The Johnstown Horror!!! Part 33

The Victor was Magnanimous.

Deputy Fitzpatrick seized the military coat he had thrown on the ground, and with it and the weapon started to the regimental headquarters. Then the privates got around him and begged him, one of them with tears in his eyes, not to report their officer, saying that he was a good man when he was sober. He studied a long while, standing in the road, while the officer slunk away over the hill. Then he threw the disgraced uniform to them, and said: "Here, give them to him; and, mind you, if he does not go at once to his quarters, I'll take him there, dead or alive."

Sanitarians at Work.

Dr. Benjamin Lee, secretary of the State Board of Health, has taken hold with a grip upon the handle. When he surveyed the ground to-day he found that there were no disinfectants in town, and no utensils in which to distribute them had there been any disinfectants, so he sent a squad across the river to the supply train, below the viaduct, and had all the copperas and chloride of lime to be had carried across the bridges in buckets. He sent another squad hunting the ruins for utensils, and in the wreck of a general store on Main street they discovered pails, sprinkling pots and kettles. The copperas and chloride were promptly set heating in the kettles over the streets and in a short time a squad was out sprinkling the debris which chokes Main street almost to the housetops for three squares.

The reason of this was that a brief inspection had satisfied Dr. Lee that under the wreckage were piled the bodies of scores of dead horses.

Meantime other men were at work collecting the bodies of other dead horses, which were hauled to the fire and with the aid of rosin burned to the number of sixty. A large number of dead horses were buried yesterday, but this course did not meet the State Board's approval and Dr. Lee has ordered their exhumation for burning.

Dr. R. Lowrie Sibbett, of Carlisle, was made medical inspector and sent up through the boroughs up the river. To-morrow a house-to-house inspection will be made of the remaining and inhabited portion of the cities and boroughs. The overcrowding makes this necessary.

"It will take weeks of unremitting labor and thousands of men," said Dr.

Lee, "to remove the sources of danger to the public health which now exist. The princ.i.p.al danger to people living here is, of course, from the contamination of putrifying flesh. They have an excellent water-supply from the hills, but there is a very grave danger to the health of all the people who use the Allegheny river as a water-supply.

It is in the debris above the viaduct, which is full of decomposing animal matter. Every ripple of water that pa.s.ses through or under it carries the germs of possible disease with it."

At the Schoolhouse Morgue.

Away from the devastation in the valley and the gloomy scenes along the river, on Prospect Hill, stands the school-house, the morgue of the unidentified dead. People do not go there unless they are hunting for a friend or relative. They treat it as a pest house. They have seen enough white faces in the valley and the living feel like fleeing from the dead.

This afternoon at sunset every desk in every cla.s.sroom supported a coffin. Each coffin was numbered and each lid turned to show the face within. On the blackboard in one of the rooms, between the pretty drawing and neat writing of the school children, was scrawled the bulletin "Hold No. '59' as long as possible; supposed to be Mrs.

Paulson, of Pittsburgh." "But '59' wasn't Mrs. Paulson," said a little white-faced woman. "It is Miss Frances Wagner, of Market street, Johnstown." Her brother found her here. "Fifty-nine" has gone--one of the few identified to-day, and others had come to take its place.

Strongly appealing to the sympathies of even those looking for friends and relatives was the difference in the size of the coffins. There were some no larger than a violin case hidden below large boxes, telling of the unknown babies perished, and there were coffins of children of all years. On the blackboards were written such sentences as "Home sweet home;" "Peace on earth, good will toward men." For all the people who looked at their young faces knew, they might have stood by the coffin of the child who helped to write them.

The bodies found each day are kept as long as possible and then are sent away for burial with their numbers, where their names should be, on rough boards, their only tombstones.

Just as a black storm-cloud was driving hard from the West over the slope of the hills yesterday the body of young Henry G. Rose, the district attorney of Cambria County, was lowered into a temporary grave beside unknown victims. Three people attended his burial--his father-in-law, James A. Lane, who saw him lost while he himself was struggling for life in their floating house; the Rev. Dr. H.L. Chapman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Rev. L. Maguire. Dr. Chapman read the funeral services, and while he prayed the thunder rumbled and the cloud darkened the scene. The coffins are taken there in wagonloads, lowered quickly and hidden from sight.

