Two Women Tell How They Were Affected at Galveston--One Arrived After the
Catastrophe, While the Other Was in the Storm from Beginning to End.
A woman--a newspaper correspondent, and the first of the fair sex from the
outside to gain admittance to the Sealed City of Galveston--wrote a
description of what she saw and heard there. She arrived in Galveston on
Friday, and although she was on a relief train carrying doctors, nurses
and medical supplies, she had hard work to get past the file of soldiers
at the wharf, but she at last succeeded.
Said she:
"The engineer who brought our train down from Houston spent the night
before groping around in the wrecks on the beach looking for his wife and
three children. He found them, dug a rude grave in the sand and set up a
little board marked with his name.
"The man in front of me on the car had floated all Monday night with his
wife and mother on a part of the roof of his little home. He told me that
he kissed his wife good-by at midnight and told her that he could not hold
on any longer; but he did hold on, dazed and half-conscious, until the day
broke and showed him that he was alone on his piece of driftwood. He did
not even know when the woman that he loved had died.
"Every man on the train--there were no women there--had lost some one that
he loved in the terrible disaster, and was going across the bay to try and
find some trace of his family."
As the train neared Texas City, near Galveston, a great flame leaped up,
and she said to one of four men near her, "What a terrible fire! Some of
the large buildings must be burning."
She then went on to say:
"A man who was passing on the deck behind my chair heard me. He stopped,
put his hand on the bulwark and turned down and looked into my face, his
face like the face of a dead man; but he laughed.
"'Buildings!' he said. 'Don't you know what is burning over there? It is
my wife and children--such little children! Why, the tallest was not as
high as this'--he laid his hand on the bulwark--'and the little one was
just learning to talk.
"'She called my name the other day, and now they are burning over
there--they and the mother who bore them. She was such a little, tender,
delicate thing, always so easily frightened, and now she's out there all
alone with the two babies, and they're burning.'
"The man laughed again and began again to walk up and down the deck.
"'That's right,' said the Marshal of the State of Texas, taking off his
broad hat and letting the starlight shine on his strong face. 'That's
right. We had to do it. We've burned over 1,000 people to-day, and
to-morrow we shall burn as many more.
"'Yesterday we stopped burying the bodies at sea; we had to give the men
on the barges whisky to give them courage to do the work. They carried out
hundreds of the dead at one time, men and women, negroes and white people,
all piled up as high as the barge could stand it, and the men did not go
out far enough to sea, and the bodies have begun drifting back again.'
"'Look!' said the man who was walking the deck, touching my shoulder with
his shaking hand. 'Look there!'
"Before I had time to think I had to look, and saw floating in the water
the body of an old woman, whose hair was shining in the starlight, A
little farther on we saw a group of strange driftwood.
"We looked closer and found it to be a mass of wooden slabs, with names
and dates cut upon them, and floating on top of them were marble stones,
two of them.
"The graveyard, which has held the sleeping citizens of Galveston for
many, many years, was giving up its dead. We pulled up at a little wharf
in the hush of the starlight; there were no lights anywhere in the city
except a few scattered lamps shining from a few desolate, half-destroyed
houses. We picked our way up the street. The ground was slimy with the
debris of the sea.
"We climbed over wreckage and picked our way through heaps of rubbish. The
terrible, sickening odor almost overcame us, and it was all that I could
do to shut my teeth and get through the streets somehow. The soldiers were
camping on the wharf front, lying stretched out on the wet sand, the
hideous, hideous sand, stained and streaked in the starlight with dark and
cruel blotches. They challenged us, but the marshal took us through under
his protection. At every street corner there was a guard, and every guard
wore a six-shooter strapped around his waist.
"I went toward the heart of the city. I do not know what the names of the
streets were or where I was going. I simply picked my way through masses
of slime and rubbish which scar the beautiful wide streets of the once
beautiful city.
"They won't bear looking at, those piles of rubbish. There are things
there that gripe the heart to see--a baby's shoe, for instance, a little
red shoe, with a jaunty tasseled lace--a bit of a woman's dress and
letters.
