“The jetties are sunk nearly to mean low tide level, but not seriously breached. The channel is as good as before, perhaps better, twenty-five feet certainly.
“Fort Crockett, fifteen-pounder implacements, concrete all right, standing on filling; water underneath. Battery for eight mortars about like preceding, and mortars and carriages on hand unmounted and in good shape. Shore line at Fort Crockett has moved back about 600 feet. At Fort San Jacinto the battery for eight twelve-inch mortars is badly wrecked, and magazines reported fallen in. The mortars are reported safe. No piling was under this battery. Some of the sand parapet is left. The battery for two ten-inch guns badly wrecked. Both gun platforms are down and guns leaning. The battery for two 4.7-inch rapid-fire guns, concrete standing upon piling, both guns apparently all right. The battery for two fifteen-pounder guns, concrete apparently all right, standing on piling.
“Fort Travis, Bolivar Point—Battery for three fifteen-pounder guns, concrete intact, standing on piling. East gun down. Western gun probably all right. The shore line has moved back about 1,000 feet on the line of the rear of these batteries.”
Under the engineers’ corps are the fortifications, built at a considerable expense; also the harbor improvements, upon which more than $8,000,000 had been expended.
FEARED THE CITY WAS BEYOND REPAIR.
“I fear Galveston is destroyed beyond its ability to recover,” is the manner in which Quartermaster Baxter concluded his report, made September 12, to the War Department at Washington. He recommended the continuance of his office only long enough to recover the office safes and close up accounts, and declared all government works were wrecked so restoration was impossible.
This gloomy prophecy for the city’s future was reflected in an official report to Governor Sayers, of Texas, by ex-State Treasurer Wortham, who spent a day at Galveston, investigating the situation. His statement claimed that 75 per cent of the city was demolished and gives little hope for rebuilding.
Mr. Wortham, who acted as aid to Adjutant-General Scurry, Texas National Guard, during the inquiry, said in his report:
“The situation at Galveston beggars description. I am convinced that the city is practically wrecked for all time to come.
“Fully 75 per cent of the business of the town is irreparably wrecked, and the same per cent of damage is to be found in the residence district. Along the wharf front great ocean steamers have bodily bumped themselves on the big piers and lie there, great masses of iron and wood, that even fire cannot totally destroy. The great warehouses along the water front are smashed in on one side, unroofed and gutted throughout their length, their contents either piled in heaps on the wharves or along the streets. Small tugs and sailboats have jammed themselves half into the buildings, where they were landed by the incoming waves, and left by the receding waters. Houses are packed and jammed in great confusing masses in all of the streets.