Miss Nina Speck, daughter of Rev. David Speck, pastor of the First United Brethren Church of Chambersburg, was in Johnstown visiting her brother last week and narrowly escaped death in the flood.

She arrived to-day clad in nondescript clothing, which had been furnished by an old colored washer-woman and told the following story of the flood:

"Our house was in Kernville, a part of Johnstown, through which Stony Creek ran. Although we were a square from the creek, the backwater from the stream had flooded the streets in the morning and was up to our front porch. At 4 o'clock on Friday afternoon we were sitting on the front porch watching the flood, when we heard a roar as of a tornado or mighty conflagration.

"We rushed upstairs and got out upon the bay-window. There an awful sight met our eyes. Down the Conemaugh Valley was advancing a mighty wall of flame and mist with a terrible roar. Before it were rolling houses and buildings of all kinds, tossing over and over. We thought it was a cyclone, the roar sounding like a tempest among forest trees. At first we could see no water at all, but back of the mist and flames came a mighty wall of water. We started downstairs and through the rear of the house to escape to the hillside nearby. But before we could get there the water was up to our necks and we could make no progress. We turned back and were literally dashed by the current into the house, which began to move off as soon as we were in it again. From the second-story window I saw a young man drifting toward us. I broke the gla.s.s from the frames with my hands and helped him in, and in a few moments more I pulled in an old man, a neighbor, who had been sick.

Miraculous Escape.

"Our house moved rapidly down the stream and fortunately lodged against a strong building. The water forced us out of the second story up into the attic. Then we heard a lot of people on our roof begging us for G.o.d's sake to let them in. I broke through the roof with a bed slat and pulled them in. Soon we had thirteen in all crouched in the attic.

"Our house was rocking, and every now and then a building would crash against us. Every moment we thought we would go down. The roofs of all the houses drifting by us were covered with people, nearly all praying and some singing hymns, and now and then a house would break apart and all would go down. On Sat.u.r.day at noon we were rescued, making our way from one building to the next by crawling on narrow planks. I counted hundreds of bodies lying in the debris, most of them covered over with earth and showing only the outlines of the form."

A Sad Hospital Story.

On a cot in the hospital on Prospect Hill there lies at present a man injured almost to death, but whose mental sufferings are far keener than his bodily pains. His name is Vering. He has lost in the flood his whole family--wife and five children. In an interview he said:

"I was at home with my wife and children when the alarm came. We hurried from the house, leaving everything behind us. As we reached the door a gentleman friend was running by. He grasped the two smaller children, one under each arm, and hurried on ahead of us. I had my arm around my wife, supporting her. Behind us we could hear the flood rushing upon us. In one hurried glance, as I pa.s.sed a corner, I could see the fearful crunching and hear the crackling of the houses in its fearful grasp. I then could see that there was no possibility of our escape, as we were too far away from the hillside. In a few moments it was upon us. In a flash I saw the three dear children licked up by it and they disappeared from sight as I and my wife were thrown into the air by the vanguard of the rushing ruins. We found ourselves in a lot of drift, driving along with the speed of a race-horse. In a moment or two we were thrown with a crash against a frame building whose walls gave way before the flood as easily as if they were made of pie-crust, and the timbers began to fall about us in all directions.

"Up to this time I had retained a firm hold upon my wife, but as I found myself pinned between two heavy timbers the agony caused my senses to leave me momentarily. I recovered instantly in time to see my wife's head just disappearing under the water. Like lightning I grasped her by the hair and as best I could, pinioned as I was above the water by the timber, I raised her above it. The weight proved too much and she sank again. Again I pulled her to the surface and again she sank. This I did again and again with no avail. She drowned in my very grasp, and at last she dropped from my nerveless hands to leave my sight forever. As if I had not suffered enough, a few moments after I saw some objects whirling around in an eddy which circled around, until, reaching the current again, they floated past me. My G.o.d, man, would you believe me? it was three of my children, dead. Their dear little faces are before me now, distorted in a look of agony that, no matter what I do, haunts me. O, if I could only have released myself at that time I would have willingly died with them. I was rescued some time after, and have been here ever since. I have since learned that my friend who so bravely endeavored to save two of the children was lost with them."

