In August 1893
a major hurricane, known as the "Sea Islands
Hurricane" struck the offshore barrier islands of Georgia
and South Carolina. Over 1,000 people were killed (mostly by
drowning); and 30,000 or more were left homeless as nearly every
building along the barrier islands was damaged beyond repair.
After the disaster, a 10-month relief effort was run by the
American Red Cross.
from Scribner's
Magazine, February 1894
The year of our Lord eighteen
hundred and ninety-three will long be remembered as the year of storms.
Inland gales rose and blew furiously
southward. Cyclones rushed out of
the tropics and raged northward. Hurricanes plunged through the Mexican
Gulf and shook the southern region. Tornadoes crashed along the Atlantic
coast, carrying death and destruction
with them. The memory of the oldest
inhabitant fails him when he tries to
recall such another year of storms.
The records show no parallel to it.
And the storms themselves have wrought
unprecedented destruction to life and
property.
A storm in the South Atlantic and
Gulf coasts is no new experience to the
people who live near the danger line of the sea, nor even to the people who live
far inland. It is a part of the climate.
It belongs to expectation. These elemental disturbances are confined to no
particular area, as the oldest inhabitant
will tell you. Their feeding-grounds
are in the tropical seas, the treacherous West Indian waters - but when they
gather strength and gain bulk, they rush
madly forth, describing vast circles, or
tearing straight ahead until they exhaust themselves. They sweep along
the coasts, or go raging inland, sometimes in the shape of a whirling cyclone,
and sometimes in the shape of a roaring
hurricane. And the effects of them are
felt hundreds of miles in all directions,
even when they fail to break across the
coast-line barriers; for the inland winds
that are roguishly playing rock-a-bye
baby in the tree-tops are keen for a
frolic, and no sooner do they feel that
preparations for one are going forward
in the tropics than they hurry to join
and feed the monstrous riot of the elements.
"The
August hurricane
was not unexpected. In
fact it had been heralded,
and for at least three days
before it made its appearance warnings had been given."
And so wildly do they rush and
tear along in their haste to become part
of the whirl and swirl in the tropics,
that trees and houses fall before them.
This sweep of the inland winds to the
central disturbance, or to the mad vacuum behind it, is usually described as
a storm, but the frolicsome gales that
form it are merely feeders of the real
storm.
On the morning of the 28th of last
August, a heavy gale arose in Atlanta, coming out of the northwest. It
increased steadily until its velocity
reached fifty miles an hour.
"Savannah was more
directly in the path of the storm, and
the Sea Islands, that lie between that
city and Charleston, were exposed to
the full fury of the tempest."
With less
steadiness this gale would have been
dangerous to life and property, but it
rose slowly, maintained its greatest velocity for some hours, and then gradually
subsided. The heel of the weathervane, veering slowly from the southeast
to the east, pointed in the direction of
the great disturbance, central in the
Bahamas, and heading for the Atlantic
coast. The gale that passed over Atlanta was rushing to that center and feeding the
tremendous hurricane that
swept up the South Atlantic coast during the night and fell upon the Sea
Islands.
II
A YEAR of storms! The August
hurricane - the October tornado that followed in the hurricane's
track - the October cyclone that swept down upon the Gulf coast! It is a record full of the
horror of death and devastation! Of the Gulf cyclone not much need
be said. It may be disposed of as it
disposed of its hundreds of victims,
briefly. It was the intention of this investigating expedition to treat of the
great Gulf whirlwind at some length -
to unravel some of the storm-twisted details - but little was left to treat of.
The record of the cyclone is as brief
as it is awful. It swept down upon
the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts
and the island homes of the fishermen,
wiped out the population, swallowed the boats and the luggers, stripped the land bare, and so disappeared. That is the whole story shorn of its
ghastly particulars.
Scarcely a bush or a tree
was left for charity to hang her gray
hood upon, and it is said of those who
were swift to carry succor there, that
they wandered about aimlessly in the
waste places, finding only a few lonely
and heart-broken young men to call
upon them for aid. The Chandeliers,
Cheniere Caminada, and Grand Island
were struck with the force and fury of
a titanic explosion, and when all was
over the few cripples that crawled from
the dire wreck, and the fewer who had saved themselves in rafts
or by clinging to trees, were not
able to bury the dead that lay in ghastly and festering heaps
around them. That is the brief
record of the storm. Even now,
those who have had an opportunity to measure its results,
say that in that region there has
never been anything comparable to this awful calamity since
the country was settled. It
stands unparalleled in its completeness. In the track of the cyclone
everything was wrecked. Nearly two
thousand people were killed and five
million dollars worth of property blown
as it were from the face of the earth. A
similar disaster on the Gulf coast caused the death of 286 persons, and six years ago 220 lives were
lost in the storm that struck Johnston's
Bayou. But in the October storm that
fell on the coast and islands of the region that lies between Lake Borgne
and the Gulf, 1,972 lives were lost.
