CHAPTER II.

The Tale of Destruction Grows—A Night of Horrors—Sufferings of the Survivors—Relief Measures by the National Government.

The following graphic account of the terrible disaster is from the pen of an eye-witness, written within twenty-four hours after the city was struck by the hurricane: “No direct wire communication has been established between Dallas and Galveston, and such a connection is not likely to be established earlier than to-morrow. The gulf coast, back for a distance of approximately twenty miles, is one vast marsh, and in many places the water is from three to ten feet deep, making progress toward the stricken city slow and unremunerative in the matter of direct news.

“Although Dallas is 300 miles from Galveston, all efforts for direct communication centre here, as it is the headquarters of the telegraph and telephone systems of the State. Hundreds of linemen were hurried to the front on Saturday night and Sunday morning from this city to try to put wire affairs in workable order.

WIND STORM OF GIANT FORCE.

“Less than half a dozen out of approximately half a hundred wires between Dallas and Houston have thus far been gotten into operation. This is because the wind storm extended inland with terrific force for a distance of 100 miles, and destroyed telegraphic, telephonic and railroad connections to such an extent as nearly to paralyze these channels of communication. With the best of weather conditions, it will require several weeks to restore these systems to anything like their normal state.

“Nothing like definite and tangible information is likely to be received from Galveston earlier than Wednesday or Thursday. All reliable information that has been received up to this hour comes from the advance guard of the relief forces and the linemen sent out by the railroad, telegraph and telephone companies.

“None of these reports place the number of dead at Galveston at less than 2000; some of them predict that 5000 will be nearer the mark. No one places the property loss at Galveston at less $10,000,000, while Manager Vaughn, of the Western Union office at Houston, wires Manager Baker at Dallas: ‘Galveston as a business place is practically destroyed.’ When the waters shall have receded it is feared Manager Vaughn will be found to be a wise prophet. Along the coast for 100 miles either way from Galveston is a district that is nearly as completely isolated as is Galveston itself. In this territory are not less than 100 cities, villages and hamlets. Each of these as far as heard from reports from two to twenty dead persons.

OVER SEVEN HUNDRED CORPSES FOUND.

“In a radius of approximately twenty miles from Virginia Point, the centre of railroad relief operations, up to late this afternoon more than 700 corpses had been washed ashore or picked up from the main land. Hitchcock, Clear Creek, Texas City, Virginia Point, Seabrook, Alvin, Dickinson and half a dozen other points midway between Houston and Galveston compose one vast morgue.

“Down along the coast toward Corpus Christi and Rockport all is silence. Not a word had come from there up to this evening. The first news from that section is likely to come from San Antonio, as that is the most directly connected point with that section of the Gulf. An awful calamity, it is feared, will be chronicled when the report does come.

“Telegraphic communication was opened late this afternoon with Beaumont and Orange on the other extreme end of the Gulf to the eastward of Galveston. The joyful news was contained that those two towns and Port Arthur were safe, but in the territory adjacent, forty miles wide and 100 miles long, many lives are believed to have been lost and immense property damage sustained.

“Conservative estimates of the property losses, including commercial and other material interests at Galveston and Houston, put the total at from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000 for the State. This includes the damage to cotton, which is placed at 250,000 bales. John Clay, one of the foremost men in the cotton trade at Dallas, addressed wire inquiries to all accessible points in the cotton growing districts of Texas concerning crop losses. He states they will reach ten per cent. of the State’s crop. Spot cotton sold at ten cents per pound on the market, an advance of half a cent a pound over Saturday’s best figures.

RELIEF WORK STARTED.

“Relief work for the Galveston sufferers started in Dallas vigorously on receipt of an appeal from Governor Sayers. The City Council appropriated $500. A mass meeting of citizens appointed soliciting committees, as did also the Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias. Fully $10,000 in cash had been subscribed by night.

“A special train was started for Houston over the Houston and Texas Central Railroad carrying committees of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and citizens to render aid and distribute relief in the storm districts. At the request of many persons in Dallas a telegram was sent to Governor Sayers by J. C. McNealus, Secretary of the Dallas County Democratic Executive Committee, asking the Governor his idea as to calling an extra session of the Legislature. Governor Sayers this evening replied as follows:

“‘Telegram received. I will do nothing until I can hear directly and authoritatively from Galveston except to call upon the people to render assistance.’

