THE GREAT STRIKE.
Harper's WeeklyAugust 11,
1877
Illustrations May Be Found At The End Of This Article
THE reign of terror inaugurated by the railroad strikers in
Baltimore on the morning of the 16th of July, is unexampled in
the history of strikes in this country. Scenes of riot and bloodshed
accompanied it such as we have never before witnessed in the uprising
of labor against capital. Commerce has been obstructed, industries
have been paralyzed, hundreds of lives sacrificed, and millions
of dollars' worth of property destroyed by lawless mobs. The story
of theft and fire and slaughter is but imperfectly told in the
brief space at our command, but the illustrations by our artists
present a pictorial view of the chief scenes in this terrific
conflict, more vivid and striking than any thing that could be
conveyed in mere words.
The origin of the first outbreak, as stated in our news column
of last week, was the refusal of the firemen and brakemen on the
freight trains of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to submit to
a further reduction of ten per cent. from their wages. On the
morning of July 16 forty men in Baltimore left their trains and
joined in a strike. As soon as this became known there was an
immense number of applicants for the vacant positions, and the
company had no difficulty in filling vacancies, generally with
experienced men who had been for some time out of employment.
But the strikers would not permit them to work. Assembling at
Camden Junction, about three miles from the city, they stopped
the trains, and refused to allow them to be run either way. The
news spread with the rapidity of lightning, and soon the disaffection
had reached Martinsburg, West Virginia. The men at that point,
numbering about 100, left their trains in the evening, and forcibly
prevented new hands from starting the cars. The railroad company
appealed to the Governor of West Virginia for help, and in response
seventy-five men of the Berkeley Light Infantry Guards, under
command of Colonel FAULKNER, were sent
the next morning to Martinsburg. Here the first conflict with
the military took place. Captain FAULKNER'S
company was deployed on both sides of a train which was about
starting, an engineer and fireman having volunteered to work.
As the train reached the switch, one of the strikers, WILLIAM
VANDERGRIFF, seized the switch ball to
run the train on the side track. JOHN POISAL, a member of the militia company, jumped
from the pilot of the engine and attempted to replace the switch.
VANDERGRIFF fired two shots at POISAL,
one causing a slight flesh-wound on the side of the head. POISAL returned the fire, shooting VANDERGRIFF
through the hip. Several other shots were fired at VANDERGRIFF,
striking him on the head and arm. When the firing was heard, a
very large crowd of railroaders and citizens collected, and the
feeling became intense. The volunteering engineer and fireman
of the train ran off as soon as the shooting began. Captain FAULKNER then made the statement that he had
performed his duty, and if the trainmen deserted their posts,
he could do nothing more. The militia company was therefore marched
to their armory and ingloriously disbanded, leaving the rioters
in possession of the field, and the road blocked up with standing
trains on the sidings. From this point the movement quickly spread
westward to Wheeling, on the main stem, and also on the Parkersburg
branch. The strike having assumed such character and proportions
in West Virginia that it could not be suppressed by the State
authorities, Governor MATTHEWS evoked the
aid of the national government. President HAYES
responded promptly, issuing a proclamation ordering the rioters
to disperse, and sending 250 regular troops, under General FRENCH, to Martinsburg and other points of disturbance.
This force reached Martinsburg early on the morning of the l9th,
armed with Springfield rifles and three Gatling guns. They found
1500 freight cars and 13 locomotives blocked on the side tracks
in and about the town. Under the protection of the regular troops
two freight trains were sent out from Martinsburg that day without
bloodshed, one going east and the other west. Both went through
in safety.
Thus the blockade at Martinsburg was partially relieved, but
the strike was not ended. Indeed, it was barely begun; and before
night-fall of the 10th it had become general, crossing the Ohio
River, and extending as far west as Chicago. At Newark and Columbus,
Ohio, freight trains were stopped by the strikers, and the wires
west of Martinsburg were cut. Nor was the strike confined to one
great road and its extended branches. On the morning of the 10th,
the Pennsylvania Railroad freight men struck at Pittsburgh, giving
as a reason that the company had doubled the number of cars on
each train without increasing the number of the crew, and had
also more than doubled the distance. At the morning call several
freight conductors and brakemen refused to work, and assembling,
to the number of a hundred or more in the freight yard, stopped
every train that attempted to move. About a dozen cattle trains
at the East Liberty stock yards were also stopped. At midnight
fully 1400 men had gathered in the two yards, and 1500 cars were
standing on the sidings, 200 of which contained perishable goods.