"Two
thousand persons, the great majority
of them Negroes, were drowned or
killed on the night of the storm. The
others died from exposure, from a lack
of food, or from the malarial fever that
was epidemic on the islands during the
hot September days that succeeded the
disturbance."
One peculiarity of this storm was
that the aged, the very young, and the
infirm were all killed. The survivors
were young men in the vigor of manhood. Very few were seriously wounded, and hundreds were found
without
a bruise on their bodies. They were killed by the sheer pressure and fury of
the wind. In the settlements where
the storm was worst, not a single child
survived, and very few women. At Cheniere Caminada, opposite Grand
Island, 822 people perished. Of these
496 were children. From this one settlement 240 fishermen were lost at sea
in their boats - more than one thousand dead out of a community of 1,640 souls. There were 310 houses in the
settlement, and 3 were left standing.
At the Chandeliers, and in the center of
the storm - where 200 fishermen dwelt -
not a soul escaped.
The dead were buried in trenches,
where they were buried at all. In many
instances, the young men who survived
the shock of the storm were compelled
to bury the rest of their families. The
wind blew at the rate of 125 miles an
hour, and those who were exposed to
its fury needed to be robust indeed to
survive. Many died from the peculiar
nervous collapse that is the most vivid
- * experience of those who are caught in
a cyclone. One hundred and twenty
schooners and barges and 265 luggers were sunk.
Fortunately for the survivors, they
were in reach of immediate aid. They
lived near New Orleans, one of the richest and most charitable communities in
the country, a community in which the
organization of benevolence has reached
the highest point of efficiency. Relief
was instantly forthcoming; there was
not a moments delay. Before the violence of the sea had subsided the work
of charity had begun, and it was forwarded by the enterprise of the newspapers -
the Picayune and the Times Democrat - which sent relief boats to the
suffering survivors. Relief was as complete as it was prompt. The fishermen
are a hardy race that do not depend on
agriculture, and all they asked was a
few days grace to enable them to set
their tackle together.
III
And so, hearkening to the clamors in
behalf of the distressed, and following
the tide of relief that was beginning
to flow tardily in, investigation turned
its attention to the Sea Islands on the
South Atlantic coast; and it found
there, after painstaking exploration, a
situation that has probably never had a
counterpart at any previous time or in
any other region on this continent. But,
to be appreciated it must be described,
and to be described it must be approached as the Sea Islands themselves
are approached, by sinuous channels
that turn upon themselves and wind in
and out, and lead in unexpected directions. The facts of the situation do not
lie upon the surface.
The details that stand out most
sharply, and that form the basis of the
fragmentary information current along
the coast and among the Sea Islands, are
the extraordinary freaks of wind and wave. All are curious, and some are
even humorous. It seems to be a relief to those who are asked to tell about
the storm, to turn from the horrible
story of death, and wreck, and devastation, and recall some of the queer incidents of that dismal night. All the
reports of the great storm are of a
fragmentary character - almost as commonplace as taking a census, or as a
sum in subtraction. This report will
not be an exception. In order to present the situation, it will have to conform to the requirements of that situation. It will have to jump from one fact
to another, and return along a devious
way, and take up the thread of such a
narrative as can be woven out of the
tremendous jumble left by the storm.
But it should be said here, that the Scribner expedition had every means of
getting at the true condition of affairs
on the islands. It had advantages for
investigation that were not of the ordinary. Tug-boats and steam-launches
were placed at its disposal, and the people, as well as current events, seemed to
combine to forward its purpose.
IV
A
glance at a map of the Gull coast
will show that the Chandeliers, curving
outward, present a sort of barrier between the Gulf and Lake Borgne. The
fishermen on the Chandeliers perished - there were two hundred perched on that
lonely and insecure foothold - but it is
natural to presume that the reef, owing
to its position and formation, had some
influence in mitigating the force of the
inflowing tide. There was no such barrier between the August storm and the
Sea Islands on the South Atlantic coast.
These islands lie open to the sea, and
the wind struck the richest and most
thickly populated with full force and
fury. The islands that suffered most
lie between Port Royal and Charleston,
and it is on these that the eye of the
public has been turned since the first
intimations of the results of the August
storm.
