THE ARMY OF WORKERS.
All foremen were ordered to report daily at military headquarters, where a large force of clerks were kept busy chronicling the amount of debris removed, the number of dead bodies disposed of, etc. Another force under command of Adjutant-General McCaleb was kept busy printing orders issued for the guidance of the work, laws governing the protection of property and the lives of citizens, etc.
The militia was placed on guard duty in all parts of the city and the city police and sheriff’s department are co-operating with the military authorities, which is supreme in control of the city.
While the power is invested in the military authorities, Brigadier-General Scurry, commanding, Adjutant-General Hunt McCaleb directs that men may be impressed into service in cleaning the streets and performing other labors incumbent upon the department, it is gratifying to know that very few men had to be impressed into service. Some few held back under one pretense and another, but when given to understand that they would be compelled to work they invariably joined the army of laborers.
The beach and the western part of the city presented the picture of about one hundred or more pyres where human bodies and the carcasses of dead animals were disposed of by fire. Separate pyres were designated for human bodies and animal carcasses and the work progressed rapidly. The gruesome task was heartrending and many able-bodied men succumbed to the terrible ordeal. The bodies recovered yesterday and those still buried beneath the debris are in an advanced state of decomposition and utterly beyond recognition or identification unless by the clothing or some ornament worn by the dead. Ninety-five per cent. of the bodies recovered are naked.
The hurricane, aided materially by the action of the raging torrents, invariably stripped the victims of all vestige of clothing or other articles that might lead to identification. Another remarkable fact, which shows the force of the storm in packing the wreckage and debris in high mounds, is seen in the amount of water held by the wreckage.
MILES OF WRECKAGE.
Six days of sunshine and seven nights of cool Gulf breezes have failed to draw the water held by the wreckage which, jammed into water-tight ridges, formed tanks to hold the salt water which inundated the city. While the ground all around these ridges is dry and hard, the removal of the top ridge disclosed several feet of water. At least 20 per cent. of the bodies recovered yesterday from the wreckage were taken out of water.
A reporter who attempted to make a circuit of the rescuing parties working on the beach and throughout the western part of the city, noted the finding of 123 and the discovery of at least twenty more bodies, which were so hemmed in by wreckage that it was impossible to get them out. It is impossible to estimate the number of dead buried beneath the miles of wreckage.
When the forces started out yesterday morning it was thought by many that the greater number of dead had been removed from the prisons built by the storm. The work had not progressed far before the workmen began to dig into ruins where bodies were found. During the hasty tour of the reporter he witnessed the finding of ten bodies between Tremont and Thirty-first streets along the ridge of wreckage which marks the path of the storm from the east to the west on the beach and extending inland from three to seven blocks.