The New York Times reported the following day, "On the night of June 15, 1904, grief-crazed crowds lined the shore where the bodies Telephone Number List were being brought in by the boatload. Scores were prevented from throwing themselves into the river." The police released a report a few days later claiming that 1,031 people had perished in the Telephone Number List General Slocum fire. For the next few weeks, police divers searched for bodies in the partially sunk remains of General Slocum. Police and rescue parties scoured the Telephone Number List banks of the river for miles in both directions looking for bodies.
On the night of the fire, scores of husbands came home from work only to discover that their entire families had perished in the fire. Some committed suicide, others went mad, and some later died of grief. For three days, hearses Telephone Number List transversed the streets of Little Germany carrying bodies, and parts of bodies, to their Telephone Number List graves in Lutheran Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens. A federal grand jury indicted eight people as a Telephone Number List result of the disaster. Those people included Captain Van Schaick, two boat inspectors, and the president, secretary, treasurer, and commodore of the Knickerbocker Telephone Number List Steamship Company. However, only Captain Van Schaick was convicted at trial.
The charges the Captain was convicted on were criminal negligence, failing to maintain proper fire drills and fire extinguishers. There was a Telephone Number List hung jury on the manslaughter charge. Captain Van Schaick was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The Captain served three and a half years at Sing Sing Prison before he received parole. On August 26, 1911, the administration of President William Howard Taft voted to release Telephone Number List Captain Van Schaick from parole. And on December 19, 1912, President Telephone Number List Taft pardoned the Captain. Captain Van Schaick died in 1927.