The
formation - the contour of the
Sea Islands is peculiar. The sea has
crept in between them and the mainland
in the most wonderful way - sometimes
in the shape of a large river that is called
a creek, or in the shape of a sound that
is called a river; sometimes only a wide
and level marsh intervenes through
which are sinuous water-ways, known
only to the native boatmen. What the
lapping tide takes away from one shore
it gives to another, so that the islands
bear about the same relation toward
each other from age to age.
At the ancient town of Beaufort, one
is nearer to the group of islands devastated by the storm than at any other
point. The autumn days pass pleasantly at this old place. The midday
sun throws the shadows far northward,
but there is no sign of winter. The
summer foliage is still fresh and green,
and June seems to have taken the place
of November. But the lonely and far-reaching marshes, with their rank and
waving sedge, yellow as if waiting for
the sickle, give a somber touch to the
scene that does not belong to spring,
nor yet to summer. And the long gray
moss, streaming from the trees like
ghostly signals long hung out for succor unavailing, is another element that
subdues the mind and imparts a sense
of solemnity. The birds may sing never so blithely, the flowers bloom never
so gaily, and the sun shine never so
brightly, but they are all overshadowed
by the brown marshes, and by the gray
beards of these immemorial oaks.
All day long, the
Negroes go by in
their queer little two-wheeled carts,
each drawn by a diminutive steer or a
more diminutive donkey. All day long
the Negro pedestrians tramp back and
forth. All day long the Negro boatmen
shoot out from, or disappear in, the tall
marsh grass. There is not much noise
of vehicles; the sand prevents that.
There is not much noise from the passers-by or from the boats that flit in and
out the marsh grass. There is no loud
laughter on the streets; there are no
melodious songs wafted back from the
water.
The streets swarm with
Negroes, on
the sidewalks, in the middle way, and
on the corners. At the headquarters
of the Red Cross Society, which has in
hand the work of relief, they are huddled together until they block the way.
And yet there is no loud talking, no
loud laughter, no singing. The mind
resents this as unnatural. Where there are Negroes there ought to be noise,
surely there ought to be laughter and
song. What is the trouble? You look into these black faces and see it is not
sullenness. You note these quick
smiles and discover that it is not depression. If the puzzle brings a frown
to your face, as it did to mine, an old
Auntie will look at you steadily until she catches your eye, and then, dropping a courtesy, will exclaim: "You look worry, suh!"
And then,
when you turn to her for an explanation, "I bin worry myse'f, suh. Many time."
Whereupon you will be no longer
puzzled, for here is a type of Negro different from that of the upland regions -
a type that knows how to be good-humored without being boisterous, and
that has the rare gift of patience. Coming or going, men, women, and children
will pause to salute you, and their courtesy is neither familiar nor affected.
Their pensiveness fits in with the somber marshes and the gray moss that swings
solemnly from the trees.
"It is a great pity," says the oldest
inhabitant, waving his shining cane in
the air, that you could not have come
here before the storm struck this grove.
You see how the trees are stripped and
twisted."
At last your companion has hit upon
the matter that is uppermost in your
mind, and so, gently - very gently and
cautiously, for fear of a relapse - you lead
the genial old gentleman to forget about
the antiquity of the old fort and the
practical utility of Port Royal harbor - "the most magnificent that the flag can
claim, sir -" and tell you some of the
experiences of the August tornado; to
give you some idea of the horror and
confusion of that vast elemental disturbance; and to present to your mind a
clear outline of results.
But this seems to be out of the
question. The memory of the oldest inhabitant is more to be depended on in the
recital of events that have become matters of tradition. He gives you details
that bear no definite relation to the large
results. The storm blasted hundreds
of landmarks that were a part of his
daily associations. Curious incidents
occur to his mind. A lad clinging to an
overturned dredge for thirty-six hours,
finally gave up all hope and sank back
into the water. The tide brought him
twenty miles to Beaufort and landed him
in a pile of driftwood near his mother's
door, where he was found and, strange
to say, restored to life. Immense lighters employed in the phosphate business
were lifted out of the water and driven far on shore. The barometer on the tug
Weymouth dropped to 27.60 and stood
there quivering like the hammer of an
alarm-clock. Yes! and a great many Negroes were drowned - hundreds of
them, poor things!
