A. I am connected with the of the _Post_.
Q. Relate what occurred when you went to the mayor?
A. I may say that Mr. Bown, senior, came over to my place, and he and
Mr. Folensbee went with me up to the mayor, to notify him to send
policemen down. After we went there, the mayor at first said he was
unable to send any assistance, as the police were scattered through the
city, but he would do the best he could. We went to Mr. Johnston's gun
shop, a short distance above the mayor's office, and staid there
awhile, and came down to the mayor's office, and then walked down to
Mr. Bown's establishment, and remained there sometime, without the
police coming. Then Mr. Bown and myself went back again, but on the way
we met them coming up--we met them coming up--some six or eight of the
police--coming; and there were at least six or eight policemen there
during the disturbance. The crowd that came up, I don't think, at first
numbered over seventy-five or eighty--half grown boys. There seemed to
be half a dozen armed with muskets, but a large crowd was collected
around the streets.
Q. What effort did the policemen make to drive them back?
A. Nothing, whatever; but they staid there. I spoke to the mayor's
clerk; I said there were not enough of them to do anything, but they
staid there.
Q. Was the crowd armed when they came there?
A. They apparently had a few muskets and guns with them, as far as I
could tell.
Q. Did you offer your services, as a policeman, to the mayor?
A. Not as policeman specially, but I offered to do anything that I
could to defend the place--not to the mayor, but to Mr. Bown. Mr.
Follensbee, I believe, did.
Q. Mr. Follensbee did?
A. Yes; my impression at that time was, that fifteen or twenty
determined persons could have stopped the whole rumpus in front of Mr.
Bown's place.
Q. Did the mayor make any demand on the citizens for help?
A. Not that I know of. The mayor told me that his police force was
scattered around so that he was unable to get together enough to be of
any special service. But they did, however, gather up six or eight of
them, and they came down here.
* * * * *
Joseph S. Haymaker, _sworn with the uplifted hand_:
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Where do you reside?
A. At Laurel station, on the Fort Wayne railroad.
Q. State what you know of the riot that began on the 19th of July?
A. I believe it was on Saturday--I think that was the 20th of
July--that I came up to the city. I had been home sick for almost two
months before that time. I went out to Twenty-eighth street, and at the
time I went there I found a very considerable crowd of men there. I
knew a very few of them. The great majority of them seemed to be
strangers. I say this from the fact that owing to my political
knowledge in the city, having made many political speeches here, I had
gotten to know a great many men. When I came to Twenty-eighth street
that afternoon, about two o'clock, I found a large number of
men--probably from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred--right across the
railroad track at Twenty-eighth street. I met some men I knew, and we
were talking over the probability of a difficulty between the troops
and the strikers; and these men, or one of them, said there was no
danger of the soldiers firing on them--that the people of the State of
Pennsylvania were with the strikers in this matter. Whilst we were
talking in that way, the Philadelphia soldiers came up the railroad. I
was asked the question two or three time, whether or not I thought the
soldiers would fire on the citizens, and I said I would not trust them,
and, so far as I am concerned, I am going to get out of the road. They
are strangers here, and if ordered to fire will fire. If they don't,
they are not good soldiers. I was standing then right in front of what
they called the sand-house. Three or four gentlemen were there at the
time with me, and John Cluley, the painter. I said to them: now, I have
had a little military experience during the last war, and I said we
will get out of this and go down the hill-side. I got them to go with
me. The Philadelphia men came up, and formed on both sides of the
track, clearing the track by forming a square, open at the lower end.
At this time I was on the hill-side, about eighty or ninety feet,
probably one hundred feet, above where they had formed. In that
formation of the square there was a portion of a company--I suppose
about twenty or twenty-five men--that had yellow plumes in their
hats--Philadelphia men--who were swung off from the left of the square,
and tried to force back the mob from Twenty-eighth street. Failing in
that, then a company was brought up from the lower end of the
square--brought right up between the two lines in this way,
[illustrating,] right past where the Gatling guns were stationed, and
brought face to face with the mob. They marched up until they were
within probably twenty-five or thirty feet of the mob, and then halted
for about a second. At that time I noticed the sheriff's posse standing
in front of where they were standing, trying to get the mob to move
back. Then these men moved at a charge bayonet, and went right up to
the mob, and I saw several of the mob catch the bayonets and push them
down. Then I saw three or four stones thrown from the little
watch-house. These stones were thrown right through into this company
coming up. Then I heard a pistol shot fired, and probably two or three
seconds after that three or four other pistols shots were fired just
like that, [illustrating,] and then I saw two or three of the soldiers
go down. Then the stones began to fly down along the line, in among the
soldiers, and the firing first began right across the railroad track. I
don't know what company or regiment it was, but they had black
feathers. They were right in front of this square, and the first musket
firing began there. I noticed that. Then I heard, probably a dozen of
boys hallo shoot! shoot! down along the line, then the pistol shots
began, and the musket shots began, and I got down in a ditch behind
where I was, and staid there until it was all over.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. This call of shoot, shoot, where did it come from?
