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In chapters I-III of his work, McCullough describes the many different factors that led to the Johnstown Flood, setting up his depiction of the chaos of the events of the flood itself in chapters IV-VI. Because he takes so much care to set the scene for this disaster early on, McCullough is free to jump around from individual account to individual account when describing the events of the flood. These vignettes are more compelling to me than a single, dry description of the flood’s path of destruction. I found myself rooting for figures like Plummer and his brother, who sacrificed their jobs in defying and gouging Hess and sounding the train’s whistle (115), and mentally scolding Samuel S. Miller for abandoning his post and the passengers on his train, an act McCullough describes as “a good deal less coolheaded and quite a lot more human” (125).
While I don’t know that I would go as far as to say that McCullough’s “historical authenticity is questionable,” as Price argues, I definitely agree that McCullough’s style has a few major drawbacks. I was particularly frustrated with a few of the photos and drawings McCullough chose to include at the end of Chapter IV. McCullough does not provide a satisfying amount of context alongside each image the way a formal essay might. For example, McCullough includes an image of a dead body in trapped in the wreckage of the flood and claims it was fake (137). Here he implies that the photographers staged a photo, but he does not explain why a photographer might have done this—a question that I think would reveal a great deal about the public’s conception of the flood. McCullough sacrifices in-depth analysis for a flowing and captivating narrative. While I wish to defend McCullough’s historical authenticity, I do question his writing style since it leaves out information I think might be helpful to his readers (although admittedly, McCullough does not purport to explain sensationalist reactions to the flood in these chapters, and he does provide some analysis elsewhere).