CHAPTER XI.
Given Over to Pillage.
The Great Conflagration—Demoniac Satisfaction—The Reign of the Commune—Besieged Soldiers—Abandoned Artillery—The Miserable Retreat—Pittsburgh Given Over to the Mob—Scenes of Pillage—Citizens at last Aroused—A Vigilance Committee—Restoring Order.
It was half-past one o’clock Sunday morning, July 22d, when the fire-bells of the city of Pittsburgh rang out the awful announcement that the devouring flames had commenced to rage in the vicinity of the railroad depot and yards. The signal was fully comprehended. The mob was proceeding to execute the threats which had been made. All through that anxious night the inhabitants had awaited tidings of the progress of events. It was a time when sleep was banished by alarms and cares. The significance of the number tolled by the bells was well understood. Soon the streets were thronged by a mighty tide of people, rushing in excited haste toward Twenty-eighth street.
The mob had fired the arrested trains and some of the buildings that belonged to the Railroad Company. The fire engines were speedily in the vicinity of the scene of disaster; but they were not permitted to make any effort to save the millions of dollars worth of property, by arresting the progress of the flames. The fiendish spirit of the Commune had taken possession of an incredibly large proportion of the people of Pittsburgh. This was exhibited by the fearful yell of satisfaction which rose from every part of the city as the alarm bells pealed forth their dreadful warning. Never before in the history of the United States had scenes such as those now witnessed arrested the attention of the people. A species of madness seemed to have seized the citizens.
Men seized torches, and rushed wildly about, applying them to the property of the Railroad Company. In this way train after train was given up to the devouring flames. The infuriated rioters, having been baffled thus far in their efforts against the militia besieged in the roundhouse, now expressed a determination to burn them out. The long lines of freight cars which occupied the sidings for miles, freighted with valuable products, and manufactured goods, it seemed were destined to be given over to destruction. All night the great army of rioters had been engaged in a fruitless effort to storm the roundhouse, in which the soldiers of the State were besieged. The two pieces of artillery of Hutchinson’s Battery, which the rioters captured early in the evening, had been loaded with iron bolts and pins, and directed against the quarters of the militia. A breach had been made in the walls, the mob rushed forward, but were met by a murderous fire of musketry which caused the ill-organized mass to recoil in wild dismay. But now they had resolved upon a more terrible mode of attack. There were on the tracks whole trains of cars freighted with petroleum, and others loaded with coke and coal. These the rioters determined to use for the purpose of firing the roundhouse.
Having taken possession of a car freighted with coke, on the track of the Alleghany Valley Railroad, they run it onto the track of the Pennsylvania Railway Company. Taking some barrels of oil from a car on that road, they broke in the head and poured the contents over the coke in the car which they had captured on the other road. This they set on fire; it was speedily a blazing furnace. A company of the rioters now pushed it along the track until it was against the roundhouse. That structure was quickly ignited, and the flames spread slowly through the building. The situation of the militia garrison, which had sustained a siege through the weary hours of the night, was rendered extremely critical. They had now to abandon their position of shelter, and prepare to cut their way through the mass of madmen clamoring for their blood. They had yet some pieces of artillery in the roundhouse, and the two Gatling guns which they had brought from Harrisburg. The heavy brass pieces were spiked, and the little army of perhaps eight hundred militia-men hurriedly withdrawing their outposts, and concentrating all their force, was ready to march out on their perilous attempt to save themselves from annihilation by a furious mob of many thousands.
Circumstances favored them. For some unexplained reason that part of the mob which had been besieging the soldiers in the roundhouse, retired from that vicinity. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the garrison marched out and had proceeded some distance in their retreat before their departure was discovered. It was now about 6:30 o’clock in the morning. The dismal night was past. The Philadelphians had already begun to congratulate themselves at their fortunate escape. But their troubles were not ended. The mob soon discovered their retreat. Then commenced a most remarkable pursuit. The rioters swarmed after the retreating militia in huge masses. They went to the front, they hung on the flanks, and followed in the rear of the fleeing militia-men, attacking them from every convenient covert, and openly at every street crossing. It was on this retreat, or rather rout, that the Philadelphians suffered most severely. The force which left the roundhouse consisted of two brigades with two Gatling guns. They marched out and along Penn avenue. As they marched they were fired upon from corners and alleyways and windows and house-tops. At Fourteenth street an unusually vigorous attack was made from a house. The Gatling guns were charged and fired with destructive effect. The retreating column continued its flight. They sought shelter in the United States arsenal, but Major Buffington, who commanded the small force of ten regular United States soldiers, declined to permit them to enter, as he feared the whole mob would attack when he had no means of defense. He however permitted them to leave their wounded to be attended to, and the militia continued their retreat across the Alleghany river to the village of Sharpsburg, where they halted and received food from the villagers. The Philadelphians marched on to Claremont, about twelve miles from the scene of disaster, arriving there about five o’clock in the afternoon, wearied and foot-sore. Thus ended their memorable campaign against the rioters of Pittsburgh.
