Part 45
A. Scattered in every direction--there was not a man about at all, except one man I saw standing there, and he did not seem to pay any attention at all to us.
Q. Did you make any effort after this firing to keep the track clear?
A. No, sir.
Q. Was there any effort made by any of the military to keep the track clear?
A. They rested a short time on the track, and whilst they were resting Colonel Glenn showed me an order, signed by General Pearson, for his regiment to move down to some place at the depot--one of the sheds.
Q. You saw an order from General Pearson to Colonel Glenn?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was it directed to colonel or to you?
A. It was directed to Colonel Glenn and Colonel Howard, the same.
Q. That was the 19th?
A. Yes; I received one, may be six o'clock.
Q. You did receive an order from General Pearson?
A. Yes; at six o'clock.
Q. There was no effort made then to prevent the crowd or mob from re-assembling?
A. They did assemble two or three times, and the soldiers would raise their guns.
Q. They were persuaded away by military persuasion?
A. Yes; by military persuasion.
Q. Was any effort made by your brigade to rescue the Philadelphia troops while they were in the round-house?
A. They were very nearly three to our one, I suppose. Two to one anyhow.
Q. You mean there were three times as many of the Philadelphia troops?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Would not your force have added to the strength of their force if you had re-inforced them?
A. We did not receive any such orders to relieve them.
Q. Who was in chief command during all this time of your troops?
A. General Pearson was chief in command of the round-house until I found out after dark some time that he had left.
Q. You found he had left? Had you any superior officer present then?
A. Nobody except General Brinton.
Q. Did you receive any orders from him?
A. No, sir.
Q. And if he had been disposed to give you orders----
A. I do not know whether he could have got out or not. There was no trouble until after he fired and killed those citizens. Then there was a great feeling against him, of course.
Q. In the absence of any superior officer, did you consider yourself chief in command of your troops, or the brigade?
A. No, sir; I did not. I commanded what troops I had.
Q. You considered yourself justified in exercising your own discretion in any military movement after that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then what did you do?
A. About ten or eleven o'clock I received word that the crowd was so very great, and the excitement so terrible, that it would be hardly worth my while to do anything.
Q. You got such information?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who did you get this information from?
A. Different persons.
Q. In your judgment, did you think it was useless to attempt to drive away the mob?
A. It was at that time with what troops I had.
Q. How many troops had you then?
A. I suppose I had one hundred and fifty or one hundred and seventy-five.
Q. Of the two regiments?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What had become of the balance of your troops?
A. Some of them had left.
Q. By orders?
A. No, sir; not by orders.
Q. By any orders that you know of?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you mean to say that they had deserted?
A. They left. There was quite a large number left.
Q. Were they missing?
A. They were among the missing.
Q. That was not more than about one fourth of your command--one hundred and fifty men?
A. One hundred and seventy-five men was not much more than one fourth.
Q. Any of your officers missing--subordinates?
A. No; I could not say that.
Q. How many hours had you been in active service and on duty?
A. From the morning previous--say ten o'clock--until Saturday evening.
Q. From ten o'clock Friday until ten o'clock Saturday evening?
A. I was up continuously until Sunday at noon.
Q. Your troops were in active service all that time?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were they provisioned regularly?
A. They were to a certain extent. Grub was brought to them in baskets. It was regular feeding.
Q. Not regular rations?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You did not suffer from want of rations, however?
A. They did not to a certain extent.
Q. How did you account for the absence of the names of your men?
A. I suppose it might have been in sympathy with the movement.
Q. With the mob movement?
A. Yes, sir.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. It was not out of fear the desertion took place?
A. No; I do not think it was.
Q. Did you regard the conduct of your subordinate officers commendable during those troubles?
A. They all did their duty. I do not know of any to-day but what stayed there.
Q. Rank and file, do you think their conduct commendable as soldiers?
A. There were some few that left. There was not a full gathering of the command at the first start of it.
Q. Those that deserted you or left, was their conduct commendable?
A. I did not say it was.
Q. The conduct of those that remained was good as soldiers?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. Had a great portion of your command seen service?
A. Well, yes; I think a good many of them--quite a large number of them had seen service.
Q. What experience had you in active military service during the last war, or any other war?
A. About nearly three years.
Q. Active service?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. In what capacity?
A. I was captain adjutant, major, lieutenant colonel.
Q. What regiment?
A. The One Hundred and Second and One Hundred and Fifth Pennsylvania.
Q. Heavy artillery?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How long did you remain at the Union depot with your command?
A. Until about, I suppose, it was eleven o'clock.
Q. On Saturday night?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then what did you do?
A. I received messages from different persons who came there to see me. They stated to me that they thought I had better disband my command. That was on Saturday evening about eleven o'clock, I suppose.
