The Great Galveston Disaster / Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of Death; Terrible Sufferings of the Survivors; Vandals Plundering Bodies of the Dead; Wonderful Exhibitions of Popular Sympathy; Millions of Dollars Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers

by Paul Lester

A REFUGEE’S TALE OF HORROR.

F. B. Campbell, who was in Galveston when the floods swept upon it, was one of the first refugees to reach the North. He passed through Pittsburg, six days after the disaster, on his way to Springfield, Mass., which is his home. Mr. Campbell had his right arm fractured. William E. Frear, a Philadelphia commercial traveller, who was with Campbell in Galveston, accompanied him as far north as Cincinnati, and went home on the express. Frear’s right ankle was sprained.

Campbell was a cotton broker and was overwhelmed at his boarding house while at dinner. He reached a heap of wreckage by swimming through an alley. Of the scene when he left, Campbell said:

“The last I saw of Galveston was a row of submerged buildings where a thriving city stood. A waste of water spread in all directions. In the sea were piles of wreckage and the carcasses of animals and the bodies of hundreds of human beings. The salt marshes presented an indescribable sight. Nude forms of human beings, that had been swept across the bay were scattered everywhere. No man could count them without going insane. It looked like a graveyard, where all the tenants of the tombs had been exhumed and the corpses thrown to the winds.”