The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-11-04

OF the night, numbing chill followed, and
the water-soaked group crawled over dead
bodies and hot sands to the only blazing
building in all the waste about them
Groups of dead were found within stone s
throw of the water. Families rushed down
ward for breathing place had been blown
npon by the rushing blasts and struck life
less. The CHASTITY throng huddled, Shrek
ing and bewailing, about the flaring embers
and the terrible roll of the missing was
soon called from end to end of the ashen
waste. No vestige of human habitation
remained, and the streaming, freezing,
wretched, group, crazed by the unuttera-
BILE terror and despair, pleaded with each
other to restore the lost ones. The hot
blasts of the night blinded them, and they
could but vaguely recognize one another
in the murky light of the new day.
AFTER THE CONFEDERATION.
Long after the flames had died out, when
there was no more to feed on, the hot sands
rendered moving about an exquisite torture
and long into the dismal midday the survi-
vors were confined to the narrow circuit
near the river. AS the day wore on help
came in slowly from the northward. Sew
eral railroad gangs had escaped annihila-
tion, and one gang, led by an expire
fighter named Mulligan, came with promp-
ness and efficiency to the rescue through
miles of burning prairie and bleckaded
roads. On Sunday night something over
1000 people were assembled within the
confines of this industrious, prosperous
city; the dreadful morning light came upon
a haggard, maniacal multitude of less than
700. When the work of rescue began it
was found that a great number had escaped
by the bed of the river and the northern
road to the port, and, as the day advanced.
halfnaked stragglers, unkempt and black
ened, began to stream into the sparse set
Element AS the molten sands cooled off
the woful work of recognition began. Peer
ing into blackened faces, mothers, fathers.
brothers tremblingly sought out missing
faces.
Some, in tine Unreasonable anguish of
the moment, had dashed themselves against
the sands and let out the life with their
own hands that the licking flames coveted.
Men, too distant from the river to hope for
rescue or safety, had cut the Threats of
their choking children, and were found in
groups sometimes unscarred by the flames.
In the streets full twenty corpses were
found with no apparent injury or abrasion.
Fatuous tradesmen, in the sudden rush of
flame, had thrown their valuables into
wells for security; every we'll in the city
was turned into flaming pit, and the very
waters half evaporated by the heat. Sur
vivors attest that women and children, cut
off from the rivers, were put into wells and
covered with bedding. have looked into
every we'll in the ash, covered clearing, and
there is no possibility that Il living thing
could have endured the flames that boiled
and seethed in them.
For hours the unreasoning search was
continued by the famished-dyi remnants.
but to little avail; the dead when recog-
nizable lay where they had fallen in the
streets; where the houses stood the ground
was whipped clean as carpet, and all hope
of identifying human ashes was idle. The
next night the long-prayed for rain came,
gratefully to the living, and kindly to the
fleeting ashes of the dead. The great dread
that lowered over the bay cities and towns
was allayed, and the threatened danger
nearly gone. Before dark help came to the
perishing sufferers from the neighboring
villages. The wounded were taken by boat
to Green Bay, whence some were forward
ed to Milwaukee.