The next day was a bloody one in the history of the strike
on the Baltimore and Ohio road. The blockade at Martinsburg had
been raised, and trains were again running both ways under the
protection of the national troops. But on the afternoon of the
20th, word reached Baltimore that all the freight trains leaving
Martinsburg that day were stopped at Cumberland, and the crews
taken from them by the strikers. Governor CARROLL
at once issued a proclamation and ordered out the State militia.
The sound of the fire-bells summoning the men to their amories
created the wildest excitement. Baltimore and other streets of
the city had been crowded during the day with throngs of citizens,
anxiously watching the bulletin-boards at the different newspaper
offices and discussing the situation. As the alarm pealed forth,
the crowds made their way toward the armories of the different
regiments. That of the Sixth is at Front and Fayette streets,
and in a neighborhood which is inhabited by the poorer classes,
and much of the rough element frequents it. Within half an hour
after the call had been sounded, a crowd numbering at least 2000
men, women, and children surrounded the armory and loudly expressed
their feelings against the military and in favor of the strikers.
At half past seven the streets leading to the armory were crowded
with a struggling, shouting, and cursing mob. The sight of a man
in uniform endeavoring to get into the building was the signal
for an outbreak, and he was rushed upon, seized, and thrown over
a bridge into Jones's Fallsa stream which runs through that
section of the city. Others were thrown over the heads of the
surging mass, and were glad to escape with slight injuries. At
this juncture some one threw a brick at the soldier on guard at
the door of the armory. This was a signal for a perfect shower
of missiles, which soon destroyed the windows and doors of the
building and injured some of the men. It was suggested by some
of the officers that a bayonet charge would compel the mob to
retire, but the suggestion was not acted upon by the colonel,
who ordered the guards withdrawn from the door, under the impression
that it would serve to quiet the mob.
On the contrary, this action was received with shouts of derision
and triumph by the crowd, who continued to hurl bricks and stones
and fire pistols at the doors and windows of the armory. The whole
available police force of the district was promptly concentrated
at this spot, but was utterly powerless to quell the tumult, which
increased each moment. At 8:15 P.M. the
preliminaries for leaving the armory were concluded, and Colonel
PETERS decided to march his command to
Camden Station, where they had been ordered to report by General
HERBERT. The men were each supplied with
twenty rounds of cartridges, and armed with breech-loading Springfield
rifles. They numbered about one hundred and fifty men, and marched
out with loaded pieces. The only means of exit was by a door which
only admitted of their passing out by twos. As they reached this
door the order was given, "Stoop down, boys!" which
had hardly been uttered when their appearance was greeted with
a renewed shower of missiles, interspersed with shots from revolvers
and other small-arms. At first the citizen soldiery wavered, but
promptly responding to the commands of their officers, they marched
solidly out into the street, pressing before them the shouting,
infuriated mob. As they filed in a westerly direction across the
bridge over Jones's Falls, the crowd pressed upon them, and continued
to assail them. The sight of one of their number stricken down
with a paving-stone caused some of the members of the regiment
to fire into the crowd. The first volley consisted of but a few
straggling shots, but had the effect of causing the crowd to fall
back toward Gay Street. At the corner of Gay and Front streets
shots were again exchanged. When the troops turned into Baltimore
Street, one block south of, Front, the firing increased. At the
corner of Halliday Street and Baltimore, and in the blocks in
Baltimore between Halliday and Calvert streets, where all the
newspaper offices are situated, the volleys were continuous, and
the scene was one never before equaled in that city. Stores were
hastily closed, and frightened citizens speedily betook themselves
to back streets. The regiment proceeded to Howard Street, through
which it marched to Camden Station.
