UNITED PUBLISHERS OF AMERICA.
Copyright, 1900, by E. E. Sprague.
PREFACE.
In presenting to the people of this country and the world a chronicle of the frightful visitation of hurricane and flood upon the beautiful and enterprising City of Galveston, which unparalleled calamity occurred on September 8, 1900, the Publishers wish to say that the utmost care has been taken to make the record of the catastrophe complete in every particular.
No expense has been spared to obtain the facts; the illustrations contained in the work are from photographs taken by artists on the spot; the experiences of survivors were obtained from the victims themselves, their language being faithfully reported, while what they wrote is reproduced without a single change being made.
The situation in the stricken City of Galveston is portrayed day by day exactly as it existed, and is not the product of imaginings of writers who put down what the conditions should have been; the storm has been followed from its inception, just south of the island of San Domingo, to Galveston, through Texas and then along its course until it disappeared in the broad Atlantic off the Eastern coast; the horrors of the gale, the cruel killing of thousands by the winds and waters, the wrecking of thousands of buildings and the drowning of helpless men, women and children, are all given in graphic and picturesque language.
The fearful mutilation of the dead by the ghouls and vandals who afterward despoiled the corpses of their valuables and the swift vengeance which followed these unutterable crimes when the troops shot the vampires and harpies by the score, are told in the most vivid way; the disposal of the dead by casting their bodies into the sea, burying them hastily in the sands along the beach or cremating them by burning upon vast funeral pyres erected in the principal streets of the city are painted in the ghastly colors of truth; the wave of insanity which swept over the city and claimed hundreds who had escaped the perils of the deluge and the hurricane is set forth most graphically.
What caused the mighty elemental disturbance, the possibilities of its recurrence and the danger which constantly hangs over other seacoast cities are given in detail; the pestilential conditions set up in Galveston by the catastrophe, the panic-stricken people flying from the scene of death and desolation, the horrible spectacle of hundreds of dead bodies floating in Galveston bay and the Gulf of Mexico, the generous response of the people of the United States to the appeal for help—these are pictured with minuteness.