg 38] [Pg 39] Mensing Bros., wholesale grocers; four-story brick. Western Union Telegraph Company and Mexican Cable Company; four-story brick building. Galveston Dry Goods Company; four-story brick. Hullman, Owen & Co., wholesale grocers; four-story brick building. Wallace, Landis & Co., wholesale grocers; five-story brick. L. W. Levy & Co., wholesale liquor dealers; four-story brick. Schneider Bros., wholesale liquor dealers; four-story brick. Beers, Kennison & Co., general insurance agents in Texas for several large companies; four-story brick. Concisely put and with no waste of words, the following facts comprise the history of the unfortunate city: 1. It is the richest city of its size in the United States. 2. Is the largest and most extensively commercial city of Texas. 3. Is the gateway of an enormous trade, situated as it is between the great West granaries and Europe. 4. Lies two miles from the northeast corner of the Island of Galveston. 5. Is a port of entry and the principal seaport of the State. 6. Its harbor is the best, not only on the coast line of Texas, but also on the entire gulf coast from the mouth of the Mississippi to the Rio Grande. 7. Is the nearest and most accessible first-class seaport for the States of Texas, Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado, the Indian Territory and the Territory of Arizona and parts of the States and Territories adjoining those just mentioned. 8. Is to-day the gulf terminus of most of the great railway systems entering Texas. 9. Ranks third among the cotton ports of the United States. 10. Its port charges are as low as or lower than any other port in the United States. 11. Is the only seaport on the gulf coast west of the Mississippi into which a vessel drawing more than 10 feet of water can enter. 12. Has steamship lines to Liverpool, New York, New Orleans and the ports of Texas as far as the Mexican boundary. 13. Has harbor area of 24 feet depth and over 1,300 acres; of 30 feet depth and over 463 acres (the next largest harbor on the Texas coast has only 100 acres of 24 feet depth of water). 14. Has the lowest maximum temperature of any city in Texas. 15. Has the finest beach in America and is a famous summer and winter resort. 16. Has public free school system unexcelled in the United States. 17. Has never been visited by any epidemic disease since the yellow fever scourge of 1867. 18. Has forty miles of street railways in operation. 19. Has electric lights throughout the city (plant owned by city). 20. It has millions invested in docks, warehouses, grain elevators, flouring mills, marine ways, manufactories and mercantile houses. THE MOST PROMISING TOWN IN THE SOUTH. “Galveston was the most promising town in the South, so far as shipping is concerned,” said Thomas B. Bryan, the founder of North Galveston, the day after the disaster occurred. “There has been persistent opposition to it on the part of a railroad that wished the transportation of cotton and other produce farther east, but finally the geographical position of Galveston triumphed. Even Collis P. Huntington, the railroad magnate, succumbed, and later he inaugurated improvements in Galveston on the most colossal scale, involving an expenditure of many millions of dollars. One of the last announcements Mr. Huntington made before his death was that Galveston would become the greatest shipping port in America if money could accomplish it. At the time I was in Galveston, a few weeks ago, there was an army of workmen employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad constructing great [Pg 40] [Pg 41] docks and wharves, which were to eclipse any on the globe. “Some conception of Galveston can be formed by supposing the business district of Chicago—say from Lake to Twenty-second street—were to extend out into the lake on a pier for a distance of three miles and at a height above the water varying from three to seven, and possibly, in some places, nine feet. My own observation of Galveston induced my taking hold of the nearest eligible elevated locality for residences, which is North Galveston, sixteen miles from the city proper. It has an elevation above the water of fifteen to twenty feet more than Galveston, and is free from inundation. No news has reached me from North Galveston, and, though damage may have been done by wind, I am confident none can be done by water or waves.” HOW THE HURRICANE ORIGINATED. Storms which move with the velocity of that which swept Galveston and which are common to the southern and southeastern coasts of the United States invariably originate, according to Weather Forecaster H. J. Cox, of the United States Weather Bureau at Chicago, in “the doldrums,” or that region in the ocean where calms abound. In this particular instance the place was south of the West Indies and north of the equator. The region of the doldrums varies in breadth from sixty to several hundred miles, and at different seasons shifts its extreme limits between 5 degrees south and 15 degrees north. It is always overhung by a belt of clouds which is gathered by opposing currents of the trade winds. “The storm which swept