“As there is approximately a surplus of $2,000,000 cash in the State Treasury, it is reasoned that the citizens of Texas would endorse the Governor’s action should he conclude to call a special session to furnish public relief to the stricken sections of the State.

“A bulletin received at the Houston and Texas Central headquarters from the headquarters of the company in Houston stated that a courier from the relief force had just arrived. He stated that signal reports from men sent forward to Galveston Island to the relief parties on the main land read:

“‘Sixty dead bodies in one block. Six hundred corpses recovered and 400 more reported. People dying from injuries and sickness and for want of fresh water. Survivors threatened with starvation and disease. Doctors, nurses and fresh water needed at once.’

“The telegraph offices at Dallas have been besieged all day with men and women anxious to hear from friends who were in Galveston when the hurricane came on. Messages of inquiry have poured in from all parts of the United States. More than 10,000 messages were piled up in the Dallas offices to-day from local and outside parties, and every telegraph operator has been kept busy as long as he could work. The offices have uniformly had to inform the customers: ‘We can’t reach Galveston; can only promise to forward from Houston by boat as early as possible.’ Notwithstanding discouragements of this kind, the customers have almost invariably insisted on having their messages sent. Some of the scenes at the local telegraph offices have been very pathetic.

“A telegram was received from E. H. R. Green, son of Hetty Green, dated at Rockport, stating that Rockport had not been damaged by the storm, and that the visitors at the Tarpon Club House, on St. Joseph’s Island, were safe. This news lessens the fear felt for the safety of the people living along the coast in the vicinity of Rockport and Corpus Christi.

“Houston and Texas Central Railroad officials at noon received bulletins from their general offices in Houston that the loss of life will reach 3000 in Galveston. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas relief forces near Galveston and along the coast telegraphed at noon that the loss of life will not be less than 5000 and may reach 10,000.”

THE CITY IN RUINS.

Richard Spillane, a well-known Galveston newspaper man and day correspondent of the Associated Press in that city, who reached Houston September 10th, after a terrible experience, gives the following account of the disaster at Galveston:

“One of the most awful tragedies of modern times has visited Galveston. The city is in ruins, and the dead will number many thousands: I am just from the city, having been commissioned by the Mayor and Citizens’ Committee to get in touch with the outside world and appeal for help. Houston was the nearest point at which working telegraph instruments could be found, the wires as well as nearly all the buildings between here and the Gulf of Mexico being wrecked.

“When I left Galveston the people were organizing for the prompt burial of the dead, distribution of food and all necessary work after a period of disaster.

CITY TURNED INTO A RAGING SEA.

“The wreck of Galveston was brought about by a tempest so terrible that no words can adequately describe its intensity, and by a flood which turned the city into a raging sea. The Weather Bureau records show that the wind attained a velocity of eighty-four miles an hour when the measuring instrument blew away, so it is impossible to tell what was the maximum.

“The storm began at 2 o’clock Saturday morning. Previous to that a great storm had been raging in the Gulf, and the tide was very high. The wind at first came from the north, and was in direct opposition to the force from the Gulf. Where the storm in the Gulf piled the water up on the beach side of the city, the north wind piled the water from the bay onto the bay part of the city.

“About noon it became evident that the city was going to be visited with disaster. Hundreds of residences along the beach front were hurriedly abandoned, the families fleeing to dwellings in higher portions of the city. Every home was opened to the refugees, black or white. The winds were rising constantly, and it rained in torrents. The wind was so fierce that the rain cut like a knife.

“By 3 o’clock the waters of the Gulf and bay met, and by dark the entire city was submerged. The flooding of the electric light plant and the gas plants left the city in darkness. To go upon the streets was to court death. The wind was then at cyclonic velocity, roofs, cisterns, portions of buildings, telegraph poles and walls were falling, and the noise of the wind and the crashing of buildings were terrifying in the extreme. The wind and waters rose steadily from dark until 1.45 o’clock Sunday morning. During all this time the people of Galveston were like rats in a trap. The highest portion of the city was four to five feet under water, while in the great majority of cases the streets were submerged to a depth of ten feet. To leave a house was to drown. To remain was to court death in the wreckage.

“Such a night of agony has seldom been equaled. Without apparent reason the waters suddenly began to subside at 1.45 A. M. Within twenty minutes they had gone down two feet, and before daylight the streets were practically freed of the flood-waters. In the meantime the wind had veered to the southeast.

VERY FEW BUILDINGS ESCAPED.

