Part 34

A. I judged them to be miners and mill hands, attracted here from outlying counties--attracted by news of the riot; in fact, in conversation with some, they informed me they had come from different places.

Q. From communities within a short distance of the city?

A. Yes.

Q. Were that class of men taking part in the disturbance?

A. At that time there was no disturbance. It was very peaceful, except the grumbling. But at eleven o'clock, I was on the railroad track, and I noticed three men breaking into and taking the contents of a car.

Q. Did you know who those men were?

A. No; they appeared to be workingmen, and some of them appeared to be familiar with handling cars from the manner in which they proceeded to open the cars. I went down and remonstrated with them, and they treated me very civilly--didn't seem to take as an insult my interference. I remarked that the railroad company would not be the sufferer. They paid no particular attention, and I told them, you men will certainly be punished for this. I told them I was a magistrate, and had come in my official capacity to try and quell the disturbance; but they paid no attention. There was no riot at that time. They went peaceably about it.

Q. Did they get the goods out?

A. Yes; they threw them out promiscuously. The greater number of goods were carried away by girls about sixteen years of age and by boys up to twenty years of age. The goods were carried away by residents of the immediate neighborhood. I then went up to where they were setting fire to the oil cars, and there were probably not more than eight or ten men engaged in that.

Q. Who were they?

A. I do not know. They seemed to be workingmen from their garb. I knew them to be workingmen, and several of them I knew were familiar with operating railroads, from the fact that they knew how to open the switches, and run the cars into position, and they handled the cars with the experience of practical mechanics.

By Senator Reyburn:

Q. Do you mean they were railroad men?

A. Certainly; some of them. At this time probably twenty cars were on fire, and there were not over one hundred and fifty persons altogether on the railroad tracks.

By Mr. Larrabee:

Q. What hour was this?

A. Twelve o'clock on Saturday night. Just then a man came from the crowd of rioters--there was a crowd collected in front of the round-house for the purpose of fighting the militia--and he jumped on to a flat car and drew a sword--he had a belt around him, but had no uniform--and he immediately ordered them to stop burning the cars and pillaging the trains, saying that they had come not to burn and pillage, but to fight the military.

Q. Who was he?

A. He was evidently a leader, but I did not know him. He was from the party that came from Birmingham. Immediately when he jumped on that car, somebody hallooed "police," and in five minutes there was not a man left on the railroad track. The cry of "police" cleared the whole thing out, and any two police officers could have preserved the peace.

Q. You think that a small force of police there could have straightened things up?

A. At no time more than twenty men were engaged in the burning.

Q. How long did you stay?

A. Until four o'clock in the morning.

Q. You say those carrying off the goods were mostly children?

A. They were mostly young--girls and boys. At one o'clock in the morning I passed the police station on Penn street, in the immediate vicinity, and the police officers were arresting every person passing with goods and there was no resistance. They had perfect control. A mob amounting to not more than five hundred persons was standing near, and they had a cannon commanding the round-house, but the soldiers had covered it with their arms, and had killed one or two of the rioters. The mob engaged in fighting the soldiers were not engaged in the burning and pillaging. I went among them. One of them called me by name. I knew his face. He said, "Alderman, don't go down that way; they will shoot you." But I said, "No," and passed on through them. I said to him, "You had better go home," when he said that they had come for the purpose of fighting the militia, and were going to fight them.

Q. What time was that?

A. About four o'clock. It was just breaking day.

Q. Now, this mob gathered around in the vicinity of the round-house--what was that mob composed of?

A. I recognized that mob as composed nearly all of people who were working men from the south side of the river.

Q. That is, Birmingham?

A. Yes; some few of them were citizens that I knew. And I would state that some few were armed, but showed no disposition to violence except that they had an antipathy to the soldiers that had fired on their relatives. I mention this fact to show that there should be a distinction between the rioters proper and the plunderers. They didn't seem to be acting in concert. A posse of police of twenty men could have protected all the property that night.

Q. Did you hear any body state that the rioters or the mob had prevented the fire department from throwing water on the railroad property?

A. I did not. But I have no doubt they would have prevented it, from the disposition of the mob. I didn't see any person setting fire to the Union depot. I took my stand at the elevator. I met one of the clerks belonging to the company, and he told me that they had refused to let them take their books out. I said, come back with me, and I will take them out. So I went back and stationed myself at the elevator, to save it, if I could, by my presence there, and by calling a _posse comitatus_. But I could not get any person to serve. The sheds below Union depot were then taking fire, and two or three men came, and wanted to go into the elevator. I told them not to go in. At this time not less than twenty thousand people were there--men, women, and children--but there was no rioting, and there were not more than eight or ten or a score of men engaged in spreading the fire at that time. They seemed to be peaceable.