The Fifth Regiment was also attacked on its way to the depot,
but no shots were fired by the soldiers in return. The number
known to have been killed by the fire of the Sixth Regiment was
nine, and many were wounded, some of whom were innocent spectators
who had joined the crowd to see what was going on. At about ten
o'clock at night the rioters at the Camden Station, where the
two regiments were quartered, set fire to three cars attached
to an engine, and soon afterward the south end of the passenger
platform was also seen to be on fire, but the firemen extinguished
the flames before the main building was reached.
Meanwhile the situation at Pittsburgh had grown more desperate.
The sheriff of the city endeavored to suppress the disorder; but
his authority was defied, and call was made upon the State for
help. Governor HARTRANFT issued a proclamation
and ordered the military to support the sheriff. The arrival of
the military served to increase the crowd, and the excitement
grew in intensity. There was no violence offered, but the freight
trains were not allowed to leave the city.
The Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago firemen and brakemen
struck on the same day, and so did the men on the Western and
Buffalo divisions of the Erie road, extending from Hornellsville
to Dunkirk and Buffalo. The strike occurred at Hornellsville.
The firemen and brakemen quitted work in a body, and there were
no relays to take their places. No trains were allowed to go either
way.
The sixth and seventh days of the revolution, July 21 and 22,
were the darkest and bloodiest of all. The city of Pittsburgh
was completely controlled by a howling mob, whose deeds of violence
were written in fire and blood. The strikers remained at the Union
Depot all through the previous night, but no demonstrations were
made by them until the afternoon of the 21st, when Sheriff FIFE, at the head of the military, attempted
to arrest some of the ringleaders. One of the mob approached the
sheriff, waving his bat, and, calling to the crowd and the strikers,
said, Give them hell." Immediately a shower of stones was
hurled into the troops, and one revolver shot fired into the ranks.
The soldiers returned the shots, and for three minutes a fire
in all directions was kept up. There were no blanks, and the greatest
havoc ensued. Sixteen of the crowd were killed and many wounded.
The crowd fled in dismay, including the strikers, who sought shelter
in every direction. Immediately after the firing, crowds of excited
people sprang up as if by magic from all directions. Loud and
deep were the imprecations against the Philadelphia troops, who
were blamed by the strikers and the mob as being responsible for
the trouble. Hundreds of people in no way connected with the railroad
expressed their determination to join with the strikers in driving
the soldiers from the city. These remarks were interspersed with
loud and bitter threats that the company's shops, depots, and
buildings should be laid in ashes that very night. And the rioters
kept their word.
The news of the slaughter of the mob spread through the city
like wild-fire, and produced the most intense excitement. The
streets were rapidly crowded, and the wildest rumors prevailed.
When the news reached the large number of rolling-mill hands and
workmen in the various shops of the city, they were excited to
frenzy, and by eight o'clock the streets of the central portion
of the city were alive with them. A large crowd broke into the
manufactory of the Great Western Gun-Works, and captured 200 rifles
and a quantity of small-arms, and various other crowds sacked
all the other places in the city where arms were exposed for sale,
getting about 300 more. Among them were 1000 mill hands from Birmingham,
on the south side. The different crowds consolidated and marched
out to Twenty-eighth Street. In the mean time the strikers and
the soldiers around the Union Depot had not been idle. At seven
o'clock the Philadelphia troops, whose numbers had been swelled
to over 800 men, withdrew into the large round-house at Twenty-eighth
and Liberty streets, taking with them the two Gatling guns and
two other pieces belonging to BRECK'S battery.
The round-house was a very solid building, with double walls,
the outer one of iron, and the position was the strongest possible
one for the troops. The strikers began to assemble rapidly, many
arriving with guns procured at the Alleghany armory. By midnight
20,000 people were upon the ground, 5000 of whom were armed men.
The mob laid siege to the round-house in which the soldiers had
taken refuge, and opened a brisk fire upon it, which was hotly
returned by the troops. Finding, after a number of efforts, that
they could not dislodge the soldiers by this means, the rioters
resolved to burn them out. Accordingly, just before midnight,
an oil train was fired, and run by the mob down the track and
against the sand-housea large building near the round-house.