Take any account given of the conduct of these citizen-soldiers, examine it closely, and it becomes apparent that they were badly treated by the Pittsburghers. Even granting that they did fire before they were actually assaulted, it is evident they did not fire until after they were in some danger of being overpowered by the mere force of numbers. Called out by the State authority, in the performance of duty, they went to Pittsburgh to protect public and private property. Justice requires the statement that they were received by those they came to serve and protect, in a manner which showed that they were regarded more in the light of a horde of invading vandals than as friends and protectors.
Meanwhile the work of destruction, which had been going on since one o’clock in the morning, was still proceeding. The soldiers had been vanquished. They had been driven through Lawrenceville, out to Sharpsburg, six miles up the Alleghany and outside the city limits, as the rioters had sworn to drive them out, so they accomplished their oaths. Eight soldiers were killed and several others wounded during their retreat, the infuriated mob would allow no one to touch the falling bodies save some Catholic priests from a parish church in the neighborhood. Even the vengeance of a merciless mob might well be satiated by the events of that doleful Sunday morning in Pittsburgh. But there is no means of placating madmen. The rioters were such now. There was no protection for the lives or the property of the citizens, save such as the lawbreakers might accord. And strange to say, while engaged in driving out the ministers of the law, and laying waste the property of a great corporation, these men were foremost in efforts to preserve the property of individuals. A singular fact, but a truth nevertheless, that amid all the madness of that exciting time there was no disposition manifested to do violence to the person or the property of individuals—except in appropriating weapons of offense and defense held by private citizens. They said they were determined to destroy the railroad property, but would do no injury to that belonging to private citizens. They kept their word, too, and when a lumber pile belonging to a private citizen caught fire, the rioters themselves turned in and helped to extinguish the flames and remove the lumber to a safe place. But there was no compunction exhibited so far as railroad property was concerned. The scene was the most terrible ever witnessed, except in the carnage of war.
The fire raged with unabated fury, and the flames kept creeping steadily toward the depot. At six o’clock the large machine shops by the tracks between Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh streets caught fire, and burning cars were switched on to the Alleghany Valley Railroad and sent down that track in Liberty street, setting fire to many of the houses. Superintendent Pitcairn’s and other offices of the Company, went next. All along, the tracks were long lines of fire, consuming uncounted values in property. And still the conflagration extended; cars, houses, shops, all were destined to destruction.
The Union Line office at Twenty-second street, was wrapped in flames early in the morning. The walls fell with a tremendous crash about eight o’clock. Meanwhile the flames from the two roundhouses, machine shops and cars, became magnificent and appalling. One hundred and twenty-five locomotives were burned, valued at three millions of dollars, and the loss on the buildings increases that loss to four millions.
At this time the scene was appalling in magnificence. A vast field of fire, crackled and roared with terrible distinctness. To travesty the language of Parton, men who witnessed it felt as if they stood upon the brink of hell, with the lid off.
There were fifty miles of hot rails, ten tracks side by side, with as many miles of ties turned into glowing coals, and tons on tons of iron car skeletons and wheels almost at a white heat. Hundreds of coal and coke cars at full blast; two hotels, an elevator, and many dwellings were burning furiously, and hundreds of smaller buildings along the line were all in a blaze, with the intermittent flashes of lurid light from the debris of the roundhouse and machine shops.
The tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad descend on a heavy grade for a distance of about three hundred yards into the Union Depot at Pittsburgh. The fire which had been raging east of the crest of this grade for many hours, moved slowly westward, and had approached within a few hundred yards of the Union Depot at noon on Sunday. At one o’clock a number of cars were in flames at the summit of the grade spoken of. The rioters now determined to most completely execute the purposes they had sworn to consummate. It had been hoped by citizens that the Union Depot and Keystone Hotel, and other valuable buildings around them would escape the general destruction. The Union Depot was a large four story building. It had a frontage on Liberty street of about seventy feet, and extended back about two hundred feet. The lower floor was used as waiting rooms, ticket offices, and the Company’s offices. The upper floor was occupied by the Keystone Hotel Company, and was one of the finest houses in the city. The whole building was of modern 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 five hundred feet, were lines of neat pine sheds, covering different tracks to protect passengers from the weather.
This splendid structure was doomed to become food for the flames along with the other valuable properties involved in the vortex of devastating fires. About half-past one o’clock the rioters began to send flaming cars, thundering down the grade toward the depot. Most of them were turned into sidings so that they did not enter the depot, but soon the passenger cars standing near the despatcher’s office at the outer end of the depot caught fire, and by the rioters brakes were loosed and the cars by their own momentum, thundered into the depot, communicating the flames to the pine sheds alluded to above. The whole place was quickly enveloped in a roaring, seething mass of fire.
The freight depot of the Pittsburgh and St. Louis Railroad was a large shed, built fronting on Grant street, and extending from Washington street to Seventh avenue. The Company’s general offices were in a four story brick building fronting on Seventh avenue. These were totally destroyed, as was also the depot of the Adams Express Company, located on Grant street. The books and valuable papers had been removed from the Union Depot offices, as well as from the outer buildings, before the fire reached them. The Fire Department of the city continued on duty from the time of the first alarm, but were not allowed to throw any water on or make any effort to save the property of the Railroad Company. They consequently directed their efforts to saving the private property on the north side of Liberty street. In this they were mainly successful, though six dwellings and a sash factory located near the roundhouses were destroyed early in the day.
When the Union Depot was fired, followed by the Pan Handle offices, a panic seized the citizens, who had up to this time calmly folded their arms and looked on. It was feared that the conflagration would sweep the entire portion of the city south of the Pan Handle Railroad tracks, as many of the buildings were small frames as dry as tinder. At this juncture the Fire Department of Alleghany, which had been held in readiness in case of an outbreak on that side of the river, was summoned to assist in staying the progress of the flames.
At this time the excitement in every part of the city knew no bounds. In Liberty street, about twelve buildings were on fire, and in the neighborhood of Twenty-eighth street the flames were spreading toward the Alleghany rapidly. Hundreds of families in the section of the city between the railroad tracks and the Alleghany, three squares, and the Eleventh street Union Depot and Thirty-second street, spent the afternoon in moving their most valuable effects out of the city.
During the burning of the depot more than a dozen terrific explosions occurred, but whether from powder secreted there by the mob, or from the contents of the cars, or the ammunition of soldiers, is not known.
About four o’clock the Rush House, opposite the depot, on Liberty street, caught fire. The Fire Department worked all the afternoon to keep the fire from communicating to the Rush House block, as it was directly contiguous to the whole lower part of the city, while the depot was more isolated in position. Three thousand five hundred cars, all told, were destroyed, the value of which, with their contents, is yet unknown.
About noon, Sunday, a mass meeting of citizens was called, and a committee of five persons consisting of Bishop Tuigg, James D. Bennett, the Rev. Dr. Scoville, James P. Barr, and Dr. Donnelly, were appointed in accordance with the following resolutions:
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to confer with the State, County and City authorities, and also the employes, workingmen, and the Pennsylvania Railroad officials, to secure the protection of property from wanton destruction, and an arrangement of the difficulties between the Railroad Company and the striking employes.
Resolved, That in making this effort we pledge our faith to the workingmen that we have no purpose to facilitate the introduction of an armed force, but look solely to the protection of the rights and interests of all by amicable means.
This committee entered upon the duty imposed upon them, but without any marked success. Bishop Tuigg attempted to address the mob of rioters, but they paid little regard to his words, and demanded that he produce “Tom. Scott,” which of course the Bishop could not comply with. Some of the other members of the committee fared even worse, having received from the rioters they attempted to conciliate peremptory orders to depart from them.