The impression left seems to be as
vague and as shapeless as the tempest
was. Nevertheless, the more active and
alert representatives of the younger
generation have no advantage over the
oldest inhabitant in the matter of definite information. Nor have the newspaper correspondents, nor has any
living soul, so far as I have been able to
discover. There are those who know
what was and who know what is; but
between what was and what is lies the
awful cataclysm of the storm. The
curtains of the night flapped over it;
the cavernous clouds enveloped it; the
raging tempest drowned it; the thundering tide covered it. The leaf from
the tree, the ship from the sea, and man
that was set to rule over all, became
companion atoms, and all were caught
by the storm and hurled into chaos. And
when the morning dawned, and the tide
fell, and the sun shone serenely over the
scene of wreck and devastation, there
was none left to tell the definite story
of the hurricane on the Sea Islands.
There is none to tell it today.
V
The oldest inhabitant is able to
remember some very severe storms, but
not such another year of storms. He is able to measure the intervals that
have elapsed between these disturbances, and from this measurement he
has constructed the comfortable theory
that after every severe storm there
must be a peaceful interlude of ten or
fifteen years. But to-day, as he stands
in the bright sunshine, the solemn mystery of the marshes. stretching away
before him as far as the eye can reach,
he shakes his head sadly, and digs his
cane feebly into the sand. His theory
has been blown northeastward into the
sea, and it is no wonder he sighs as he
walks by your side and points to signs
of the storms devastation that might
otherwise escape the eye of a stranger.
A house was here or a cabin. Near by
a shoal of dead bodies had been seen
drifting along, or were washed ashore.
Here was where a magnificent dock and
warehouse stood, but there is nothing
now to mark its site except a few scattered piles which, at low tide, are important only as showing the
architectural ability of the teredo, the insect
that eats them away. But the oldest
inhabitant has no appreciation of the
ability of the teredo. He lifts his
shaggy brows when you ask about it,
and dismisses the wonderful little worker in wood with a wave of the hand.
All around, and for miles and miles,
farther than the eye can reach, as far
as a shore bird can fly, the results of the
storm lie scattered. Here a house has
staggered upon its end, there a boat has
been flung into the arms of a live oak,
and yonder a phosphate dredge, weighing hundreds of tons, has been lifted
from the water and turned completely
over; here a magnificent grove of live
oaks has been uprooted; there a broad-beamed lighter has been lifted across
the marshes; and yonder hundreds of
tons of marsh sedge have been spread
over arable land.
The old man casts his eyes seaward
across the long stretch of marshes that
lead to the inland shore of St. Helena.
A small column of smoke stands out
against the sky, and seems to be fixed
there. "The poor things!" he sighs. "They are trying to burn the marsh
sedge off their potato patches."
Then he grows reminiscent. He has
heard his father tell of the great storm
of 1804, which began on the morning
of the 8th of September and raged
until ten o'clock at night. Hundreds
of Negroes in the islands were drowned.
Eighteen vessels were destroyed in the
harbor of Savannah, and several large
boats were wrecked. The devastation
on the Sea Islands and all along the
South Atlantic coast was terrible, but
the story of the storm lost something
of its horror because there were no
lines of communication by which the
details could be gathered. They became known little by little, and so lost
something of their force and effect.
In 1830 a storm curved in from the
sea, striking the coast above Cape Hatteras and doing great damage to shipping. On September 10, 1854, a storm
of great violence passed over Savannah
and the Sea Islands, devastating the
whole coast region. The yellow fever
was raging in Savannah at the time,
and the storm was accompanied by a
tidal wave that carried destruction with
it and left pestilence in its wake.
In 1873, a violent storm passed
between Cape Hatteras and the Bermudas,
striking the northern coast in the neighborhood of Nova Scotia and seriously
crippling the fishing industries of the
United States and Canada. Twelve
hundred and twenty-three vessels were
lost in this storm. In 1881 a storm
passed over the Sea Island region and
northwestward into Minnesota, pursuing a very unusual course. A tidal
wave accompanied the storm, and more
than four hundred persons lost their
lives.
On these dates, the oldest inhabitant
had formulated his storm-period theory.
Every tenth year he expected a storm.
If it failed then it was sure to come on
the twentieth year. And the theory
has had full confirmation in experience
until 1893, when the storm period was
reduced to a few brief weeks. There is
nothing for the oldest inhabitant to do
but to shake his head sadly, as much as
to say the times are out of joint, and
tell you of the more eccentric features
of the storm that is newest in his experience, the storm that has
caused more suffering
and loss of life than any
that has preceded it.
VI
The August hurricane
was not unexpected. In
fact it had been heralded,
and for at least three days
before it made its appearance warnings had been
given. The Weather Bureau, sensitive to such disturbances, had
found it in West Indian waters, and so
the announcement went forth that a
storm was forming in the neighborhood
of St. Thomas. Next day the bulletins
stated that the disturbance near St.
