Q. A little above the watch-house?
A. A little above the watch-house.
* * * * *
Major J. B. Steen, _sworn_:
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. What is your full name?
A. James B.
Q. Where do you reside?
A. I reside in Pittsburgh.
Q. What is your occupation?
A. The coal business.
Q. Were you a member of the National Guard of Pennsylvania in July
last?
A. Yes; I was quartermaster on General Pearson's staff.
Q. Were you present at the time the troops were called out to quell the
disturbance or strike?
A. I was present at the time the Philadelphia troops arrived.
Q. State as briefly as you can when you came upon the scene, and what
occurred?
A. These Philadelphia troops arrived at Union depot some time after
dinner, and they furnished them with meals there, and along in the
afternoon the column started out towards Twenty-eighth street, headed
by Sheriff Fife, General Pearson, and General Brinton, and Major
Stroud, and Givens, and Moore, and myself were on the staff; and when
we arrived at Twenty-eighth street, we formed a hollow square. There
was a pile of plank about the center of the square, and I sat down on
the plank with Pitcairn. We marched the Washington Grays through the
center, to force the crowd back off Twenty-eighth street. There was
pistol shots, and stones thrown, and they commenced firing on the
right, and then there was a general volley along the line.
Q. Was this firing by orders?
A. I did not hear any orders. General Pearson had passed me while I was
sitting on this pile of plank, and he asked Pitcairn where the nearest
telegraph office was, and, I think, he told him in his office, and he
started down that way. It was five or ten minutes before the firing
took place.
Q. That was before this company was marched out to clear the crossing?
A. No, sir; it was after the company was marched out. I am not positive
whether it was after or before, but my recollection is that it was
after.
Q. General Pearson passed you, then, going down to go to Pitcairn's
office?
A. Yes; to the telegraph office.
Q. How was he dressed?
A. He had a fatigue uniform, blue cap, blouse, sword, belt, and blue
pantaloons.
Q. Had this blouse buttons up close to the throat?
A. Buttons all the way up to the throat.
Q. Did you notice whether it was buttoned that way?
A. I could not say whether it was buttoned or not. I should judge it
was though.
Q. Did you say he had a cap on?
A. Cap; yes, sir.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Shoulder straps?
A. Two stars on the shoulder--straps and stars.
Q. Were they conspicuous enough to be noticed?
A. They would be noticed, I should judge--regular size.
Q. Regulation size?
A. Regulation size.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. General Pearson passed you before the firing commenced?
A. Before the firing commenced.
Q. Five or ten minutes?
A. Five or ten minutes. I was sitting on a pile of plank there, and
Pitcairn was sitting beside me and Major Stroud.
Q. How far is it from there to Pitcairn's office?
A. I should judge it was about a square--a little over that--two
squares.
Q. Did he come back again at all, before the firing?
A. No, sir; the next place I saw him, was in Pitcairn's office. I went
down to hunt him up to report, and I saw him in Pitcairn's office.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Did he know that there had been firing?
A. He knew it; yes, sir.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. Was anybody there when you got there?
A. Yes; there were several gentlemen there, but I do not recollect who
they were.
Q. Was he in the telegraph office or in Pitcairn's--that is above the
telegraph office?
A. In Pitcairn's office.
Q. Has he a telegraph instrument there?
A. There is a waiter that goes down, and they send the messages down to
the office.
Q. Was he dressed the same as when he passed you?
A. Yes; in his fatigue uniform.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. How close were you to the military when the firing took place?
A. I was sitting right in the center of the hollow square.
Q. Were you in uniform?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you hear any command to fire by any officer?
A. I did not. I do not think there was any command given to fire.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. Did the officers attempt to stop the men when the firing took place?
A. As soon as the firing took place, they attempted to stop them. One
company, I think on the left, did not fire.
Q. What did they say--order them to cease firing?
A. Run to them and knocked their guns up.
Q. Did you hear the command to cease firing?
A. I heard that very plain.
By Mr. Dewees:
Q. Who gave that command?
A. The different officers of the regiments.
Q. Did you hear any shots fired from the crowd before the firing by the
military?
A. Some pistol shots and some stones thrown.
Q. How many shots?
A. I should think there were several. I suppose about ten or twelve.
Q. Before the firing by the military?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were any of the military struck or injured before the firing on the
mob?