It was now the middle of the afternoon. The fire was still raging. A large elevator had taken fire about half-past four o’clock in the afternoon, and was a terribly grand spectacle, as a tower of flame, reaching toward the sky. And still the great multitude of spectators swayed to and fro, powerless to resist the forces which kindled the flames, and helpless to stay the progress of the destroying element. At this time, from the crest of the hill behind the depot, a continuous line of fire, flame, mouldering ruins and smoke extended along the tracks a distance of three miles. The mob was still triumphant, and would not allow a drop of water to be thrown upon the Company’s property. The scenes were terrific. Many of the stores burned near the depot contained whiskey, from which barrels were taken, and from which gallons were distributed. The Atlantic and Pacific telegraph wires along the track were all cut. The Adams Express Company moved everything from their depot store-house to offices on Fifth street. They lost heavily during the morning. There was no wind in the early part of the day, but during the afternoon a southwest breeze started up, which freshened to a steady wind, and a pall of smoke overhung the lower part of the city east of Smithfield street, and reaching to the Monongahela. At five o’clock buildings on the side of the hill east, and on the opposite side of the tracks from the elevator caught fire, and by 5:50 o’clock the fire had extended a block and a half up Washington street, from which street the fire spread both ways on Webester street. This is a district on the hill covered with low tenement houses, which were closely packed with workingmen and their families.
The most striking feature, perhaps, of the day’s developments, was the complete apathy with which the tens of thousands that thronged the city, looked upon the riots, the bloodshed, and the burning of millions of property. They seemed to take the same kind of interest in these tremendous events as they would take in a sensational drama. As evening approached they wended their way peacefully home, remarking carelessly that it was all very terrible, and that the Pennsylvania Railroad had almost bankrupted the city and had only got what it deserved.
The scenes of pillage witnessed during that memorable Sunday, July 22nd, 1877, in the city of Pittsburgh, were such as were never before witnessed in this country; not even during the war between the sections. An eye witness thus describes the reign of the Commune:
“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 would break open the cars, and then the contents would be thrown out and carried off by those bent on profiting by the reign of terror existing. 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. Mayor McCarthy, early in the day, endeavored to stop the pillage, but the handful of men at his command were unable to control the crowd, who were desperate in their anxiety to secure the goods. The pillage was checked, but the mob fired the cars, and then proceeded with the work of destruction. It is impossible to form any idea of the amount of goods stolen, but hundreds of thousands will not cover the loss. Some of the scenes, notwithstanding the terror which seemed to paralyze peaceable and orderly citizens, were ludicrous in the highest degree, and no one seemed to enjoy them with greater zest than those outraged in the wholesale plunder. 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.”
The militia having fled the city, and there being no United States regulars at hand, the citizens of Pittsburgh were at the mercy of a mob, without the least possibility of resisting its demands. Such was the situation late Sunday evening, when an adjourned meeting of the citizens was held and a vigilance committee was raised for the purpose of preventing a further waste of property. The committee was rapidly recruited and its members were first supplied with base ball bats, but these were afterwards exchanged for guns. They were designated by white ribbons on their arms. As soon as the force was organized they marched to Seventh avenue, where hundreds of spectators who had been waiting for some one to lead, joined with them in preventing further incendiarism. The reign of the mob was over, although threats were made that the buildings belonging to the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne and Chicago Railroad, and Cleveland and Pittsburgh road, on Penn street, and the Duquesne Freight Depot on Liberty street would be fired. A large number of the vigilance committee guarded these depots through the night and they were not destroyed.
The reign of the mob came to an end that night. Afterward, General Hancock and Governor Hartranft came to Pittsburgh, with all “the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.” But they found no hostile foe to conquer. General Hancock’s soldiers did indeed arrest some sixty or seventy of the communistic incendiaries of Pittsburgh, and they were handed over to Governor Hartranft, who in turn directed the Attorney General of Pennsylvania to proceed against them in the courts. But the riots were virtually at an end. The citizens who were in sympathy with the strikers, had been alienated from them by the deeds of the communistic mob, and the revulsion was so marked, and so dangerous in its symptoms, that the law breakers naturally felt alarmed. The last real fight during the further continuance of the strike was between a party of seventy-five members of the citizens vigilance committee, armed with base ball bats, and a gang of rowdies on Liberty street, late Sunday evening. At first repulsed, the citizens returned to the charge and were victorious. The next day the rioters formally surrendered their arms to a committee of citizens, and the brief, but terrible war in Pittsburgh was at an end.