Q. Will you name some of those persons?
A. No, I could not.
Q. Gave you gratuitous advice?
A. Yes; just talked to me.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Were they citizens?
A. Yes; citizens and military besides.
Q. What military men?
A. Captain Macfarland was one military man that I remember distinctly.
Q. Was he under your command?
A. He was not out with his command.
Q. Any other military men?
A. I do not know, there was quite a number of persons there. We talked the matter over.
Q. Did you receive any orders from General Pearson, or from any of your superior officers?
A. No.
Q. You took the responsibility of disbanding them without orders from your superiors?
A. Yes.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. You considered yourself supreme in command at that time?
A. Yes; I considered I was in command of all the troops that were there.
By Mr. Larrabee:
Q. Why did you think it was best to disband your troops at that time--what reasons?
A. We did not have enough to compete with the crowd that was surrounding us--that was about the whole thing.
Q. Was that all the reason that was given?
A. That we were not sufficient.
Q. Not able to compete with the crowd?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And therefore you should disband entirely?
A. Yes, sir.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. You said you considered yourself superior in command at that time?
A. Of the post where I was.
Q. Where was General Pearson?
A. That I could not tell you.
Q. Had you any communication with him?
A. I heard that General Pearson had left.
Q. You heard he had left?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When did you receive the last communication from him?
A. The last communication I received from him was at the Union depot when I went in there--noon sometime, or near two o'clock.
Q. Where was Adjutant General Latta at that time?
A. I suppose he was at the Union depot hotel.
Q. At what time?
A. At all this time I suppose he was there.
Q. Eleven o'clock Saturday night?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you receive any communication or order from him?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you send for any?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you understand that he was acting commander-in-chief of the forces?
A. I only understood he was acting adjutant general, and that the orders emanated from him as from some higher authority.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Did you know at that time that the adjutant general was in the Union depot?
A. I had an impression that he was.
Q. Did you make any effort before you disbanded to see him?
A. No, sir.
Q. Knowing him to be there, or believing him to be there?
A. No, sir; I did not make any effort to see him. At this time I suppose that the mob was gathered in such great crowds it would be advisable for the military to be out of the road of the mob so as not to get their ill will.
Q. In your military experience, in your judgment, could you have taken a position and intrenched yourself and held your ground against the mob during the night?
A. Oh, no.
Q. Nowhere in the vicinity?
A. No, sir; unless I had been in the round-house.
Q. Could you not have marched out away from there and held your body?
A. They would have suffered great loss to have marched away.
Q. You did march to the depot, did you not, the Union depot?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. Were you interfered with in any way?
A. No, sir; not much.
Q. Marched all the way down the track?
A. Yes, sir. It would not have been advisable to march down the street.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Could you have taken a position in the Union depot, and used it as a fortification to defend yourself against the mob?
A. There was no mob at the Union depot.
Q. Why could you not have held the position then?
A. At the Union depot, the idea was to get away so as we would not get the ill will of these men; that they would probably disperse at this time.
Q. Did I understand you, that you disbanded for fear of exasperating the mob?
A. Yes--with this number of troops that I had.
Q. Was it your opinion that that was the way to disperse the mob, by the military disbanding?
A. I thought it was probably the best way.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Did you receive any order from. General Pearson, after the firing at Twenty-eighth street?
A. I received one order.
Q. What was that?
A. For to adjourn these two regiments to this depot.
Q. The transfer depot?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were you to take your regiments to the transfer depot?
A. Yes, sir. The colonels of the regiments had already received the orders sometime previous, and they did not want to move until they saw me, and they showed me the order.
Q. In that order, did he tell you to hold your position?
A. As long as possible, I believe.
Q. To take your regiments to the transfer depot, and to hold that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And at eleven o'clock you marched down?
A. We marched down as a command down there.
Q. You disbanded at the transfer depot?
A. We disbanded, and the men got away the best they could.
Q. Left the transfer depot?
A. Yes, sir.
By Mr. Engelbert:
Q. Were these orders addressed to you, or to the colonel?
A. Addressed to me, and the orders addressed to the colonels of the regiments, too.
Q. Of the same purport?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you consider that they had superceded you by the order?
A. I did not know what was the matter.
Q. Did it not look to you like it?
A. Yes; it did look to me very strange for them to receive a written order.
Q. You, as a military man, of course, felt aggrieved at that?
A. No, sir. I said that they could obey the order cheerfully, and I marched down to the depot with them.
Q. You did not consider that under your order?
A. Things were mixed up so I did not know.
Q. Which way which?
A. Which way which, and I obeyed the order. Afterwards I received this order.
By Mr. Larrabee:
Q. Received by the same order?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When you left the transfer depot, did your men go in a body, together, or did they strike out?
A. Each came away by himself.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Were you called--did you call your men together after that?
