At the end of the week Adjutant-General Hastings moved his headquarters
from the signal tower and the Pennsylvania Railroad depot to the eastern
end of the Pennsylvania freight depot. Here the general and his staff
sleep on the hard floor, with only a blanket under them. They have their
work systematized and in good shape, though about all they have done or
will do is to prevent strangers and others who have no business here
from entering the city. The entire regiment which is here is disposed
around the city in squads of two or three men each. The men are
scattered up and down the Conemaugh, away out on the Pennsylvania and
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad tracks, along Stony Creek on the southern
side of the town, and even upon the hills. It is impossible for any one
to get into town by escaping the guards, for there is a cordon of
soldiers about it. General Hastings rides around on a horse, inspecting
the posts, and the men on guard present arms to him in due form, he
returning the salute. The sight is a singular one, for General Hastings
is not in uniform, and in fact wears a very rusty civilian's dress. He
wears a pair of rubber boots covered with mud, and a suit of old,
well-stained, black clothes. His coat is a cutaway. His appearance among
his staff officers is still more dramatic, for the latter, being ordered
out and having time to prepare, are in gold lace and feathers and
glittering uniforms.
General Hastings came here right after the flood, on the spur of the
moment, and not in his official capacity. He rides his horse finely and
looks every inch a soldier. He has established in his headquarters in
the freight depot a very much-needed bureau for the answering of
telegrams from friends of Johnstown people making inquiries as to the
latter's safety. The bureau is in charge of A. K. Parsons, who has done
good work since the flood, and who, with Lieutenant George Miller, of
the Fifth Infantry, U. S. A., General Hastings' right-hand man, has been
with the general constantly. The telegrams in the past have all been
sent to the headquarters of the Citizens Committee, in the Fourth Ward
Hotel, and have laid there, along with telegrams of every sort, in a
little heap on a little side table in one corner of the room.
Three-quarters of them were not called for, and people who knew that
telegrams were there for them did not have the patience to look through
the heap for them. Finally some who were not worried to death took the
telegrams, opened them all, and pinned them in separate packages in
alphabetical order and then put them back on the table again, and they
have been pored over, until their edges are frayed, by all the people
who crowded into the little low-roofed room where Dictator Scott and his
messengers are. There were something like three thousand telegrams there
in all. Occasionally a few are taken away, but in the majority of cases
they remain there. The persons to whom they were sent are dead or have
not taken the trouble to come to headquarters and see if their friends
are inquiring after them. Of course the Western Union Telegraph Company
makes no effort to deliver the messages. This would be impossible.
[Illustration: PENNSYLVANIA AVE., COR. SIXTH ST., WASHINGTON, D. C.]
The telegrams addressed to the Citizens Committee headquarters are all
different in form, of course, but they all breathe the utmost anxiety
and suspense. Here are some samples:--
Is Samuel there? Is there any hope? Answer me and end this suspense.
SARAH.
_To anybody in Johnstown_:
Can you give me any information of Adam Brennan?
MARY BRENNAN.
Are any of you alive?
JAMES.
Are you all safe? Is it our John Burn that is dead? Is Eliza safe?
Answer.
It is worth repeating again that the majority of these telegrams will
never be answered.
The Post-office letter carriers have only just begun to make their
rounds in that part of the town which is comparatively uninjured. Bags
of first-class mail matter are alone brought into town. It will be weeks
before people see the papers in the mails. The supposition is that
nobody has time to read papers, and this is about right. The letter
carriers are making an effort, as far as they can, to distribute mail to
the families of the deceased people. Many of the letters which arrive
now contain money orders, and while great care has to be taken in the
distribution, the postal authorities recognize the necessity of getting
these letters to the parties addressed, or else returning them to the
Dead Letter Office as proof of the death of the individuals in question.
It is no doubt that in this way the first knowledge of the death of many
will be transmitted to friends.
It is fair to say that the best part of the energies of the State of
Pennsylvania at present are all turned upon Johnstown. Here are the
leading physicians, the best nurses, some of the heaviest contractors,
the brightest newspaper men, all the military geniuses, and, if not the
actual presence, at least the attention, of the capitalists. The
newspapers, medical reviews, and publications of all sorts teem with
suggestions. Johnstown is a compendium of business, and misery, and
despair. One class of men should be given credit for thorough work in
connection with the calamity. These are the undertakers. They came to
Johnstown, from all over Pennsylvania, at the first alarm. They are the
men whose presence was imperatively needed, and who have actually been
forced to work day and night in preserving bodies and preparing them for
burial. One of the most active undertakers here is John McCarthy, of
Syracuse, N. Y., one of the leading undertakers there, and a very
public-spirited man. He brought a letter of introduction from Mayor
Kirk, of Syracuse, to the Citizens Committee here. He said to a
reporter:--
"It is worthy of mention, perhaps, that never before in such a disaster
as this have bodies received such careful treatment and has such a
wholesale embalming been practiced. Everybody recovered, whether
identified or not, whether of rich man or poor man, or of the humblest
child, has been carefully cleaned and embalmed, placed in a neat coffin,
and not buried when unidentified until the last possible moment. When
you reflect that over one thousand bodies have been treated in this way
it means something. It is to be regretted that some pains were not
taken to keep a record of the bodies recovered, but the undertakers
cannot be blamed for that. They should have been furnished with clerks,
and that whole matter made the subject of the work of a bureau by
itself. We have had just all we could do cleaning and embalming the
bodies."