By Senator Yutzy:

Q. You mean the men who were setting things on fire?

A. Yes; they went to it deliberately'.

Q. You spoke about raising a _posse comitatus_?

A. I tried to raise it. I called on a gentleman from Allegheny, named Gray. I summoned him to my assistance, but he refused to act, but said if I could get ten more he would do so. I afterwards saw some other parties, but while they deprecated the burning, they said it was worth their lives to interfere. I then went with Mr. Gray down to where the men were running the burning cars, and tried to reason with them. At that time probably twenty men were engaged in that, besides the persons engaged in carrying the things off. And by that time they had gotten into liquor, and were pretty well intoxicated. On Sunday afternoon I also tried to raise a _posse comitatus_. I called on some citizens that I knew, but they were afraid to do anything, alleging that the military and police should do it.

Q. What reasons did they give?

A. That they did not want to jeopardize their lives.

Q. Was the elevator set on fire while you were there?

A. No; I left, and supposed the elevator was safe, and went down to Seventh avenue, where the depot of the Pan Handle road was just being set on fire. I remained there some time, and then went to Allegheny to get my supper, and came back. While crossing the bridge, I noticed the fire coming from the elevator. I remained in the vicinity of the fire until between nine and ten o'clock that night, and at that time there was no further spreading of the destruction. The citizens, in the meantime, had organized a police, and there had, apparently, been a number of arrests made.

Q. As soon as the police began making arrests, the citizens took the matter into their own hands, and the destruction ceased?

A. Yes; and that is what convinced me that a posse of twenty policemen could have prevented the destruction. But at any time during Saturday night, if a police officer had gone into the crowd to arrest a man, the mob would have interfered with him--I am satisfied of that.

By Mr. Lindsey:

Q. When you told those persons to stop setting fire, did they obey your orders?

A. On Saturday night they paid no attention, but they didn't interfere with me.

Q. You asserted your authority as far you could?

A. As far as I could, and they respected my authority when I asserted it resolutely. Then they gave way. I went to Allegheny to try to summon a _posse comitatus_, but I found it collected, and I then repaired to the mayor's office, in Allegheny, and took part with them for the protection of our city. In our city, I may say, that no destruction occurred. The railroad men took possession of the railroad property there. I think they took possession first on Thursday evening. Nothing was destroyed. The railroad men--those I conversed with--said that they had determined to protect the railroad property against any mob.

By Mr. Larrabee:

Q. What did they say was their object in taking possession of the railroad property?

A. Well--my office seems to be a general receptacle for persons of diverse opinions. Some of these railroad men came to me with their complaints. I was told their grievances, and that their purpose was merely the restoration of the ten per cent. reduction.

Q. Those were employés of what railroad?

A. The Pittsburgh, Port Wayne and Chicago road. They admitted their actions were contrary to law, and that they might be amenable, but still they asserted their assumed right to stop the running of trains until their demands were complied with.

By Mr. Lindsey:

Q. You say they asserted their right to stop the trains?

A. An assumed right. They supposed they had such a right. Some of them supposed, ignorantly, that they had such a right--a great many of them honestly believed that.

By Mr. Larrabee:

Q. Did they claim that they had any right to set themselves up against the authorities?

A. No; at no time; as they construed the laws of the Commonwealth, they did not want to set themselves up against them.

By Senator Reyburn:

Q. Do you know what the feeling was in this city when the strike broke out?

A. I know that the people of the city of Pittsburgh almost universally condemned the reduction of the salaries of the railroad men at that time. The strikers knew that they had the sympathies of the people of Allegheny county--of all classes--in their efforts to have a living rate of wages restored to them, and thousands of people not engaged in the strike, on that Saturday afternoon, in July last, were gathered in the vicinity of the Pennsylvania railroad workshops, not for the purpose of violating any law, but either from motives of sympathy with the strikers or prompted by curiosity to witness the military. It may be inferred, that at least one half of those people were women and children, and these, without warning, were fired into and many of them killed or wounded. Of course, this caused universal indignation and condemnation, and was the occasion of all the subsequent troubles and destruction. A pacific course pursued towards these men would have avoided the catastrophe that followed. The first great blunder in dealing with the strikers in Pittsburgh, was in the attempt to operate the road by the use of a military force, instead of using the troops to preserve order and to keep the peace.