Thomas had moved slowly westward.
The day after came the announcement
that the West Indian storm, after moving to the west and then to the south,
had turned and was heading directly
for the South Atlantic coast.
How aptly these announcements
would fit the mad antics of some wild
and terrible monster! It is found roaring and wallowing in its tropical pasture. It runs westward, and
then southward, feeding and gathering strength as
it goes. Then turning about, it rushes
furiously northwestward, carrying terror before it, and leaving death and destruction in its path. One of its wings
touched Brunswick, a city already
stricken with the yellow plague, but the
touch was light. Savannah was more
directly in the path of the storm, and
the Sea Islands, that lie between that
city and Charleston, were exposed to
the full fury of the tempest. And the
winds fell upon them as if trying to
tear the earth asunder, and the rains
beat upon them as if to wash them away,
and the tide rose and swept over them
twelve feet above high-water mark. Pitiable as the story is, it may be condensed into a few words: near three
thousand people drowned, between
twenty and thirty thousand human beings without means of subsistence, their
homes destroyed, their little crops ruined, and their boats blown away.
The tangled thunders of chaos shook
the foundation of things. The bellowing waters of the sea leapt up and mingled with the shrieking spirits of the air.
Out of the seething depths disaster sprung, and out of the roaring heavens
calamity fell. No just and reasonable
estimate of the loss of life on these islands has been made. The adjacent
coast was prompt to tell of its losses
over the long tongue of the telegraph.
Its dead were known and identified. Its
searching-parties found them out. Its
tugs and launches brought them ashore.
But the Sea Islands were dumb, and
they are dumb to this day. When the
tide was friendly, it carried their dead
ashore, or lodged them in the rank
marsh sedge, but when the tide was
careless it drifted the bodies seaward.
In one little corner of St. Helena, the
coroner inspected eighty bodies that had
been thrown ashore, and then went on
about his business. Some were known,
but a great many were not identified and
never will be. All about the channels
and through the boatways in the waving marsh-grass, the bodies of the unknown drifted, and some floated miles
away. Some had their clothes torn
from them, mute witnesses of the fury
of the tornado. All this is to be heard
away from the islands. The islands themselves have not spoken, and they
will not speak. Gentle, patient, smiling, and good-humored, the Negroes have no complaints to
make. They discuss the storm among themselves, but
not in a way to impart much information to a white listener. They speak in monosyllables. They strip
phrases to
the bone and get to the core of words.
Their shyness is pathetic, and their
smiling patience is in the nature of a
perpetual appeal to those who come in
contact with them.
"Were many lives lost around
here?"
an old man was asked. He stood with
his hands folded in front of him and
his eyes seeking the ground. If he had
held his faded and flabby hat in his
hands his attitude would have been that
of the peasant in Millets picture of the
Angelus. He stood stock-still, his bare
feet placed close together.
"He gone deaf,
suh," said a woman
standing near. She touched him gently on the arm, and instantly he was alert. The
question was repeated. "Were many lives lost around here?"
"Oh, yes, suh; 'bunnunce!" His
voice sounded as if it came from far
away.
"How many?"
"One, two, t'ree -" he held up the
fingers of one thin hand. "Mebby se'm.
Mebby l'em. Enty?" He turned to
the woman to confirm his figures, but
she merely smiled. "We no count dem," he went on, shaking his head and
shutting his eyes. "Dee gone!"
Then the old man relapsed into his
former attitude. His eyes sought the
ground, his hands clasped in front of
him, his bare feet close together. The woman who had spoken for him
formed part of a little group standing
near. She was rubbing the head of a
four-year-old pickaninny.
"How many children have you?"
she was asked.
"Tree, suh. Two boy; one lil' gal."
"Were any of them drowned?"
"How dee gwan drown, suh?" she answered, laughing. The
intonation of
her voice was indescribable. "I up'd
de tree," she said, after a pause, with a
gesture that explained how she saved
them. "Dee choke - dee strankle - I up'd de tree!" The woman turned and
pointed to another woman who was
standing apart by the waters edge, looking out over the lonely marshes. "She
los' dem chillun, suh. She have trouble."
And so it turned out. This woman,
standing apart, as lonely as the never-ending marshes, had lost three children.