Galveston and the surrounding country, I should say, originated at a considerable distance south of the West Indies, in this belt of calms,” said Forecaster Cox the Monday night following the catastrophe. “It was caused by two strong currents meeting at an angle, and this caused the whirling motion which finally spent its force on the coast of Texas. It is seldom that a storm originating in the doldrums moves so far inland as did this one, but it is not, however, unprecedented. The reason this storm reached so far as Galveston was that the northwesterly wind moved about twice as fast as it usually does before reaching land. Usually the force of these winds are spent on the coast of Florida and sometimes they reach as far north as North Carolina. When they strike the land at these points they are given a northeasterly direction. “This storm missed the eastern coast of the United States, and consequently was deflected to the west. Thunderstorms are prevailing in Kansas and all of the district just north of the course of the storm, which is the natural result after such commotion of the elements. The conditions of the land are such about Galveston that when the storm reached that far it had no possible means of escape, and hence the dire results. If there had been a chance for the wind to move further west along the coast it would in all probability have passed Galveston, giving the place no more than a severe shaking up. In this event the worst effect would in all probability have been felt on the eastern coast of Mexico.” It was an absolute impossibility for anyone to form an idea of the extent and magnitude of the disaster within a week of its occurrence. The morning of Sunday, when the wind and the waves had subsided, the streets of the city were found clogged with debris of all sorts. The people of Galveston could not realize for several days what had happened. Four thousand houses had been entirely demolished and hardly a building in the city was fit for habitation. The people were apathetic; they wandered around the streets in an aimless sort of way, unable to do anything or make preparations to repair the great damage done. The Monday following the catastrophe, Galveston was practically in the hands of thieves, thugs, ghouls, vampires, and bandits, some of them women, who robbed the dead, mutilated the corpses which were lying everywhere, ransacked business houses and residences and created a reign of terror, which lasted until the officers in command of the force of regulars stationed at the beach barracks sent a company of men to patrol the streets. The governor of the state ordered out all the regiments of the National Guard and various associations of business men also supplied men, who assisted the soldiers in doing patrol duty in the city and suburbs. The depredations of the lawless element were of an inconceivably brutal character. Unprotected women, whether found upon the streets or in their houses, were subjected to outrage or assault and robbed of their clothing and jewelry. Pedestrians were held up on the public thoroughfare in broad daylight and compelled to give up all valuables in their possession. The bodies of the dead were despoiled of everything and in their haste to secure valuables the ghouls would mutilate the corpses, cutting off fingers to obtain the rings thereon and amputating the ears of the women to get the earrings worn therein. The majority of the thieves and vampires belonged in the city of Galveston and were reinforced by desperadoes from outside towns, like Houston, Austin, and New Orleans, who took advantage of the rush to the city immediately after the disaster, obtaining free transportation on the railroad and steamers upon a pretense that they were going to Galveston for the purpose of working with relief parties and the gangs assigned for burial of the dead. Their outrages became so flagrant and the people of the city became so terrified in consequence of their depredations that the city authorities unable to cope with them, most of the officers of the police department [Pg 42] [Pg 43] [Pg 44] having been victims of the flood, that an appeal was made to the governor to send state troops and procure the preservation of order. Captain Rafferty, commanding Battery O of the First Regiment of Artillery, U. S. A., was also implored to lend his aid in putting down the lawless bands, and he accordingly sent all the men in his command who had not met death in the gale. There was some delay in getting the state troops to Galveston because so many miles of railroad had been washed away, the Adjutant General being compelled to notify some companies of militia by courier, but Captain Rafferty ordered his men on duty at once, with instructions to promptly shoot all persons found despoiling the dead. Most of the vampires were negroes, some of them, however, being white women, the latter being as savage and merciless in their treatment of the dead as the most abandoned of their male companions. The regulars were put on duty on Tuesday night and before morning had shot several of the thugs, who were executed on the spot when found in the