Q. You say that the sympathies of the people of Pittsburgh were with the strikers or with the railroad employés and against the reduction of their wages. Do you mean as long as no overt act was committed? Or what did they regard as an overt act?

A. They would have regarded as an overt act the destruction of property.

Q. Did they regard the stopping of trains as an overt act?

A. I think that certain classes of people did not regard the stopping of the trains an overt act, but they would have regarded the forcible taking of men from the trains--men who were willing to work--or the preventing them from working, as an overt act.

By Mr. Lindsey:

Q. Will you tell us what you did in your own city--tell us how you managed the trouble there?

A. The authorities of Allegheny managed the strikers differently--in a different way from that pursued in Pittsburgh. Several days prior to the burning in Pittsburgh, the strikers took possession of the railroad tracks, and the workshops of the Pennsylvania company operating the Pittsburgh, Port Wayne and Chicago railroad. They threw up breast-works, and held armed possession of the railroad property, and even took possession of, and regulated the running of passenger trains and the United States mail trains. At all interviews, they insisted that it was not their intention to destroy property, but to protect the railroad property, and that they wouldn't commit any overt act in violation of law, as they understood it. Many of them believed they were not violating any law, and assumed that they had a right to accomplish the object they had in view, by the method they then were pursuing. The authorities and the citizens of Allegheny City knew that they were dealing with a powerful, intelligent, and well organized body of men, who were determined and resolute in their purposes. To have attempted to force those men from their position, would have precipitated the same troubles that culminated in Pittsburgh a few days subsequently. So the citizens appealed to the better judgment of those strikers, they reasoned with them, and instead of irritating them, or attempting to force them, they permitted them to have their own way, believing that the railroad officials and their employés, would, in a few days, adjust all differences. This policy, under the circumstances, proved to be a wise one, as when danger came, and when the mob were burning and destroying in Pittsburgh, the strikers in Allegheny actually removed all the rolling stock out of the way of danger, and volunteered to assist the organized citizens in protecting the depots and workshops, and all other railroad property in the city of Allegheny. Had the same policy been pursued in Pittsburgh, there would have been no destruction of property.

Q. You were in the army. What position in the army did you hold during the late war?

A. In 1861--in May, 1861--1 enlisted as a soldier, and was elected lieutenant of my company, and went out as a member of the Second Virginia regiment, as lieutenant, and afterwards became captain of my company.

Q. Was it a Union regiment?

A. Yes. We went to Wheeling to protect the people, and our services were accepted by the people of West Virginia. On the 19th of February, 1862, I was appointed commissary assistant by the Secretary of War, and that position I held until about the 1st day of September, 1862, when I was assigned to duty as chief commissary of the Twelfth army corps. About the 15th of March, 1863, I was assigned to duty as chief commissary of the Fifth army corps, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, on General Meade's staff.

Q. How long did you occupy that position?

A. Until I was mustered out of the service, or until the corps was disbanded, in September, 1865. I remained in service until March, 1866.

Q. What business have you been engaged in since the war?

A. For the last eight years I have been an alderman of the city of Allegheny. The year before that, 1 was a member of the Legislature.

Q. From the time you left the army until you were elected a member of the Legislature what business were you engaged in?

A. 1 was following my occupation as a scrivener.

Q. Where did you reside before going into the army?

A. From the year 1836, until I went into the army, in this county.

Q. What business were you engaged in?

A. When I went into the army I was chief clerk in the county commissioners' office of Allegheny county. Prior to that I was a clerk in a store.

By Mr. Larrabee:

Q. Something has been said about picketing the railroad track where the riot occurred. Now, taking into consideration the number of cars around there, how many troops would it have taken to reasonably picket the track and the ground there in possession of the mob?