"The stench from these piles of rubbish is almost overpowering. Down in
the very heart of the city most of the dead bodies have been removed, but
it will not do to walk far out. To-day I came upon a group of people in a
by-street, a man and two women, colored. The man was big and muscular, one
of the women was old and one was young.
"They were dipping in a heap of rubbish and when they heard my footsteps
the man turned an evil, glowering face upon me and the young woman hid
something in the folds of her dress. Human ghouls, these, prowling in
search of prey.
"A moment later there was noise and excitement in the little narrow
street, and I looked back and saw the negro running, with a crowd at his
heels. The crowd caught him and would have killed him, but a policeman
came up.
"They tied his hands and took him through the streets with a whooping
rabble at his heels. It goes hard with a man in Galveston caught looting
the dead in these days.
"A young man well known in the city shot and killed a negro who was
cutting the ears from a living woman's head to get her ear rings out. The
negro lay in the streets like a dead dog, and not even the members of his
own race would give him the tribute of a kindly look.
"The abomination of desolation reigns on every side. The big houses are
dismantled, their roofs gone, windows broken, and the high water mark
showing inconceivably high on the paint. The little houses are
gone--either completely gone as if they were made of cards and a giant
hand which was tired of playing with them had swept them all off the board
and put them away, or they are lying in heaps of kindling wood covering no
one knows what horrors beneath.
"The main streets of the city are pitiful. Here and there a shop of some
sort is left standing. South Fifth street looks like an old man's jaw,
with one or two straggling teeth protruding. The merchants are taking
their little stores of goods that have been left them and are spreading
them out in the bright sunshine, trying to make some little husbanding of
their small capital. The water rushed through the stores as it did through
the houses, in an irresistible avalanche that carried all before it. The
wonder is not that so little of Galveston is left standing, but that there
is any of it at all.
"Every street corner has its story, in its history of misery and human
agony bravely endured. The eye-witnesses of a hundred deaths have talked
to me and told me their heart-rendering stories, and not one of them has
told of a cowardly death.
"The women met their fate as did the men, bravely and for the most part
with astonishing calmness. A woman told me that she and her husband went
into the kitchen and climbed upon the kitchen table to get away from the
waves, and that she knelt there and prayed.
"As she prayed, the storm came in and carried the whole house away, and
her husband with it, and yesterday she went out to the place where her
husband had been, and there was nothing there but a little hole in the
ground.
"Her husband's body was found twisted in the branches of a tree, half a
mile from the place where she last saw him. She recognized him by a locket
he had around his neck--the locket she gave him before they were married.
It had her picture and a lock of the baby's hair in it. The woman told me
all this without a tear or a trace of emotion. No one cries here.
"They will stand and tell the most hideous stories, stories that would
turn the blood in the veins of a human machine cold with horror, without
the quiver of an eyelid. A man sat in the telegraph office and told me how
he had lost two Jersey cows and some chickens.
"He went into minute particulars, told how his house was built and what it
cost, and how it was strengthened and made firm against the weather. He
told me how the storm had come and swept it all away, and how he had
climbed over a mass of wabbling roofs and found a friend lying in the
curve of a big roof, in the stoutest part of the tide, and how they two
had grasped each other and what they said.
"He told me just how much his cows cost and why he was so fond of them,
and how hard he had tried to save them, but I said: 'You have saved
yourself and your family; you ought not to complain.'
"The man stared at me with blank, unseeing eyes.
"'Why, I did not save my family,' he said. 'They were all drowned. I
thought you knew that; I don't talk very much about it.'
"The hideous horror of the whole thing has benumbed every one who saw it."
ILLINOIS GIRL HAS A TRYING TIME IN THE RUINED CITY.
Miss Alice Pixley, of Elgin, Ill., arrived at her home on Sunday,
September 16, from Galveston, where she had a most trying time during the
storm. She told her story in a wonderfully graphic way.
"I had been in Galveston for about six weeks, visiting Miss Lulu George,
who lives on Thirty-fifth street between N and N 1/2 streets. It was not
until after the noon hour of Monday that we were frightened. Buildings
had gone down as mere egg shells before that death-dealing wind.