“Very few if any buildings escaped injury. There is hardly a habitable dry house in the city. When the people who had escaped death went out at daylight to view the work of the tempest and floods they saw the most horrible sights imaginable. In the three blocks from Avenue N to Avenue P, in Tremont street, I saw eight bodies. Four corpses were in one yard.

“The whole of the business front for three blocks in from the Gulf was stripped of every vestige of habitation, the dwellings, the great bathing establishments, the Olympia and every structure having been either carried out to sea or its ruins piled in a pyramid far into the town, according to the vagaries of the tempest. The first hurried glance over the city showed that the largest structures, supposed to be the most substantially built, suffered the greatest.

“The Orphans’ Home, Twenty-first street and Avenue M, fell like a house of cards. How many dead children and refugees are in the ruins could not be ascertained. Of the sick in St. Mary’s Infirmary, together with the attendants, only eight are understood to have been saved. The Old Woman’s Home, on Roosenburg avenue, collapsed, and the Roosenburg School-house is a mass of wreckage. The Ball High School is but an empty shell, crushed and broken. Every church in the city, with possibly one or two exceptions, is in ruins.

“At the forts nearly all the soldiers are reported dead, they having been in temporary quarters, which gave them no protection against the tempest or flood. No report has been received from the Catholic Orphan Asylum down the island, but it seems impossible that it could have withstood the hurricane. If it fell, all the inmates were, no doubt, lost, for there was no aid within a mile.

“The bay front from end to end is in ruins. Nothing but piling and the wreck of great warehouses remain. The elevators lost all their super-works, and their stocks are damaged by water. The life-saving station at Fort Point was carried away, the crew being swept across the bay fourteen miles to Texas City. I saw Captain Haynes, and he told me that his wife and one of his crew were drowned.

WRECKAGE SWEPT ACROSS THE BAY.

“The shore at Texas City contains enough wreckage to rebuild a city. Eight persons who were swept across the bay during the storm were picked up there alive. Five corpses were also picked up. There were three fatalities in Texas City. In addition to the living and the dead which the storm cast up at Texas City, caskets and coffins from one of the cemeteries at Galveston were being fished out of the water there yesterday. In the business portion of the city two large brick buildings, one occupied by Knapp Brothers and the other by the Cotton Exchange saloon, collapsed. In the Cotton Exchange saloon there were about fifteen persons. Most of them escaped.

“The cotton mills, the bagging factory, the gas works, the electric light works and nearly all the industrial establishments of the city are either wrecked or crippled. The flood left a slime about one inch deep over the whole city, and unless fast progress is made in burying corpses and carcasses of animals there is danger of pestilence. Some of the stories of the escapes are miraculous. William Nisbett, a cotton man, was buried in the ruins of the Cotton Exchange saloon, and when dug out in the morning had no further injury than a few bruised fingers.

“Dr. S. O. Young, Secretary of the Cotton Exchange, was knocked senseless when his house collapsed, but was revived by the water, and was carried ten blocks by the hurricane. A woman who had just given birth to a child was carried from her home to a house a block distant, the men who were carrying her having to hold her high above heads, as the water was five feet deep when she was moved.

“Many stories were current of houses falling and inmates escaping. Clarence N. Ousley, editor of the Evening Tribune, had his family and the families of two neighbors in his house when the lower half crumbled and the upper part slipped down into the water. No one in the house was hurt.

“The Mistrot House, in the West End, was turned into a hospital. All of the regular hospitals of the city were unavailable. Of the new Southern Pacific Works little remains but the piling. Half a million feet of lumber was carried away, and Engineer Boschke says, as far as the company is concerned, it might as well start over again.

EIGHT OCEAN STEAMERS STRANDED.

“Eight ocean steamers were torn from their moorings and stranded in the bay. The Kendall Castle was carried over the flats at Thirty-third street wharf to Texas City, and lies in the wreckage of the Inman pier. The Norwegian steamer Gyller is stranded between Texas City and Virginia Point. An ocean liner was swirled around through the west bay, crashed through the bay bridges, and is now lying in a few feet of water near the wreckage of the railroad bridges.

“The steamship Taunton was carried across Pelican Point and is stranded about ten miles up the east bay. The Mallory steamer Alamo was torn from her wharf and dashed upon Pelican flats, and against the bow of the British steamer Red Cross, which had previously been hurled there. The stern of the Alamo is stove in and the bow of the Red Cross is crushed. Down the channel to the jetties two other ocean steamships lie grounded. Some schooners, barges and smaller craft are strewn bottom side up along the slips of the piers. The tug Louise, of the Houston Direct Navigation Company, is also a wreck.