A. There was one of them hit with a stone.
* * * * *
H. Vierheller, _sworn_:
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. What is your full name?
A. Henry.
Q. What is your occupation?
A. Keeping saloon.
Q. Are you a resident of Pittsburgh?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you a member of the National Guard?
A. Yes.
Q. At the time of the July riots?
A. Yes.
Q. What position did you hold?
A. Private in company A, Eighteenth regiment.
Q. Were you out at Twenty-eighth street on the afternoon of the
Twenty-first--Saturday?
A. No, sir; not on the Twenty-first. I was at the Union depot on
Saturday.
Q. Did you see the troops start from the Union depot, out?
A. I was there before the Philadelphia troops arrived there on
Saturday. I went there with Major Stroud, of General Pearson's staff.
He came to General Pearson's head-quarters and wished to report to the
general. Their head-quarters were right over my place, on Fifth avenue,
and he asked me to go out with him to report to the general, and I did
so.
Q. Did you see General Pearson there?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What time was that?
A. It must have been between twelve and one o'clock.
Q. Had the Philadelphia troops arrived then?
A. No, sir.
Q. How was General Pearson dressed?
A. He had a fatigue uniform blouse--officer's blouse on and a fatigue
cap.
Q. You were not present when the firing took place?
A. No, sir.
Q. Know nothing of that?
A. No.
Q. If you have anything that has not been testified, that is of any
importance to our committee, make a brief statement of it?
A. In relation to Saturday, and that is all I know of it. I remained
around there for an hour or so, intending to wait until the
Philadelphia troops arrived, but they were late getting in, and I left
there.
Q. You were not there when the firing took place?
A. No, sir.
* * * * *
Major General Albert L. Pearson re-called.
By Mr. Reyburn:
Q. You did testify as to the movements of the troops, &c, out at
Twenty-eighth street, I think, Saturday afternoon?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I want simply to ask you how you were dressed on that occasion?
A. Up until Friday night I was dressed in citizens' clothes; light gray
pantaloons, blue cutaway, coat, and straw hat, but at about nine
o'clock, Captain Breck, Colonel Moore, and myself came down to my
head-quarters, and Colonel Moore and I then procured our uniform. I
wore my uniform from nine o'clock Friday night up until long after the
difficulty; in fact, the only clothing I had on up until Monday, was a
complete major general's uniform. The coat is single breasted, five
buttons down front, and from each button was a broad braid which is
known in military language as herring bone--goes from each button
across the breast--and a large loop. The coat is slashed up the side,
and that has got a herring bone along the trimmings on the side, and
the same up the arm. The shoulder straps were regular shoulder
straps--major general's--two stars. The cap, blue--a fatigue cap as
usually worn by officers, with a dark blue velvet band clear around the
cap, with a wreath embroidered with gold, and, at that time, the
letters U.S. inside of the wreath. The belt was red Turkish morocco,
very elaborately embroidered in gold. There was a wreath embroidered
entirely around the belt with gold embroidery, up above and below the
wreath----
Q. It was morocco?
A. Yes; the scabbard was gilt plate, and a handle of silver--it was a
uniform, I presume, the only one like it on the ground. General
Brinton's blouse was a perfectly plain blouse without the herring bone
trimmings on it--it was not slashed. I don't think any of the other
general officers had a blouse like it; in fact, I know they had not.
Q. You have testified in regard to leaving before the firing?
A. When I left, there was no indications of any firing or anything of
that kind at all. There had been no stones thrown or pistol shots
fired--nothing to indicate that there would be.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Why did you leave?
A. I left, as I testified before, from the fact that I had been
informed by some of the officers of my own division, that there was a
feeling existing among the portion of the troops of my own division
that were at Twenty-eighth street, that probably they couldn't be
depended upon. I thought it was better to have the other divisions that
had been placed under arms sent for at once, and walked down the tracks
and telegraphed to General Latta for that purpose.
Q. What office did you go to?
A. Pitcairn's office was over the telegraph office, at the corner of
Twenty-sixth and Liberty. It is two squares away from where the
difficulty occurred.
Q. Were you in the telegraph office or above?
A. In Pitcairn's office. There were waiters running from Pitcairn's
office down to the telegraph office, so that messages could be received
or sent in that manner. I was accompanied by Major Evans, who went with
me.