She had five. In the fury and confusion
of the storm, she had managed to get
them all in a tree. The foundations of
this place of refuge were sapped, and
the tree gave way before the gale,
plunging the woman and her children
into the whirling flood. Three were
swept from under her hands out into
the marsh, into the estuary, and so into
the sea. They were never seen any
more. She had nothing to add to this
story as brief as it is tragic. One mo
ment she had five children clinging to
her, in another moment there were only
two. The angry winds and the hungry
waters had torn them from her and
swept them out of hearing before they
could utter a cry. But what this wom
an said did not run in the direction of
grief. "I glad to God I got two lil'
one lef'." After all, the woman had
reason to be glad. Pathetic as her own
story was, it was not as touching as another that she told of a neighboring
family. She showed where the house
had stood, but there was nothing to
mark its site, save a blackened stone
that had lain in the fireplace. Every
other vestige of the cabin, and of the
other cabins that had clustered near,
was swept away.
"T'irteen in de house,
suh," the woman said, "I call dem w'en I run. I call
dem an' run. If dee make answer, I no
yeddy dem. Dee gone!"
An entire family swept away, and
their friends and neighbors too busy
with their own troubles to grieve after
them, unless, indeed, a keen ear might
catch a note of sorrow in the plaintive
voice that told the story.
VII
But this is not even the beginning.
It hardly gives an intimation of the
worst. The great trouble about these
islands is the lack of communication.
On the 30th of August, two days after
the storm, not a word had come from
the Sea Islands, and it was only through
the adventurous energy of a newspaper
reporter from Atlanta, that the public
knew of the condition of Beaufort and
Port Royal on that day. On the first
of September, four days after the storm,
there were vague hints of the condition of the islands. Beaufort and Port
Royal, while engaged in rescuing their
own dead from the tide, found the bodies of strangers among the rest. Two
of these were identified as Negroes living on the farther side of Ladies Island, and another was thought to be
the body of a woman from Coosaw. Still
there was no definite information.
But on September
2nd, Charleston
heard a part of the dismal story, and on
the same day the people of Beaufort and
Port Royal awoke to the fact that, severe
as their own trouble was, the trouble
on the Sea Islands was greater. A demand for instant relief came from these
settlements, and the demand was the
more imperative because of its plaintive
ness. It was the more urgent because
of the knowledge of the whites of the
exposed situation of the islands that
faced the open sea. Prompt measures
were taken, but, in the very nature of
the case, they could bear no proportionate relation to the demand that was made
on the zeal, energy, and benevolence of
those who, before slavery was abolished,
held themselves responsible for the safety and well-being of the Negroes on the
islands, and who, in some sort, still feel
the pressure of the old habit of responsibility.
Relief would have been inadequate if
it had been on a much larger scale than
the adjacent communities could afford.
It would have been tardy if it had been
undertaken the day after the storm. But
the work was undertaken as soon as possible and went as far as it could go. At
the very best, the lack of communication is remarkable. No other portion
of the continent is more secure in its
isolation. Doubtless the tax-collector
visits the islands - he goes everywhere;
perhaps a pension agent is to be found
there occasionally, for there are pensioners on the Sea Islands; but, practically, the people are isolated. They come
to market in their little boats, but they
have no regular channels of communication. Their coming and going is
intermittent. If a stranger wants to visit
the islands he must depend on a happy
chance, and if he is in a hurry he will go
away without seeing them. This was so
before the August storm, and it will be
so when the storm has become a tradition.
But on the day after the hurricane,
and for days that must have seemed an
age to the Negroes on the wind-torn and tide swept islands, there were no possible means of communication. The little boats of the
Negroes had been blown
away; the tugs and launches in and
around Charleston, Beaufort, and Port
Royal were driven ashore or temporarily disabled; a clean sweep had been
made of all the craft that are available
on ordinary occasions. It is said that
the first information of the real condition of the islands was brought to Beaufort by two
Negroes in a boat, one rowing and the other bailing; and only
men impelled by dire necessity would
have dared to venture across from one
island to another in such a disabled
canoe.
VIII
It has been said of the Gulf storm
that it is unparalleled in its terrible
completeness. It should be said of
this South Atlantic hurricane that it is
the most disastrous that ever visited
this coast. It struck helplessness where
it was weak. It is not to be measured
by the destruction to life which it
caused, though that was something terrible, but by the suffering which has
followed.
It is
estimated - and the estimate is
not in the nature of a rough guess -
that two thousand five hundred lives
were lost in the islands and on the adjacent coast. The truth would not be
missed very far if the number were
placed at three thousand. Not all of
those were lost in the storm. Two
thousand persons, the great majority
of them Negroes, were drowned or
killed on the night of the storm. The
others died from exposure, from a lack
of food, or from the malarial fever that
was epidemic on the islands during the
hot September days that succeeded the
disturbance.