“It will take a week to tabulate the dead and the missing and to get anything near an approximate idea of the monetary loss. It is safe to assume that one-half the property of the city is wiped out, and that one-half of the residents have to face absolute poverty.

“At Texas City three of the residents were drowned. One man stepped into a well by a mischance and his corpse was found there. Two other men ventured along the bay front during the height of the storm and were killed. There are but few buildings at Texas City that do not tell the story of the storm. The hotel is a complete ruin. The office of the Texas City Company was almost entirely destroyed. Nothing remains of the piers except the piling.

“The wreckage from Galveston litters the shore for miles and is a hundred yards wide. For ten miles inland from the shore it is a common sight to see small craft, such as steam launches, schooners and oyster sloops. The life boat of the life-saving station was carried half a mile inland, while a vessel that was anchored in Moses Bayou lies high and dry five miles up from La Marque.

MULTITUDES SWEPT OUT TO SEA.

“From Virginia Point north and south along the bay front, at such places as Texas City, Dickinson, Hitchcock, Seabrook, Alvin and a dozen small intermediate points, the number of dead bodies gathered up by rescue trains and sailing craft had reached at noon more than 700. This is only a small scope of the country devastated, and it is feared the death list from the storm will ultimately show not less than 5000 victims. Hundreds have been swept out to sea who will never be accounted for. Two mass meetings were held at Dallas, and many thousands of dollars were subscribed for the relief of the Texas Gulf coast storm sufferers.”

The towns of Sabine Pass and Port Arthur, news from which was anxiously awaited, passed through the terrific storm virtually unscathed. At Port Arthur the water spread over the town, but it did not reach a depth sufficient to destroy buildings. The town pleasure pier was washed away completely, as was also the pier in front of the Gales and Elwood Homes. The dredge Florida, property of the New York Dredging Company, which cut the Port Arthur Channel, sunk at the mouth of Taylor Bayou. No other property of consequence was injured.

At Sabine Pass the water reached a depth of about three feet, but nothing except small buildings near the water-front were washed away. Several mud-scows and sloops were washed ashore. The Southern Pacific wharves and warehouses were not damaged in the least. The railroad between Beaumont and Sabine Pass was under water for a distance of twelve miles, but not more than four miles were washed out. The life-saving station of Sabine Pass was washed from its blocks, but the light tower was not damaged. There was considerable damage at Sabine Pass by water rising into the streets.

ARMY TENTS AND RATIONS FOR THE SUFFERERS.

The officers of the National Government took steps at once to render all possible aid and assistance to the flood-sufferers of Texas. The President sent telegrams of sympathy to the Governor of the State and the Mayor of Galveston, and promised to render all possible relief. Adjutant-General Corbin also telegraphed instructions to General McKibbin, commanding the Department of Texas at San Antonio, to proceed to Galveston and investigate the character and extent of the damage caused by the hurricane, and to report to the Secretary of War what steps were necessary to alleviate the sufferings of the people and improve the situation.

Battery O, First Artillery, which garrisoned Fort San Jacinto, was commanded by Captain William C. Rafferty. First Lieutenant Lassiter was on detail duty at West Point, but the Second Lieutenant, J. C. Nichols, was with his company during the storm. Acting Secretary of the Treasury Spalding ordered two revenue cutters, one at Norfolk and one at Wilmington, N.C., to proceed at once to Mobile, Ala., and there await orders. They were needed in supplying food and tents to the storm-sufferers.

Governor Sayers, of Texas, applied to the War Department for 10,000 tents and 50,000 rations for immediate use for the sufferers. Acting Secretary Meiklejohn issued an order granting the request. The tents were sent from San Antonio and Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. A large portion of the rations was procured at San Antonio.

AN APPEAL FROM HOUSTON.