A. Yes; we did on Monday morning, and I reported to the mayor whatever he wished me to do. I took one company up on Second avenue, and dispersed a crowd that were coming here on boats in large crowds. There must have been towards three hundred.
Q. How long did you remain in service?
A. I remained in service then half a month, or three weeks. On Wednesday night Governor Hartranft passed through here, and he gave me an order to assume command of the troops here, and I did so. I went over to the Union depot in Allegheny, and I had them turn over the property to me at the Fort Wayne road.
Q. Maintained order there, did you?
A. I had no troops there. I only went over as a citizen, and I put on my citizen's clothes, and went over there and talked to them. The second--I believe they turned over their property to me. I called out Mr. Cassatt, I think--not Mr. Cassatt, but the agent of the Fort Wayne road.
Q. Pitcairn?
A. Not Pitcairn. The agent of the Fort Wayne road--I forget his name now. I told him the cars and property were there, and he could do as he pleased with them. That the crowd had given them to me. That I turned them over to him.
Q. There was no further trouble here about the city?
A. No, sir; there was no further trouble.
* * * * *
Henry King being duly _affirmed_, testified as follows:
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Where is your residence?
A. In Allegheny City.
Q. And what is your business?
A. Furnace man, engaged in the manufacture of pig iron, interested in the manufacture of pig iron.
Q. I wish you would state, Mr. King, all the facts in relation to the riot here, that came under your observation--that you know personally yourself?
A. On this side of the river I do not know so much about what was going on. I was over here, of course, every day attending to my business, and I got glimpses of this matter once in a while. I think probably that I had better first state as to the origin. I think that is what my testimony probably would have the most weight in.
Q. That is what we called you to find out about?
A. At one time, from 1849 to 1855, I was engaged in railroading. First as a civil engineer; next as a mechanical engineer; and had made acquaintance of many railroad men--pretty extended--a great many were of the men who are railroading at the present day, and were railroading previous to this strike and during the strike, and for a length of time previous to the strike were men I was acquainted with, and I, perhaps, knew as much about their grievances as they did themselves, or what they considered their grievances. They talked to me very freely, most of them, and I told several of my acquaintances in the city here that I thought there would be a great deal of trouble amongst railroad men; that there seemed to me to be a great deal of dissatisfaction.
Q. When was that?
A. This was in the early part of last summer, commencing in May perhaps. These men talked to me a great deal. I traveled a great deal on the railroad, and these men talked freely to me. I felt pretty confident from what they told me that there would be a great deal of trouble; there appeared to be a great amount of dissatisfaction.
Q. You communicated that to your acquaintances in the city?
A. Yes; my business connections.
Q. Business men?
A. Yes; business men. Some believed and some didn't believe, of course. I felt very confident there would be a great deal of trouble, and was satisfied, too, that it was not going to be a local matter, but would be very general, and it proved so.
Q. On what did you base your opinion, if anything?
A. As to whether it would be general?
Q. Yes?
A. From the manner in which these men spoke about what they considered grievances. I didn't wholly agree with them on that.
Q. What did they consider as their grievances?
A. Reduction of pay; that seemed to be the chief complaint.
Q. They complained of the reduction?
A. Complained very bitterly about that.
Q. Did you talk with the men on different roads--did you converse with men on different roads?
A. Yes; on several different roads.
Q. What roads?
A. There were some on the Pennsylvania railroad; some on the Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne road; some on the Cleveland and Pittsburgh run, and also some men on the Atlantic and Great Western road.
Q. Did you ever converse with any of the employés on the Baltimore and Ohio road?
A. No, sir; I had no acquaintances amongst these men. That is a road I travel on very little. Didn't go out of my way to hunt up any information; it all came to me incidentally.
Q. Were all these roads reducing the wages of their employés?
A. It was so reported to me--it was so talked among the men.
Q. How was it throughout the country? Did you know, of your own knowledge, that the leading railroads throughout the whole country were reducing the wages of the employés?
A. Speaking of it in a general way, I have no authority, except newspaper account, that wages were being very generally reduced.
Q. Speaking then of your own knowledge, you simply speak of roads leading in and out of Pittsburgh?
A. My knowledge in this particular is from the employés of the road.
Q. And your conversation was with the employés of the roads leading in and out of Pittsburgh?
A. Mostly roads leading in and out of Pittsburgh. I may say wholly so, with the exception of the Atlantic and Great Western.
Q. In conversation with these men did they mention, or did you find out from them, that there was any organization among them?
A. Oh! yes; I knew of an organization--the Trainmen's Union--I knew there was such an organization as that.
Q. As the Trainmen's Union?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you know the object and purpose of that organization?