The former building caught fire and was destroyed, but the round-house
was saved by the soldiers within, who played upon it from the
railroad company's hydrants. The smoke of the burning oil nearly
suffocated the soldiers, but they held their quarters until seven
in the morning, when they vacated the building, and moved to Sharpsburg.
On the way they were attacked by the rioters, and in the conflict
numbers were killed on both sides. Once incendiarism was started,
a new spirit of wanton destruction took possession of the mob.
From the time the torch was applied to the first car, at eleven
o'clock Saturday night, all night long, and the greater part of
Sunday morning, car after car was taken possession of by the incendiaries,
the torch applied, and the burning, fiery mass sent whirling down
the track among the 2600 cars filled with valuable cargoes of
freight of all descriptions, and costly passenger-cars and sleeping
and day coaches, spreading destruction on every hand.
After the departure of the militia, both the round-houses beyond
the Union Depot were ignited, and 125 locomotives were destroyed.
All the machine-shops and railroad offices in the vicinity were
also fired. The rioters planted a cannon in the streets near by,
and threatened to blow in pieces any man who attempted to extinguish
the flames. The firemen, thus intimidated, retired, and devoted
themselves to saving private property only.
The scenes transpiring on Liberty Street, along the line of
which the tracks of the railroad run on an elevation fifteen or
twenty feet above the street, simply beggar description. While
hundreds were engaged in firing the cars and making certain of
the destruction of the valuable buildings at the outer depot,
thousands of men, women, and children engaged in pillaging the
cars. Men armed with heavy sledges, keeping ahead of the fire
which was running west toward the Union Depot, broke open the
cars, and threw the contents to the crowds below. The street was
almost completely blockaded by persons laboring to carry off the
plunder they had gathered together. In hundreds of instances wagons
were pressed into service to enable thieves to get away with their
goods. Some of the scenes, notwithstanding the terror which seemed
to paralyze peaceable and orderly citizens, were ludicrous in
the highest degree. Here a brawny woman could be seen hurrying
away with pairs of white kid slippers under her arms; another,
carrying an infant, would be rolling a barrel of flour along the
sidewalk, using her feet as the propelling power; here a man pushing
a wheelbarrow loaded with white lead. Boys hurried through the
crowd with large-sized family Bibles as their share of the plunder,
while scores of females utilized aprons and dresses to carry flour,
eggs, dry-goods, etc. Bundles of umbrellas, fancy parasols, hams,
bacon, leaf lard, calico, blankets, laces, and flour were mixed
together in the arms of robust men, or carried on hastily constructed
hand-barrows. In one place where barrels of flour had been rolled
from the cars and over the wall to the street below, breaking
with the fall, heaps of flour were piled up several feet in depth.
In these the women were rolling and fighting in their eagerness
to get all they could. In their greed they were not satisfied
with aprons full, but, holding out the skirts of their dresses,
they ploughed into the heaps till they had all they could carry;
then staggered off, covered from head to feet with flour. Many
of the plunderers pelted each other and every one else they could
reach with stolen goods. One of our artists, Mr. ALEXANDER,
while sketching the scene from the roof of a low building near
by, was repeatedly struck with lemons, oranges, and other articles
of plunder aimed at his head.
But to return to the fire. By three o'clock on Sunday afternoon
the flames had nearly reached the Union Depot. But the mob was
impatient. The burning cars driven under the adjacent sheds had
ignited them, but the work was slow. The rioters thereupon rushed
into the depot-master's office, a two-story frame building at
the extreme end of the shed on the north side of the platform,
and bursting open the desk and closets, scattered the books and
papers over the floor, and throwing oil upon them, applied the
match, and soon the whole structure was in flames.