The unsightliest place in Johnstown is the morgue in the Presbyterian
Church. The edifice is a large brick structure in the centre of the
city, and was about the first church building in the city. About one
hundred and seventy-five people took refuge there during the flood.
After the first crash, when the people were expecting another every
instant, and of course that they would perish, the pastor of the church,
the Rev. Mr. Beale, began to pray fervently that the lives of those in
the church might be spared. He fairly wrestled in prayer, and those who
heard him say that it seemed to be a very death-struggle with the demon
of the flood itself. No second crash came, the waters receded, and the
lives of those in the church were spared. The people said that it was
all due to the Rev. Mr. Beale's prayer. The pews in the church were all
demolished, and the Sunday-school room under it was flooded with the
angry waters, and filled up to the ceiling with débris. The Rev. Mr.
Beale is now general morgue director in Johnstown, and has the
authority of a dictator of the bodies of the dead. In the Presbyterian
Church morgue the bodies are, almost without exception, those which have
been recovered from the ruins of the smashed buildings. The bodies are
torn and bruised in the most horrible manner, so that identification is
very difficult. They are nearly all bodies of the prominent or
well-known residents of Johnstown. The cleaning and embalming of the
bodies takes place in the corners of the church, on either side of the
pulpit. As soon as they have a presentable appearance, the bodies are
placed in coffins, put across the ends of the pews near the aisles, so
that people can pass around through the aisles and look at them. Few
identifications have yet been made here. In one coffin is the body of a
young man who had on a nice bicycle suit when found. In his pockets were
forty dollars in money. The bicycle has not been found. It is supposed
that the body is that of some young fellow who was on a bicycle tour up
the Conemaugh River, and who was engulfed by the flood.
The waters played some queer freaks. A number of mirrors taken out of
the ruins with the frames smashed and with the glass parts entirely
uninjured have been a matter for constant comment on the part of those
who have inspected the ruins and worked in them. When the waters went
down, the Sunday-school rooms of the Presbyterian Church just referred
to were found littered with playing cards. In a baby's cradle was found
a dissertation upon infant baptism and two volumes of a history of the
Crusades. A commercial man from Pittsburgh, who came down to look at the
ruins, found among them his own picture. He never was in Johnstown but
two or three times before, and he did not have any friends there. How
the picture got among the ruins of Johnstown is a mystery to him.
About the only people who have come into Johnstown, not having business
there connected with the clearing up of the city, are people from a
great distance, hunting up their friends and relatives. There are folks
here now from almost every State in the Union, with the exception,
perhaps, of those on the Pacific coast. There are people, too, from
Pennsylvania and States near by, who, receiving no answer to their
telegrams, have decided to come on in person. They wander over the town
in their search, at first frantically asking everybody right and left if
they have heard of their missing friends. Generally nobody has heard of
them, or some one may remember that he saw a man who said that he
happened to see a body pulled out at Nineveh or Cambria City, or
somewhere, that looked like Jack So-and-So, naming the missing one. At
the morgues the inquirer is told that about four hundred unidentified
dead have already been buried, and on the fences before the morgues and
on the outside house walls of the buildings themselves he reads several
hundred such notices as these, of bodies still unclaimed:--
A woman, dark hair, blue eyes, blue waist, dark dress, clothing of fine
quality; a single bracelet on the left arm; age, about twenty-three.
An old lady, clothing undistinguishable, but containing a purse with
twenty-seven dollars and a small key.
A young man, fair complexion, light hair, gray eyes, dark blue suit,
white shirt; believed to have been a guest at the Hurlburt House.
A female; supposed to belong to the Salvation Army.
A man about thirty-five years old, dark-complexioned, brown hair, brown
moustache, light clothes, left leg a little shortened.
A boy about ten years old, found with a little girl of nearly same age;
boy had hold of girl's hand; both light-haired and fair-complexioned,
and girl had long curls; boy had on dark clothes, and girl a gingham
dress.
* * * * *
The people looking for their friends had lots of money, but money is of
no use now in Johnstown. It cannot hire teams to go up along the
Conemaugh River, where lots of people want to go; it cannot hire men as
searchers, for all the people in Johnstown not on business of their own
are digging in the ruins; it cannot even buy food, for what little food
there is in Johnstown is practically free, and a good square meal cannot
be procured for love nor money anywhere. Under these discouragements
many people are giving up the search and going home, either giving their
relatives up for dead or waiting for them to turn up, still maintaining
the hope that they are alive.
Johnstown at night now is a wild spectacle. The major part of the town
is enveloped in darkness, and lights of all colors flare out all around,
so that the city looks something like a night scene in a railroad yard.
The burning of immense piles of débris is continued at night, and the
red glare of the flames at the foot of the hills seems like witch-fires
at the mouth of caverns. The camp-fires of the military on the hills
above the Conemaugh burn brightly. Volumes of smoke pour up all over the
town. Along the Pennsylvania Railroad gangs of men are working all night
long by electric light, and the engines, with their great headlights and
roaring steam, go about continually. Below the railroad bridge stretches
away the dark, sullen mass of the drift, with its freight of human
bodies beyond estimate. Now and then, from the headquarters of the
newspaper men, can be heard the military guards on their posts
challenging passers-by.