A. I won't be sure about that. I saw some of the officers strike up the
guns with their swords, and I saw some pulling of the men backwards
inside the square. Then, just right after that, there was a general
volley right along the line.
Q. A volley or a scattering fire?
A. File firing--each man for himself.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Did you hear any order given by any officer to fire?
A. No; nor do I believe any order was given. I say that, for the reason
that, had there been an order or command given, there would have been
simultaneous firing, but it seemed to me, when the fighting commenced,
that everybody was taking care of himself.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. That is, they were protecting themselves from something that was
going to injure them?
A. No; but as fast as a man got his gun loaded he would fire, and as
fast as the others could get a brick they would throw it.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. What effect did the firing of the soldiers produce on the crowd?
A. Right by me, on my right hand an old man, and a little girl on my
left hand, were shot dead. I got into the ditch, and I know it was
full--the ditch.
By Mr. Means:
Q. It was not a regular volley of musketry?
A. No; it was every fellow for himself.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Do you know how many persons were killed there?
A. No; but when I came up from the ditch--it is not a regular ditch,
but a wash down the hillside--when I raised up, somebody else was shot,
and I got down again. When I raised up the second time everything was
quiet. I looked down over the bank, and several men were lying there
dead.
Q. You say that an old gentleman was killed?
A. Yes.
Q. And that a little girl was killed?
A. No; she was shot right through the knee, and I pulled her down into
the ditch and tied a handkerchief around her leg. There was a physician
there--I think Dr. Schnatterly, of Bellevue, and he took charge of her,
and I heard she died that night.
By Mr. Reyburn:
Q. This crowd standing there--what business did they have there?
A. They had no business there.
By Mr. Yutzy:
Q. Had you any business there?
A. None at all; but I had never seen a strike before, and I went up to
see what it looked like. Right down along the railroad there was
probably ten feet of ground, or twelve feet--right along the railroad,
in front of the troops, occupied by a class of men that I had never
seen in the city of Pittsburgh before--ragged looking and dirty
looking. There is one thing about Pittsburgh people, that you can tell
them on the street--at least, I think, I can. I walking along the
street, if a man comes from Philadelphia or any other place, I think I
can tell him. In other words, I know he don't belong here. I don't know
the reason why, but we get to notice our own people, and I say that
that crowd of people along there I never saw before. They looked here
[illustrating] like people that I never saw before. I believe them to
be strangers not only to Pittsburgh and Allegheny county, but to
Western Pennsylvania, and, in fact, to the State of Pennsylvania.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. How large was that crowd?
A. There were five hundred or more of them fronting the railroad.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. There is a kind of a platform there?
A. The road runs along six feet below the bank, and then the bank runs
back about fifty feet, and then the hill commences for one hundred or
one and fifty feet above that.
Q. Did this crowd throw stones?
A. Yes; and just here I will give another reason why I believe that
crowd to be strangers in the city of Pittsburgh. The most of our men
here--our laboring men--wear dark clothes, but I saw men in that crowd
with light pantaloons, and yellow pantaloons, and two men with
velveteen coats, and those men seemed to me to be making the most noise
down in front of the soldiers. At that time, in my mind, I thought they
were tramps. Of course, I can't say that of the whole crowd, but I say
that the men making the demonstrations were men of that class.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Did that fire from the militia disperse the crowd?
A. Yes; in firing, very unfortunately, they fired over the heads of the
people there, and killed the people above. If they had lowered their
guns eight inches they would have killed a class of men that we could
very well get rid of.
Q. Did they disperse?
A. Yes.
Q. In what direction?
A. Some went up the hill-side, and the mob in front of Twenty-eighth
street, ran down Twenty-eighth street to Penn.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. Did the soldiers attempt to shoot at them as they ran up the bank?
A. Yes; I suppose the firing lasted a minute and a half. The soldiers
began firing right down the line, and probably some of them fired four
or five shots. When the crowd broke, they ran up among the people on
the hill-side, and some of them ran into the ditch where I was. The
rest of them went on up the hill-side. I noticed one thing, that the
old soldiers dropped flat down when the firing commenced, while the
others ran.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. You mean the old soldiers in the crowd?
A. I mean that.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Do you think that force of soldiers, with twenty rounds of
ammunition, could have held their position and kept the crowd off
during the night?