act of robbery. In every instance the pockets of the harpies slain by the United States troops were found filled with jewelry and other valuables, and in some cases, notably that of one negro, fingers were found in their possession which had been cut from the hands of the dead, the vampires being in such a hurry that they could not wait to tear the rings off. On Wednesday evening the government troops came across a gang of fifty desperadoes, who were despoiling the bodies of the dead found enmeshed in the debris of a large apartment house. With commendable promptness the regulars put the ghouls under arrest and finding the proceeds of their robberies in their possession lined them up against a brick wall and without ceremony shot every one of them. In cases where the villains were not killed at the first fire, the sergeant administered coup de grace. Many of the thugs begged piteously for mercy, but no attention was paid to their feelings and they suffered the same stern fate as the rest. When the state troops arrived in the city they took the same severe measures and the result was that within forty- eight hours the city was as safe as it had ever been. The police arrested every suspicious character and the jail and cells at the police station were filled to overflowing. These people were deported as soon as possible and notified that if they returned they would be shot without warning. The temper of the citizens of Galveston was such that they would not temporize in any case with those who were neither criminals or inclined to work. Every able- bodied man in town was impressed for duty in relief and burial parties and whenever an individual refused to do the work required he was promptly shot. By Thursday morning all the men required had been obtained and relief and burial parties were filled to the quota deemed necessary and the work of disposing of the bodies of the dead, administering to the wants of the wounded and the clearing of the streets of the debris was proceeding satisfactorily. The dead lay in the streets and vacant places in hundreds and the heat of the sun began to have its natural effect. Decomposition set in and the stench became unbearable. At first an effort was made to identify the corpses, but it was soon found that work could not be proceeded with, as any delay imperilled the living. Fears entertained in regard to pestilence were speedily verified and the people of the city were taken ill by scores. It was difficult to obtain men to perform the duty of burying the bloated corpses of the victims of the catastrophe and consequently the city authorities ordered that the dead be loaded on barges, taken a few miles out to sea, weighted and thrown into the water. The ground had become so watersoaked that it was impossible to dig graves or trenches for the reception of the bodies, although in many instances people buried relatives and friends in their yards and the ground surrounding their residence. Along the beach hundreds of corpses were buried in the sand, but the majority of the burials were at sea. By Wednesday night 2,500 bodies had been cast into the water, while about 500 had been interred within the city limits. Precautions were taken, however, to mark the graves and when the ground had dried sufficiently the bodies were disinterred and taken to the various cemeteries where, after burial, suitable memorials were erected to mark their last resting place. No attempts were made at identification after Wednesday, lists being simply made of the number of victims. The graves of those buried in the sand were marked by headboards with the inscriptions, “White man, aged forty;” “White woman, aged twenty-five,” and “male” or “female” child, as the case might be. So accustomed did the burial parties become to the handling of the dead that they treated the bodies as though they were merely carcasses of animals and not bodies of human beings and they were dumped into the trenches prepared for their reception without ceremony of any kind. The excavations were then filled up as hurriedly as possible, the sand being packed down tightly. This might have seemed inhuman, unfeeling, and brutal, but the exigencies of the situation demanded that the corpses be put out of the way as speedily as possible. Great difficulty was experienced in securing men to transport bodies to the wharves where the barges lay, and it was practically an impossibility to get anyone to touch the bodies of the negro victims, decomposition having set in earlier than in the cases of the whites, and had it not been that the members of the fire department volunteered their services the remains of the negroes would have remained unburied for a longer time than they were. Finally, however, patience ceased to be a virtue and orders were given the guards to shoot any man who refused to do his duty under the circumstances. The result of this was that the beginning of Wednesday there was less delay in the matter of disposing of the dead. However, in spite of the activity of the burial parties, the work of clearing the streets of corpses was a most tedious one. [Pg 45] [Pg 46] [Pg 47] [Pg 48]