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

HAD TO BURN BODIES OF THOUSANDS.

“That’s right,” said the Marshal of the State of Texas, taking off his broad hat and letting the starlight shine on his strong face. “That’s right. We had to do it. We’ve burned over 1,000 people to-day, and to-morrow we shall burn as many more. Yesterday we stopped burying the bodies at sea; we had to give the men on the barges whisky to give them courage to do the work. They carried out hundreds of the dead at one time, men and women, negroes and white people, all piled up as high as the barge could stand it, and the men did not go far enough out to sea, and the bodies have begun drifting back again.”

“Look!” said the man who was walking the deck, touching my shoulder with his shaking hand. “Look there!”

“Before I had time to think I had to look, and saw floating in the water the body of an old woman, whose hair was shining in the starlight. A little farther on we saw a group of strange drift wood. We looked closer and found it to be a mass of wooden slabs, with names and dates cut upon them, and floating on top of them were marble stones, two of them.