Q. Major Evans you say went back with you?
A. Major Evans accompanied me from Twenty-eighth street to Pitcairn's
office and was there when we first received the information that the
affair had taken place, and was with me all the time that the
difficulty was going on.
Q. Does he occupy any position in the division?
A. He is major and paymaster of the division, but was acting as a
personal aid that day.
Q. Where is he?
A. He is out at his mill, at Soho.
Q. Iron mill?
A. Yes; the firm of Evans, Dalzell & Co. I think the first man that
gave me any information of any firing was Mr. Cassatt--that is a
positive assurance that the firing had taken place. He had been up in
the cupola of one of the buildings and had observed all the proceedings
that had taken place at Twenty-eighth street. I think he was the first
that gave me any positive assurance that the troops had fired. I know I
had heard no firing, had not heard the explosion of the pieces at all.
I am very free to confess that I am very sorry that I was not at
Twenty-eighth street at the time of the difficulty, because General
Brinton, when no other officer would have had any reason to have waited
for an order very long, for most undoubtedly and most assuredly had I
been there, and the pistol shots had been fired as has been testified,
and stones thrown, as Captain Breck has stated, and the troops treated
in the manner in which they undoubtedly were treated, I would have
directed Brinton at once to fire upon the rioters, and would have kept
it up just long enough that they wouldn't have come back to that
locality again, at least a good many of them. I didn't believe an order
was given, at least, from what Brinton has informed, but I thought it
should have been given.
* * * * *
Colonel Gray, re-called:
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. You have given your testimony, I believe, before, as to the
occurrences. All we want to ask is, did you see General Pearson on the
afternoon of the 21st of July?
A. I saw him at a distance. I was on the hill side, and saw him come up
with the troops. I was up in the morning, in the forepart of the day,
probably twice I saw him there, but I was not close to him. I was not
down to the railroad that day.
Q. How was he dressed in the morning that you saw him?
A. I saw him at the Union depot at night--Friday night--and then in the
morning, before he went out there. He was dressed in his fatigue
uniform, and it has been very accurately described by himself, and I
think everybody in the Sixth division knows it, and everybody who has
seen him, the peculiar coat--different from any other fatigue uniform
that is in existence now. I think he was dressed in that uniform and
fatigue cap. I saw him come up with the Philadelphia troops, at a
distance. I was on the hill side, and recognized him very distinctly. I
was anxious that he should be there, and was satisfied that he was
there.
At this point the committee adjourned to meet at Harrisburg, at the
call of the chairman.
HARRISBURG, _March 8, 1878_.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, in Senate committee room, No. 6,
all members present except Mr. Larrabee.
* * * * *
Governor John F. Hartranft, being duly _sworn_, testified as follows:
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Governor, just state in your own way where you were in July last,
when the railroad strikes first broke out, and when you received the
first information, and what was done by yourself thereafter?
A. I contemplated making a trip to the west with my family, and, in
thinking the matter over before I started, I had a conversation with
the Adjutant General, in which I stated to him that I thought
everything was as calm in the State it ever was since our
administration, yet, if there was any trouble, he should exercise the
authority vested in the commander-in-chief, in accordance with the same
rules and principles that we had established when there was trouble
prior to my leaving the State--that is, when there was trouble in a
section of the State, we frequently had calls from the sheriffs of the
county, and after we became satisfied that the sheriff had exhausted
his authority, or was unwilling to exercise his full authority, we
generally sent troops. With these general instructions, not
anticipating for a moment that it meant anything, I left the State on
Monday, the 16th of July. On Wednesday morning, I saw by the papers, at
Chicago, where I was, that there was trouble on the Baltimore and Ohio
road. On the next day, Thursday, receiving the papers on the train, I
saw that the trouble was spreading. I telegraphed to the State for
information as to whether this had spread upon the Baltimore and Ohio
road into the State. The first dispatch that I received was received at
Antelope, on the Union Pacific railroad, on Friday forenoon sometime.
The dispatch was as follows:
"Mob stopped all freight trains at Pittsburgh. Sheriff called for
troops. Ordered Pearson to take charge, and put one regiment on
duty. Says he may need more."
Q. Who was that dispatch received from?
A. It was from General Latta.
Q. That was on Friday, the 20th of July?