This epidemic originated from two causes - from the stench of bodies buried hastily in shallow graves where the
tide could uncover them - and from
the stagnant pools of water left when
the high tide receded. The wells on
the islands were filled with sea-water.
The first reports of the dead left un
buried were exaggerated.
The Negroes
were quick to bury their dead, but the
work was necessarily hurried, for there
was a great deal of it to be done. But
they have a superstition or belief -
these island Negroes - that is tersely
expressed in one of their childish
rhymes - "Die by water,
Lie by water."
That is to say, those who are drowned
should be buried as near to the water
as possible. In their haste they buried
many where the tide could uncover
them, and the exposure of these added
to the epidemic.
Surgeon Magruder, of the Marine
Hospital, who inspected the sanitary
condition of the largest of the islands
during the first weeks after the storm,
reports that three thousand seven hundred and nine cases of sickness were
treated, of which two thousand five
hundred and forty-two were malarial
fever. This report covers only eight of
the islands. The same condition existed on all the islands.
There was a windfall for St. Helena.
The storm brought close to its shores
the wreck of the City of Savannah.
When the passengers and crew were
rescued, the Negroes seized upon the
stores that had been left, and surely
Providence never poured timelier gifts
into the laps of the needy. Almost out
of reach of relief, many of these Negroes must have perished but for this succor,
sent them on the wings of the storm
that had stripped them of their small
possessions. But the wreck was a
bone that was soon picked. Its stores
were but a mouthful as compared with
the needs of the population.
It has been estimated that at least
thirty thousand people were left practically homeless and in need of relief by
the storm. I cannot vouch for this estimate, but it has not been challenged.
It is made by those who have made a
thorough canvass of all the islands exposed to the storm. But let us give
cold doubt the benefit of its prudence
a prudence that is frequently untimely;
let us say that there are twenty thousand Negroes on the Sea Islands whose
possessions were destroyed by the hurricane - twenty thousand who stand in
need of relief; is not this something
for the benevolent to think about, even
now?
Bear in mind that relief in this
in
stance means not a momentary ebullition of benevolence, but the actual
means of subsistence for a period covering several months. The Negroes have lost not their possessions alone,
but their growing crops. When the
storm swooped down upon them they
were just getting ready to market their cotton - the famous Sea Island cotton
that enters into the manufacture of the
finer grades of goods - they were just
getting ready to dig their sweet potatoes. But the wind whipped their cotton out of the bolls and off the stalks,
the salt sea-water rose and ruined their
potatoes; and wind and sea carried
away their boats; so that relief, in order
to be at all effective, must carry these
practically helpless Negroes over the
period that lies between two crops.
And there comes into the calculation
this additional problem - to what extent
has the deluge of salt-water destroyed
the productive capacity of the land?
All these things are to be considered,
and the Red Cross Society is engaged
in considering them.
To provide for the pressing and immediate wants of twenty or thirty
thousand people from the first of September
to the end of February, a period of six
months; to give them subsistence without making beggars or drones of them;
that is the task to which the Red Cross
Society has set itself. It is a task so
noble in its conception and purpose that
it ought to attract the sympathetic attention of the American people; for its
success depends wholly on those who
have the will and the means to fill the
hands of the little band which, marching under the flag of the Red Cross, is
devoting itself with an unselfishness
that involves the sacrifice of all personal
comfort, and with a zeal that is beyond
all praise, to the work of relieving the
victims of the storm.
Until now I have not mentioned,
except incidentally, the Red Cross Society,
of which Miss Clara Barton is president.
The work of that organization, the methods it has employed, and the results it
has wrought out of resources the most
slender, will be fully set forth in another
article. But meanwhile, before that
article can appear - even before this can
be printed - it is to be feared that the
apathy of the public will have cut down
the means of the Society to a limit too
pitiful to think about. These means
were pitifully narrow in November, and
at that time the flood-tide of public benevolence was flowing in to aid Miss Barton's Society. The newspapers were
devoting columns to the necessities of
the storm sufferers, and one enterprising journal, the New York World, had
chartered a railway train to convey sup
plies to the coast. From every quarter
came food, clothing, tools. The sympathy of the public had been thoroughly
aroused.