"About 1:30 o'clock I told Miss George that we must make our way to
another building about half a block away. The water had risen over five
feet in two hours, and as I hurried to the front door the wind tore down
my hair and I was blinded for a time.
"I turned my eyes to the west and for three long miles there was not a
building standing, everything had been swept away. How we ever reached the
two-story building a hundred yards away I do not know. We waded through
the water and every few minutes we were carried off our feet and dashed
against the floating debris.
"The building we were trying to reach was a store and the foundation kept
out the water. We hurried to the cellar and stayed there for several
hours. At last the wind-swept waves found an opening and broke through the
foundation and we had a mad run to escape the rushing, swirling waters.
"We reached the first floor and I shrank into a corner, expecting every
second to be carried out to my death. How it happened I can never tell,
but this and one other building were the only ones left for blocks around.
"As it was several people were killed in the building we occupied and the
other house that was left standing.
"After a time I felt faint from hunger and, while too weak from fright to
seek food, I told Miss George that I would go into another room. I
staggered along the floor until I reached a window, and fell, half
fainting, through it. As I leaned there I witnessed sights that I pray God
will never make another see.
"Whirling by me, bodies, more than I could dare count, were crushed and
mangled between a jumble of timbers and debris. Men, women and children
went by, sinking, floating, dashing on I know not where. I wanted to
close my eyes, but I could not. I cried aloud and made an attempt to go to
my friends, but I was exhausted and all I could do was to watch the
terrible scenes.
"Babies, oh, such pretty little ones, too, were carried on and on, gowned
in dainty clothing, their eyes open, staring in mute terror above. Thank
Providence they were dead.
"I was partly blinded by tears, but I could still see through the mist.
Little arms seemed to stretch toward me asking assistance and there I lay,
half prostrated, too weak to lend assistance.
"How it all ended I know not. I must have fainted for I awakened with 'We
are saved, Alice,' ringing in my ears.
"When I found we could get out of the city I declared I would go at all
costs. I thought of home and my parents and I wanted to telegraph, just
like thousands of others, that I was safe.
"It was days before we could get away, however, and then it was in a most
terrible confusion. Eighty-eight persons crowded on a small boat and
started for Houston.
"The day we left the militia was out in all its force. I could hear the
sharp report of a rifle and the wail of some soul as he paid the penalty
for his thieving operations.
"Later I saw the soldiers with their glistening rifles leveled at scores
of men and saw them topple forward dead. Oh, they had to shoot those
terrible beasts, for they were robbing the dead. They groveled in blood,
it seemed.
"I saw with my own eyes the fingers of women cut off by regular demons in
the search for jewels. The soldiers came and killed them and it was well.
HUMAN BODIES IN FIRE HEAP.
"As we made our way toward the boat that was to take us from the City of
Death I saw great clouds of smoke rising in the air. Upon the top of
flaming boards thousands of bodies were being reduced to ashes.
"It was best, for the odor that arose from the dead bodies was awful.
Still it made one's heart ache with a sorrow never to be equaled as one
witnessed little children tossed into the midst of the hissing flames. Do
you wonder I cry?
"Before me, no matter which way I turned, I could see dead bodies, their
cold eyes gazing at me with staring intentness. I closed my eyes and
stumbled forward, hoping I might escape for a moment the sight of dead
bodies, but no; the moment I would open them again, right at my feet I
would find the form of some poor creature.
FULLY 10,000 ARE DEAD.
"Coming to Chicago on the train I read the papers. They are mistaken, away
wrong. They only say 5,000 dead. It will be more than 10,000.
"I know I am right; every one in Galveston talks of 12,000, 15,000 and
18,000 dead, but it will be 10,000 at the very least.
"I believe the worst sight I witnessed was the 2,800 bodies being carried
out to sea and buried in the gulf. Huge barges were tied at the wharves
and loaded with the unknown dead. As fast as one barge was filled it made
its way out from the shore, and weighting the bodies, men cast them into
the water.
"Oh, those eyes," she cried, "that I might put them from my mind. I can
see those little children, mere babies go floating by my place of refuge,
dead, dead! God alone knows the suffering I went through. Thousands, yes
thousands of poor souls were carried over the brink of death in the
twinkling of an eye, and I saw it all."