ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS, MAP, AND DRAWINGS

It was to be a day of summer fun, the seventeenth annual excursion of St Mark's Lutheran Church to a picnic grove on Long Island. There were some men aboard, but since it took place on a Wednesday, most of the excursionists were women and children. Band playing, children dancing, onlookers waving, they left the Third Street pier at 9:40 am aboard the gleaming white side-wheeler General Slocum.

Less than one hour later, the vessel was a smoldering wreck, and 1,021 merrymakers were scorched and drowning-victims of one of the most appalling disasters in maritime histroy. Lifeboats that could not be moved, life belts that were nailed fast to the overhead by rusty wire netting or whose cork was so old and decayed that those who wore them were dragged down, lack of fire drills, lack of a trained crew-all these played their part in the horror.

A life long interest in the subject, plus ten years of intensive research, prompted the author to resurrect the story of the Slocum. How and why the catastrophe came about; the parts played by neglect, avarice, stupidity, and laziness; who were the victims and how they suffered; rescue efforts and what happened afterward-these are the subjects of this taut and dramatic account of a disaster classic.