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

SOLDIERS HAVE MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.

The loss of life among the soldiers of the regular army stationed in the barracks on the beach proves to have been largely overestimated. The original report was that but fifteen out of the total number in the barracks on the beach had been saved. Last night and to-day they turned up singly and in squads, and at present there are but twenty-seven missing, whereas the first estimate of casualties in this direction alone was nearly two hundred. It is probable that some of the twenty-seven will answer roll call later in the week.

One soldier reached the city this afternoon who had been blown around in the Gulf of Mexico and had floated nearly fifty miles going and coming, on a door. Another one who showed up to-day declared that he owed his life to a cow. It swam with him nearly three miles. The cow then sunk and the soldier swam the balance of the way to the mainland himself.

Efforts were made this afternoon to pick up the dead bodies that have floated in with the tide, after having been once cast into the sea. This is awful work, and few men are found with sufficiently strong nerves to last it more than thirty minutes at a time. All of the bodies are badly decomposed, swollen to enormous proportions and of so dark a hue that it is possible to tell only by the hair, when any hair is visible, whether the corpses are those of white people or negroes.

Gen. McKibben U. S. A., and Adjt. Gen. Scurry arrived last night and have assumed entire charge of the city, with the result that conditions have very much improved as far as order and method in the distribution of supplies and the direction of the work is concerned. Gen. McKibben represents the government in a general way, but has not assumed direct charge of the city, which is under the command of Adjutant Gen. Scurry.

Several of the very young soldiers have been a trifle over-zealous in the matter of guarding the property, carrying their energy to a point which made it somewhat uncomfortable for the people whose property and person they came to guard. Gen. Scurry repressed them promptly and several of them have been disarmed. The service of the militia, on the whole, however, has so far been of a most excellent character.