"The Union Depot is on fire!" was an announcement
that spread like a flash of lightning throughout the city, and
thousands of people at once crowded all the avenues leading to
the scene. The people seemed entirely reckless of the danger in
their wild anxiety to see the sight. The hill-side above the depot
was covered with people thick as leaves upon forest trees. Every
available point of view was taken up. Hundreds climbed to the
high tower in City Hall, and from that altitude had a magnificent
view of the scene. As the smoke rolled up toward the sky, it attracted
the attention of the people in Alleghany, and the sides of Observatory
Hill were lined with sight-seers, the most of them children, who
from that far-away point took in the wild grandeur of the scene
almost as well as those who were nearer at hand. The crowds on
Liberty Street were dense as far as Smithfield Street, while scattered
groups along the street toward the river, viewed the fiend of
flame as it licked up the magnificent structure. Efforts were
made to save the grain elevator near by, but the crowd, thinking
it belonged to the railroad company, refused to allow the firemen
to come near, and it too was destroyed. It was an immense structure,
150 feet high, and about 80 feet square, built of wood and covered
with slate. The Union Depot was a large four-story building facing
an open square opposite the elevator. It had a frontage of about
70 feet, and extended back along Liberty Street about 200 feet.
The lower floor was used as waiting-rooms, ticket offices, and
the company's offices. The upper floors were occupied as a hotel.
The whole building was of modem style of architecture, and was
considered one of the best arranged depots in the country, and
was finished about seven years since. In the rear of the depot,
and extending back 500 feet, were lines of neat pine sheds, covering
different tracks to protect passengers from the weather. It was
under these the burning car was run.
The Panhandle Depot on Grant Street, and the locomotive shop
on Quarry Street, met the same fate. When this last building was
fired, the whole territory between Seventh Avenue and Mill Vale
Station, a distance of three miles, was a wall of fire, and before
sunset not a railroad building nor a car of the Pennsylvania and
Panhandle railroads was left unburned in Pittsburgh. The total
loss is not definitely known, but it can hardly fall short of
from $6,000,000 to $7,000,000. Our upper double-page view of the
great fire was sketched from the steeple of St. Philomena Church,
near by. A dramatic incident is pictured in the illustration on
page 628, where the funeral procession of one of the victims is
seen passing through the burned district on its way to the cemetery.
On the 21st, President HAYES issued
another proclamation, warning rioters to disperse within twenty-four
hours. On the 22d, an oil train in Baltimore was fired. The Twenty-third
Regiment, of Brooklyn, was ordered to Hornellsville, and soon
afterward the Eighth New York was sent to Buffalo, and the Ninth
to Albany. All the New York regiments were assembled in their
armories. On the same day, Governor HARTRANFT,
of Pennsylvania, ordered out every regiment in his State. That
night there was a riot at Reading, culminating in the burning
of several cars. The soldiers killed thirteen of the mob and wounded
forty-three. The Lebanon Valley Railroad bridge, a magnificent
structure across the Schuylkill River, costing over $50,000, was
fired at the western end shortly before midnight, as shown in
our illustration on page 620; it was totally destroyed. At Reading
a mob tore up the tracks, and the troops fired on them, killing
ten men. Strikers set fire to an oil train in Philadelphia, but
only four cars were burned. The next day the strike extended to
several additional lines in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and elsewhere,
and broke out at many new points. The New York Central men joined,
and in Pennsylvania the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western, the
Delaware and Hudson, and the Lehigh and Susquehanna road men struck,
but there were no disturbances.
On the morning of the 25th the strike had reached its height,
when hardly a road was running, from the Hudson to the Mississippi,
and from Canada to Virginia. But some of the strikers began to
weaken, and before night three lines were re-opened, viz., the
Erie, the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western, and the Morris and
Essex. There was heavy rioting in St. Louis and Chicago on the
25th and 26th, and in the latter city fifteen were killed and
many wounded by the police and military. In San Francisco an immense
anti-Chinese mob attacked the Chinamen and set fire to lumber
yards. A vigilance committee was formed, and the rioters were
held in check. On the 27th the New York Central was again running,
and the New York State militia were sent to their homes with thanks.
There were still threats of trouble at some points, especially
in the mining regions, but the strike, as a whole, was believed
to be near an end.
Sixth Maryland
Regiment Fighting Its Way Through Baltimore
Blockade Of Engines At Martinsburg,
West Virginia
Burning Of The Lebanon Valley Railroad
Bridge By The Rioters
Destruction Of The Union Depot And
Hotel At Pittsburgh
Steeple-View Of The Pittsburgh Conflagration
Panoramic View Of The Ruined District
Burning Of The Round-House At Pittsburgh
A Funeral Among The Ruins At Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh In The Hands Of The Mob
Strike Page
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