A. Not as strangers, they could not do it. I mean this--had that force
been posted as to the situation here, they could have done that--they
could have kept the mob off with half their number; but not being
acquainted, I think they did about the only thing they could do. The
only thing lacking under the circumstances--I have had my own opinion
since that time as to what I think I would have done, without any more
knowledge of military affairs than I learned in the army, and I would
have taken charge of this ditch that I was in, and have put the men in
there for the purpose of controlling the round-house and the tracks
below. But then there was a danger to be taken into consideration, that
along the hill above this ditch, there were houses on the hill-side
occupied by railroad men and by strikers, and by men in sympathy with
them, so there would have been a danger there, because there would have
been firing from the rear--in other words, if people had gone on the
hill-side, and opened fire down from the hill-side, they would have had
to abandon the ditch--or, on the other hand--my idea of the matter
would have been to have picketed Penn avenue and Liberty street very
heavily, and have kept those streets clear, from Twenty-eighth street
clear down. When you consider that a crowd or a mob is always cowardly,
so that the firing of eight or ten men into it will break it, I really
believe that the best plan would have been to have picketed Penn avenue
and Liberty street--to have kept these streets clear, and then if
necessary, to have picketed the upper side of the railroad track, which
would have formed a square of pickets, whereby to preserve the cars.
Yet, at the same time, I will say that these picket lines would have
been subjected to a fire from both sides--from the hill-side above, and
from the houses below. I went home on the six o'clock train that
evening.
Q. Could General Brinton have taken his troops then, and marched them
down towards the Union depot, and kept the crowd back, or kept the
crowd above?
A. No; but the mistake that General Brinton made was this, that when he
began firing he should have kept it up.
Q. How long?
A. Until every man in the city of Pittsburgh was willing to stop.
Q. Do you think, in your judgment, with the number of men they had,
with twenty rounds of ammunition, and with more ammunition over in the
Union depot, that they could have maintained their ground there and
kept up the firing, and kept the mob back, and kept up communications
with Union depot, in order to replenish their ammunition?
A. If he had continued his firing from the time the firing began at
Twenty-eighth street, most undoubtedly he could. But after that, when
General Brinton got into the round-house, where there are open
windows--the house is perfectly round--at that time he was at the mercy
of every building.
Q. But I am speaking of the time before he went into the round-house,
and after the crowd had dispersed--at that time had he continued
firing, could he have maintained his position and kept the crowd away?
A. Yes; fifty men armed as those men were armed--because I noticed that
every time a gun struck, it tore a hole like that. [Illustrating.]
Following that mob would have dispersed them.
By Mr. Yutzy:
Q. Would not that have caused great loss of life?
A. Undoubtedly--if they had fired low.
Q. What is your avocation now?
A. I am a lawyer by profession.
Q. You practice at the bar here in this city?
A. Yes.
Q. From your experience in the army, and from what you saw of the
conduct of the troops at Twenty-eighth street, would you say that their
conduct was good as military men?
A. No, sir; not a bit of it. Every man that fired first should have
been taken out and shot. In other words, I mean that there was not a
particle of discipline. I say that for this reason: There was no order
given to fire by any officer. I believe that to be the fact, because I
was on the hill side not more than sixty or eighty feet away from where
the firing began, and I had been there some two hours before the firing
did begin. I was standing there wondering how the men were going to
clear the tracks, and when the fight began I was listening very closely
in order to hear what command would be given by the officer in command.
Then this fuss began with three or four pistol shots, and then the
bricks and stones were thrown, and then more pistol shots, and then it
was every man for himself. So far as those soldiers were concerned, I
have said since, and believe it to be a fact, that it was one mob armed
against another mob not armed.
Q. Was not the conduct of those soldiers as good as could be expected
from militia men?
A. I do not know that. I have seen militia men during the war that
would walk up to the scratch, and stay there. The great trouble with
militia men is that they fire too high.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Do you think there was any real necessity for calling on the militia
for assistance here?
A. I would not like to give any opinion about that. I know that the
sheriff started out a lot of his deputies to get a lot of lawyers out
here, and the lawyers went out--of the back windows, and every other
way they could get out. I never believed that the sheriff exhausted all
his power.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. You believe, then, it was necessary to call out the military--that
the difficulty had got beyond the control of the civil authorities?
A. I believe that. I believe it was necessary to call out the
military--but to use them. In explanation of that, I would say this:
that even after the military were here, that the city of Pittsburgh was
panic struck, and that young men were taken up on the streets and were
furnished with arms, privately by the different banks, to go in and
guard the banks, because, on the Monday night following the burning, it
was rumored on the streets--on Fifth avenue, and on Wood, and on
Smithfield streets--that the banks were to be attacked that night, and
I know of several banks in the city that were guarded by young men
picked up throughout the city. I believe it to be a fact, that, had the
trouble lasted two days longer, there would have been a vacation of the
city by the women and the children in the city of Pittsburgh. I believe
they would have gotten out of town.
By Mr. Larrabee:
Q. You state you spoke to some people about the probability of the
troops firing on the crowd. Who were those people?
A. I cannot recollect.
Q. Were they part of the crowd--the strikers?
A. No.
At this point the committee adjourned to meet at three o'clock this
afternoon.