CHAPTER XV.

Terrible Pictures of Woe.

The proportion of the living registered since the flood as against the previous number of inhabitants is even less than was reported yesterday.

It was ascertained to-day that many of the names on the list were entered more than once and that the total number of persons registered is not more than 13,000 out of a former population of between 40,000 and 50,000.

A new and more exact method of determining the number of the lost was inaugurated this morning. Men are sent out by the Relief Committee, who will go to every abode and obtain the names of the survivors, and if possible those of the dead.

The lack of identification of hundreds of bodies strengthens the inference that the proportion of the dead to the living is appalling. It is argued that the friends who might identify these unclaimed bodies are themselves all gone.

Another significant fact is that so large a number of those whom one meets in the streets or where the streets used to be are non-residents, strangers who have come here out of humane or less creditable motives.

The question that is heard very often is, "Where are the inhabitants?"

The town does not appear to have at present a population of more than 10,000.

It is believed that many of the bodies of the dead have been borne down into the Ohio, and perhaps into the Mississippi as well, and hence may finally be deposited by the waters hundreds of miles apart, perhaps never to be recovered or seen by man again.

The General Situation.

Under the blue haze of smoke that for a week has hung over this valley of the shadow of death the work which is to resurrect this stricken city has gone steadily forward. Here and there over the waste where Johnstown stood in its pride black smoke arises from the bonfires on which shattered house-walls, rafters, doors, broken furniture and all the flotsam and jetsam of the great flood is cast.

Adjutant General Hastings, who believes in heroic measures, has been quietly trying to persuade the "Dictator"--that is, the would-be "Dictator"--to allow him to burn up the wrecked houses wholesale without the tedious bother of pulling them down and handling the debris. The timorous committees would not countenance such an idea. Nothing but piecemeal tearing down of the wrecked houses tossed together by the mighty force of the water and destruction by never-dying bonfires would satisfy them. Yet all of them must come down. Most of the buildings reached by the flood have been examined, found unsafe and condemned. Can the job be done safely and successfully wholesale or not? That is the real question for the powers that be to answer, and no sentiment should enter into it.

Four thousand workmen are busy to-day with ropes and axe, pick and shovel. But the task is vast, it is herculean, like unto the cleaning of the Augean stables.

"To clean up this town properly," said General Hastings to-day, "we shall need twenty thousand workmen for three months."

The force of the swollen river upturned the town in a half hour. These same timorous managers weakened to-day, after having the facts before their eyes brought home to their understanding by constant iteration.

They have found out that they have, vulgarly speaking, bitten off more than they can chew. Poisons of the foulest kind pollute the water which flows down the turgid Conemaugh into the Allegheny River, whence is Pittsburgh's water-supply, and thence into the Ohio, the water-supply of many cities and towns. Fears of a pestilence are not to be pooh-poohed into the background. It is very serious, so long as the river flows through the clogged and matted ma.s.s of the bridge so long it will threaten the people along its course with pestilence. The committee confess their inability to do this needed work, and to-day voted to ask the Governors of the several States to co-operate in the establishment of a national relief committee to grapple with the situation. Action cannot and must not be delayed.

Hope Out of Despair.

The fears of an outbreak of fever or other zymotic diseases appear to be based on the alleged presence of decomposed animal matter, human and of lower type, concealed amid the debris. The alleged odor of burnt flesh coming from the enormous ma.s.s of conglomerated timber and iron lodged in the cul-de-sac formed by the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge is extremely mythical. There is an unmistakable scent of burnt wood. It would not be strange if the carca.s.ses of domestic animals, which must be hidden in the enormous ma.s.s, were finally to be realized by the olfactory organs of the bystanders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL HASTINGS DIRECTING THE POLICE.]