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

HORRIBLE BEYOND DESCRIPTION.

“Wagons have been passing all day piled full of dead bodies. Many of them will never be identified, and they are now taking them right to the Gulf for burial. This seems terrible, but it must be done, as it is impossible to bury them on the island. Hundreds of bodies are floating in the bay and outskirts of what was once the city. I cannot describe how horrible it is. I have been over most of the city since Sunday morning and know exactly how everything is situated. From the beach for at least four blocks in there is not a sign of anything left to show for what was once fine residences.

“Not one thing is left to show that there ever was anything at the beach. Everything is piled up; all rubbish for about four blocks from the beach beyond which it looks as clear as the prairie. The east and west end of the town is entirely gone. At the east end not a thing remains standing to Twelfth street. Dead bodies can be seen every place except in the business part of the city, to-day, two days after the storm. They are bringing them in by the wagon loads every hour. Nearly every one you meet has lost some friend and is looking for them. I visited three places where they have been taking the bodies to-day with a friend looking for relatives, and I know there could not have been less than 200 bodies in each place, lying cold in death. The general offices are a complete wreck; the wharves, elevators and everything connected with the railroads are more or less racked and many of them a total loss. Not a splinter is left of our yard office. You might say hundreds of cars are turned over and can be found nearly a block from where they were left before the storm.”

CHAPTER XII.
Thrilling Narratives by Eye-witnesses—Path of the Storm’s Fury Through Galveston—Massive Heaps of Rubbish—Huge Buildings Swept into the Gulf.

At Galveston on that fatal Saturday night there were deaths far more horrible than any of which even a Sienkiewicz could conceive. Mothers and babes, fathers and husbands, were hurled headlong into the world beyond without a chance to make peace with their Maker, with a farewell kiss or a last fond embrace. Upon every hand the dead were piled up like driftwood cast up by the sea, even as they were at Waterloo and Gettysburg and behind Kitchener in the Soudan. The bodies of men that the day before were perfect specimens of physical development were swollen and discolored by the fierce rays of the autumn sun, and were food for flies and maggots which buzzed or crawled hither and thither unceasingly. In the bay the sharks were overfed, and on the prairies the buzzards could no longer be tempted.

If those who live far from the awful scene of woe, believe that this is over-drawn, let them ask the pale-faced nerve-racked refugees, from that terrible place, and they will be told that it is impossible for either pen or brush to give the picture as it is. The photographer, with all his art, stands baffled. The artist, with all his talent, is incompetent. The newspaper man, accustomed to the dark side of life, shudders and turns from description to the work of reciting details, horrible enough in themselves, but far more pleasant.

There arrived in Dallas a score or more of men who told of decomposed bodies, and maggots and flies and starvation and distress until their hearers rushed away in horror. Some of these heart-breaking tales are given herewith.

Ed. A. Gebhard of The Dallas News came in from Texas City. He said:

“Among the many stories of the Galveston disaster I have seen none that fully describe the sight that presented itself around Texas City and Virginia Point on Monday. They all seem to lose the impressiveness that the narrator gave them when the centre of an excited group who were eager to know if friends or relatives were among the dead. Every word is heard or read ravenously all over the country, and when one has seen the ghastly faces of friends and acquaintances strewn ruthlessly among the grass and rubbish around Texas City and along that part of the bay shore he will not wonder that the world stands aghast.

“The corpses that had been thrown up by the cruel waters on the mainland were for the time being neglected for the field that contained thousands instead of hundreds. The remains of the old man of many winters, with the determined looking face, who gazed with intentness into the now cloudless skies, was kept silent company by a little miss whose smile would melt the heart of the most cruel man alive. Further on were the forms of women and children, most of which were entirely nude, the wind having been that severe that even the shoes were torn from their feet.