The following telegrams passed between the White House and Texas:

“Houston, Texas, September 10.—William McKinley, President of the United States, Washington, D. C.: I have been deputized by the Mayor and Citizens’ Committee of Galveston to inform you that the city of Galveston is in ruins, and certainly many hundreds, if not a thousand, are dead. The tragedy is one of the most frightful in recent times. Help must be given by the State and Nation or the suffering will be appalling. Food, clothing and money will be needed at once. The whole south side of the city for three blocks in from the Gulf is swept clear of every building, the whole wharf front is a wreck and but few houses in the city are really habitable. The water supply is cut off and the food stock damaged by salt water. All bridges are washed away, and stranded steamers litter the bay. When I left this morning the search for bodies had begun. Corpses were everywhere. Tempest blew eighty-four miles an hour, and then carried Government instruments away. At same time waters of Gulf were over whole city, having risen twelve feet. Water has now subsided, and the survivors are left helpless among the wreckage, cut off from the world except by boat.

“RICHARD SPILLANE.”

“Washington, September 10.—Hon. J. D. Sayers, Governor of Texas, Austin, Texas: The reports of the great calamity which has befallen Galveston and other points on the coast of Texas excite my profound sympathy for the sufferers, as they will stir the hearts of the whole country. Whatever help it is possible to give shall be gladly extended. Have directed the Secretary of War to supply rations and tents upon your request.

“WILLIAM MCKINLEY.”

A copy of this telegram was sent to the Mayor of Galveston as well as to Governor Sayers.

“Austin, Texas, September 10.—The President, Washington: Very many thanks for your telegram. Your action will be greatly appreciated and gratefully remembered by the people of Texas. I have this day requested the Secretary of War to forward rations and tents to Galveston.

“JOSEPH D. SAYERS, “Governor of Texas.”

CLARA BARTON READY FOR RELIEF WORK.

Miss Clara Barton issued the following appeal in behalf of the Texas sufferers:

“The American National Red Cross, at Washington, D. C., is appealed to on all sides for help and for the privilege to help in the terrible disaster which has befallen Southern and Central Texas. It remembers the floods of the Ohio and Mississippi, of Johnstown, and of Port Royal, with their thousands of dead and months of suffering and needed relief, and turns confidently to the people of the United States, whose sympathy has never failed to help provide the relief that is asked of it now. Nineteen years of experience on nearly as many fields renders the obligations of the Red Cross all the greater. The people have long learned its work, and it must again open its accustomed avenues for their charities. It does not beseech them to give, for their sympathies are as deep and their humanity as great as its own, but it pledges to them faithful old-time Red Cross relief work among the stricken victims of these terrible fields of suffering and death.

“He gives twice who gives quickly.

“Contributions may be wired or sent by mail to our Treasurer, William J. Flather, Assistant Cashier Riggs National Bank, Washington, D. C.; also to the local Red Cross committees of the Red Cross India Famine Fund, at 156 Fifth avenue, New York City, and the Louisiana Red Cross of New Orleans, both of whom will report all donations for immediate acknowledgment by us.

“CLARA BARTON, “President National American Red Cross.”

Miss Barton telegraphed Governor Sayers, at Austin, Tex., as follows:

“Do you need the Red Cross in Texas? We are ready.”

THE DESTRUCTION INLAND.

Later details show that from Red River on the north to the Gulf on the south and throughout the central part of the State, Texas was storm-swept by a hurricane which laid waste property, caused large loss of life, and effectually blocked all telegraphic and telephonic communication south, while the operation of trains was seriously handicapped.

Starting with the hurricane which visited Galveston and the Gulf coast Saturday noon, and which was still prevailing there to such an extent that no communication could be had with the island to ascertain what the loss to life and property was, the storm made rapid inroads into the centre of the State, stopping long enough at Houston to damage over half of the buildings of that city.

Advancing inland, the storm swept into Hempstead, fifty miles above Houston, thence to Chappell Hill, twenty miles further; thence to Brenham, thirty miles further, wrecking all three towns. Several persons were killed.

The Brazos bottom suffered a large share of damage at the hands of the hurricane, and was swept for fully 100 miles of its length, everything being turned topsy-turvy by the high winds, and much destruction resulting to crops as well as farmhouse property. The winds were accompanied by a heavy rainfall, which served to add to the horror of midnight. The telegraph and telephone companies have large forces of men trying to rig up wires to Galveston. The storm seems to have swept all the tableland clear of everything on it, razing houses to the ground and tearing up trees by the roots. It also swept into the mountain gorges and there inflicted the worst damage, and considerable loss of life was reported from that section. From Southwest Texas and points along the Gulf to the city of Galveston the reports were alarming. A number of parties summering at various points along the coast were not heard from. The cotton was nearly ruined, as the storm swept the cotton-belt.