A. The ground in possession of the mob, from the round-house out to Lawrenceville, I think could have been sufficiently picketed by one hundred men on both sides. At no time were more than one hundred persons on the ground from twelve o'clock that night until four o'clock in the morning, from the round-house out to Two Mile run. I consider that the movement of the military into the round-house, at the time, was a good one, but they should have picketed the railroad, and all the approaches to the round-house. To have retired on the bluff, above the railroad tracks, would have been a military blunder, for if they were not strong enough to protect themselves where the cars and buildings afforded them shelter, they certainly could not have held a position on the hill face, where they could have been attacked from the open fields above them, and been within easy range of masked or rifle shots from the houses fronting on Liberty street. No officer of any military experience would have selected that hill face to bivouac his troops, under the circumstances then existing, but the retreat of two regiments of well armed and equipped soldiers, commanded by officers of undoubted courage, and large military experience in the face of a disorganized mob, was certainly a inexplicable blunder.

Q. You did not see the crowd before it was fired into and dispersed by the military?

A. I did not. I only arrived there afterward.

By Senator Yutzy:

Q. Now in your judgment, as a military man, do you think that there was any necessity for calling on the military to quell this riot?

A. I do not. I honestly believe that if the authorities of the county or Allegheny, or the city of Pittsburgh, had summoned a sufficient _posse comitatus_, they could have preserved the peace. They might not have been able to run the railroad cars, but the peace could have been preserved without calling the military.

By Senator Reyburn:

Q. From your observations during this disturbance, what opinion have you of the conduct of the officers and those in charge of the military?

A. I was not brought in contact with them, except with Colonel Gray, of one of our regiments, after the firing. I went to where he had bivouacked on the railroad track, and he had one hundred and twenty men with him at the time. He said he was there for the purpose of obeying orders, and that his men would stay by him. He had no orders at that time. I asked him particularly whether he had any orders, and he said he had none. I asked him whether he thought he could preserve the peace, and he said he could. I think he said that the firing on the people was a mistake, and was done without orders, but if I had been there I would have ordered the mob to disperse, and then fired on them with blank cartridges.

Q. From your knowledge of these men as soldiers during the war, do you think they were competent or incompetent men?

A. I know General Pearson well. I knew him in the army, and I know what his military record was in the army, and there is no young officer in the United States service who has a prouder record as a brave, a careful, and discreet soldier. He served in our own corps, and I had daily opportunity of knowing what his military services and military abilities were, and his record in the army was certainty vary creditable to him. I also knew General Brinton in our corps, and I know that his record is equally good.

By Mr. Means:

Q. They were good soldiers, ready to obey orders at all times?

A. Yes; and had those two officers had the management of this affair, without being amenable to superiors, much of the destruction would have been avoided.

Q. You mean Generals Pearson and Brinton?

A. Yes; they had, to my certain knowledge, years of experience in the army--active experience as soldiers.

Adjourned.

MORNING SESSION.

PITTSBURGH, _Wednesday, February 20, 1878_.

The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at ten o'clock, A.M. Mr. Lindsey in the chair. All the members present except Messrs. Reyburn and Torbert.

* * * * *

Daniel Corbus, being duly _sworn_, testified as follows:

Examined by Mr. Lindsey:

Q. Where do you reside?

A. New Brighton, Beaver county.

Q. How long have you resided there?

A. I was born there in 1839.

Q. What is your business?

A. Wire drawer by trade.

Q. State whether you were in Pittsburgh when the disturbances of last July first broke out?

A. I was not there at the breaking out of it. I arrived here the same day, about a quarter past one, I suppose--Liberty street.

Q. State what you saw and heard?

A. Saturday night the news was very exciting out home, and Sunday morning at eleven o'clock I took the express and arrive I here at the city--Federal street--about twelve o'clock I should judge it was. Came over to Fifth street and got my dinner. Went to the market-house and saw a crowd of people there. Went down to see what was going on, and found it was a peace convention.

Q. A what?

A. A peace convention.

Q. At what point was that?

A. It was some place near the old City Hall--I should judge it was. It was in the street. I went from there up Liberty street until I met the fire. I couldn't state how far it was from the Union depot--how many squares it was; but I stopped at the first crossing below the last car that was on fire. I staid there until a car load of spirits exploded, and the flames ran down from there about a hundred feet.

Q. Where was this explosion--at what point?

A. It was on the railroad in a railroad car.

Q. What street?

A. It was on Liberty street--I should judge that was the street that the cars go out of. I am not well enough acquainted to state positively--it was on the Pennsylvania railroad.

Q. Was that on the Allegheny Valley track?

A. No, sir; on the Pennsylvania tracks.

Q. Near what cross street?

A. That I am not well enough informed to know, but I should judge it was four squares above the Union depot, right up the track.

Q. Four squares?

A. Yes; four squares.

Q. Go on now?