A. Yes; they talked to me that there were several objects they wished to accomplish by that organization. We had a great many discussions about the thing. The only object they had, of course, was to make an organization that they thought would be sufficiently strong to enable them to have something to say about the rate of pay. Another was to re-instate some men who had been discharge for cause.
Q. Did you gather from these conversations that their object was to force the railroads to pay them the wages which they demanded?
A. They expected to put it to that as a finality. They expected to resort to that before giving it up.
Q. Did you talk with them--did they state to you how they intended to force the railroad?
A. Well, by stopping work and stopping business.
Q. Themselves only?
A. They talked about it, that they would stop themselves, and they would stop others. Of course, I expressed my opinions. Everybody said what they pleased. I told them it was every persons right to stop work. If the work did not suit them they had a perfect right to quit, and to go off; but whatever they did, not to do anything they would be sorry for afterwards, because the matter would be settled, undoubtedly, sooner or later, and they had better not do anything they would afterwards have cause to regret. As I said before, they would have a perfect right to stop work, but they had no right to interfere with others.
Q. Did they claim that they had the right to interfere with others?
A. They did not claim they had a right, but they claimed the ability to do that.
Q. And their purpose of doing it?
A. Well, they expected to do that.
Q. Did they say anything to you or did they expect to ally other classes of laboring men with them?
A. No; they did not care about having any help from outside parties; at least if they did, there was no intimation of that kind to me. They expected to accomplish it themselves. I have no knowledge of their making any effort whatever to induce other trades unions--I do not know that they made any effort to have others coöperate with them; if they did, I do not know of it.
Q. This intercourse you had with the men, and from talking, led you to be apprehensive of the results?
A. Yes; I felt very confident----
Q. Did you communicate that very freely to your acquaintances here?
A. With my more intimate business acquaintances the matter was talked over pretty freely.
Q. Did you have any communication with the railroad officials in regard to it?
A. No; I supposed them capable of taking care of their own business. I fortified myself in regard to the strike. I have occasion to have a great deal of freight moved, and I put myself in a condition against any strike.
Q. In what way?
A. In getting in a good supply. If the strike had continued a month it would not have hurt me, anything more than I could not have shipped anything away. I had plenty of raw material on hand--it answered a very good purpose, too.
Q. Did you communicate these facts and your apprehensions to the city officials, any of them, of Pittsburgh?
A. No, sir.
Q. Or the county officials?
A. No, sir; I only talked with parties who were interested in the same manner that I am myself and others, perhaps, I am well acquainted with, in the same line of business, by fortifying in the way of getting in plenty of raw material. I was so certain it would come to pass, that I advised it all the time.
Q. Did you gather facts enough to enable you to determine when this strike would probably take place?
A. Yes; I had a very good idea when it would come. I do not know that I could see that my idea was so clear upon that, that I could fix the hour or perhaps the day, but I think I could have named a time of ten days that it would have occurred within that time. I could have done that, perhaps, twenty days before the strike occurred.
Q. Did you, in any conversation with these railroad men, have any talk with them about the wages they were receiving, and whether it was adequate for their support?
A. Yes; that was talked about considerably.
Q. In the business that you are engaged in you employed a large number of laborers?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How did their wages compare with the wages of your men?
A. If they had steady employment--if they had been employed each and every day--the wages they had would have been sufficient, and would have compared very favorably with the employment in other lines of business--in other departments. As I looked upon it, the prime cause of the trouble was that there were more men than there was work for, and they undertook to make a little work divide around amongst a great many men, and that, of course, made a small amount of pay for each one. In many other businesses, an employer so situated would have--I know I should have discharged my men down until I had full employment for those that were retained.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. From that I would infer that it was not the pay, but it was the time they were making?
A. They did not make enough time.
Q. Had they made full time they would have made ample pay?
A. Perhaps satisfactory.
By Mr. Englebert:
Q. Has not that been the case in all business for the last year?
A. I think that some employers have made the same mistake as the railroad men. It was out of the goodness of their hearts that they kept men about that they had not employment for. I would either give them work or not give them work.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. In your opinion, it is bad policy to keep men working on half time?
A. It is very bad policy.
Q. That was the policy adopted by the railroad company?
A. It seems to have been.
By Mr. Means:
Q. I simply want to know this: Did the railroad officials believe that half a loaf was better than no bread?
A. I have heard them talk that way. I think the railroad officials took that view.
Q. That half a loaf was better than no bread?
A. Yes, sir; but as opinions are going, I would say, a man had better go and try to make a whole loaf somewhere else, than hang around and make a half loaf.
Q. Suppose he could not get the work?
A. There is a way where there is a will. I never kept a man half employed.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Did you visit the scene of the riot at any time during its progress?
A. Yes, sir; Sunday I was up in that part of the city. I did not go up to where it was said to be the worst, but far enough to see all that I cared about seeing.