But there were from twenty to thirty
thousand people to be tided over the
winter months and into the spring. Recognizing this fact, Miss Barton and
her assistants adopted from the very
first the most rigid system of economy
a system far more efficacious in the
end than any lavish dispensation of charity could have been. A peck of grits
and a pound of pork - these are the rations for a family of six. They seem at
first thought to be a poor excuse for
charity, and the Negro who goes after
them in his little ox-cart most likely
takes them away with a disappointed look on his face, glancing back at the
little bundles as he drives along, or shaking his head
doubtfully as he measures their weight by lifting them in
his hand. "Mockin' bud been eat mo' dun dat!" He
remembered the days when the Government poured out its
bounty through the Freedman's Bureau.
But a peck of
grits and a pound of pork mean something more than
momentary relief - something more than mere charity. They
mean that the head of a family which has to depend on them
for a week's subsistence must bestir himself; that he must
catch fish to go with the rations; that, in short, he is
not to eat the bread of idleness. This rigid economy on
the part of the Red Cross Society grows out of the
necessities of the situation, and is not intended
primarily to spur the needy ones to provide for
themselves. It is a pinching policy that does not, I
imagine, commend itself very heartily to the approval of
Miss Barton, except as a measure of absolute necessity
that looks carefully to the future. But those who have
seen measures of relief misdirected and private bounty
mismanaged, will recognize in this economy of the Red
Cross Society, a wise administration of the resources that
benevolent people have placed at the disposal of those who
were despoiled by the storm. For surely that measure of
relief is wise (whether dictated by necessity or by
experience) that prevents those whom it succors from
sitting in idleness to be maintained by charity, public or
private.
In
November the Red Cross Society had barely completed its
work of organizing relief for the suffering and destitute
on the Sea Islands. Compared with the demands made upon
it, the Society's resources were small, and the fear -
which may have developed into absolute certainty by the
time these pages go to the public - was that they would
grow smaller and smaller as the cold weather came on. Miss
Barton's last word to inc was to ask that an appeal be
made to benevolent people throughout the country, to the
end that the resources at the command of the Red Cross
Society may not be sensibly diminished by reason of the
increased demands made upon them in the winter months, and
to the end that, at least by the first of April, these
unfortunate Negroes, despoiled by wind and tide, may be
placed securely on their feet, as nearly independent as
they were the day before the storm.
I went to the
Sea Islands with no prejudice against the Red Cross
Society, but certainly with no prepossession in its favor.
I had pictured it in my mind as a sort of fussy and
contentious affair, running about with a tremendous amount
of chatter and flourishing a great deal of red tape - a
sort of circumlocution office, situated in the air between
individual officiousness and
newspaper notoriety.
As a matter of
fact, the Red Cross Society as I saw it at Beaufort is
something entirely different from any other
relief organization that has come under my observation.
Its strongest and most admirable feature is its extreme
simplicity. The perfection of its machinery is shown by
the apparent absence of all machinery. There are no
exhibitions of self-importance. There is no display -no
torturous cross-examination of applicants - no needless
delay. And yet nothing is done blindly, or hastily, or
indifferently.
This poor
little tribute to Miss Clara Barton I want to pay in
heartily seconding her appeal to the benevolence of the
whole country to aid her in carrying out her work on the
Sea Islands. Such aid will be more important in the last
days of her mission than it was when the sympathies of the
public had been touched by the awful story of the disaster
that went tingling over the wires on the last day of
August.
The year of our Lord eighteen
hundred and ninety-three will long be remembered as the year of storms.
Inland gales rose and blew furiously
southward. Cyclones rushed out of
the tropics and raged northward. Hurricanes plunged through the Mexican
Gulf and shook the southern region. Tornadoes crashed along the Atlantic
coast, carrying death and destruction
with them. The memory of the oldest
inhabitant fails him when he tries to
recall such another year of storms.
The records show no parallel to it.
And the storms themselves have wrought
unprecedented destruction to life and
property. 
A YEAR of storms! The August
hurricane - the October tornado that followed in the hurricane's
track - the October cyclone that swept down upon the Gulf coast! It is a record full of the
horror of death and devastation! Of the Gulf cyclone not much need
be said. It may be disposed of as it
disposed of its hundreds of victims,
briefly. It was the intention of this investigating expedition to treat of the
great Gulf whirlwind at some length -
to unravel some of the storm-twisted details - but little was left to treat of.
The record of the cyclone is as brief
as it is awful. It swept down upon
the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts
and the island homes of the fishermen,
wiped out the population, swallowed the boats and the luggers, stripped the land bare, and so disappeared. That is the whole story shorn of its
ghastly particulars.
The yellow fever
was raging in Savannah at the time,
and the storm was accompanied by a
tidal wave that carried destruction with
it and left pestilence in its wake.