STRIKE ON THE BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD.
Circular to Employes—Ten per cent. Reduction in Wages Announced—How
the News was Received—A Delegation of Employes—The Officers of the
Road will not Reconsider—Commencement of the Strike—Trains Stopped
at Martinsburg—Trouble at Baltimore.
In the beginning of July, 1877, a circular emanating from the offices of
the superintendents of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, was sent to all
the employes of the Company, announcing a reduction of 10 per cent. from
the wages which the Company was then paying. This curtailment of the
income of the employes on the road, was to take effect on Monday, July
16th, 1877. This schedule of wages, according to the circular, reduced
the pay of firemen from $1.75 and $1.50 per day, to $1.58 and $1.35 per
day, according to the efficiency of the men. The pay of brakemen was
fixed at a little less. One hundred miles was made to constitute a days’
run. No allowance of time was permitted for delays at way stations.
The reception of this circular created no little ill-feeling among the
railroad men. Groups of them met, and discussed their situation. The men
asserted that they could not sustain themselves on the amount of wages
the company proposed to pay them for their services. Meetings of
employes were held at various points along the line of the road, and
finally a plan of action was agreed upon. A committee was appointed and
instructed to confer with the officers of the company. Mr. Vice
President King was appealed to, but declined to hear the complaints of
the employes. Various efforts were made to procure the rescission of the
order of reduction. These proved abortive. Meanwhile as the time fixed
for the order of the Company to go into effect approached, the
discontent of the men increased. At many localities along the road,
small bodies of men expressed themselves in favor of striking. But it
does not appear that up to the morning of the 16th, any concerted
movement had been agreed upon by the firemen and brakemen of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railway.
The morning of the 16th of July, 1877, at length dawned. Along the line
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, everything presented the usual
appearance. Trains were moving; foundery men, machinists, engine
drivers, firemen, brakemen, trackmen, switchmen and agents were at their
posts of duty. The commerce of a large section of country was moving
over the iron trackways. The officers of the road, too, were at their
respective offices, little anticipating that within the space of twelve
hours, a strike, such as was never before known in the history of
America, would be inaugurated along the line of that great highway.
Intimations of coming trouble the managers of the road had had, but they
trusted that the “hard times,” would deter the men from carrying into
execution any purpose they might have formed of deserting their posts of
duty on the road.
The day wore on. The click of the telegraphic instruments in the office
of the superintendents of the respective divisions, announced the
arrival and departure of trains to and from a thousand stations situated
along a line of more than fourteen hundred miles of railway. There was
no trouble as yet; and the lengthening shadows announced the day’s
decline. The afternoon was far advanced, and the officers of the great
railway line had already begun to congratulate themselves, because the
danger of a general strike appeared to have passed way.
But their self-gratulations were doomed to a sudden arrest. It was after
five o’clock in the afternoon, when the announcement was made in the
general offices of the Company at Baltimore, that a strike of the
employes on the road was in progress at Camden Junction, near that city.
About forty firemen at that point quit their engines, and persuaded
twenty or thirty brakemen to join them in deserting their trains. As yet
no intelligence had reached the managers of the road of disturbances
elsewhere. Another force of firemen and brakemen were engaged to take
out the waiting trains. But the trains were not taken out. The freight
business of the road had been already completely embargoed. The trouble
at Camden Junction appeared to have been easily disposed of, and for a
time the officers anticipated nothing worse.
But it soon became manifest that the officers had misapprehended the
nature and character of the movement among their employes. Reports came
in rapid succession from the West, announcing that the railroad men at
Cumberland, Martinsburg and other stations along the line were restless,
discontented and insubordinate, and that the canal-boatmen had quit work
and abandoned their boats. Under these circumstances, all movements of
freight over the road practically ceased.
Meanwhile, the situation at Baltimore was every hour becoming more
critical. Before six o’clock the box-makers, sawyers, and can-makers,
engaged in the shops and factories of that city, had struck for an
advance of ten per cent. on their wages, had abandoned their places and
swarmed into the streets. The demonstrations of these workingmen only
stimulated the railroad men to commit bolder acts. It became evident
before the evening had far advanced that a general strike of railroad
men all along the line of the Baltimore and Ohio line was inevitable.
At Martinsburg the excitement became very great, and the situation was
alarming. Late in the evening a general strike was set on foot. All
freight trains were stopped, and brakemen and firemen who manifested an
intention to continue at their posts, were forcibly taken from their
engines and trains by the strikers, and compelled to join in
demonstrations against the Company they had ceased to serve. At
Cumberland the situation was anything but reassuring. A considerable
number of striking trainmen had assembled at that place and prohibited
any movement whatever of trains, other than mail and passenger coaches.
At Keyser and Grafton, the trainmen had obtained complete possession,
and no freight trains were permitted to move.
Before midnight of the 16th, the control of the immense property of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railway Company, had passed out of the hands of the
officers, and was held by the strikers. The disposition manifested by
the recalcitrants at Martinsburg, had become so threatening, that Vice
President King, of the Baltimore and Ohio road, sent a dispatch to
Governor Matthews of West Virginia, calling upon him to furnish troops
to protect the interests of the Company.
Late the same evening, Governor Matthews sent a dispatch from Wheeling
to Captain Charles James Faulkner, Jr., in command of certain companies
of State militia at Martinsburg, to afford the officers of the road all
the aid and protection in his power. No collisions as yet had occurred.
The first act of the strikers involving injury to persons, was committed
at South Baltimore, at about two o’clock, the morning of the 17th. A
freight train from the West, bound for Locust Point, was thrown from the
track while passing the gas house switch in that suburb, and almost
demolished. The cab of the engine took fire and some destruction of
property ensued before the flames were subdued. The engineer and fireman
were both severely wounded. No other incident worth recording occurred
during this the first night of the reign of the strikers.
But it was already evident that a formidable movement of the workingmen
throughout the country was imminent. Indeed, the greatest labor strikes
ever known was now fairly inaugurated. Less than ten hours had passed
since the canal-boatmen, the box-makers, the sawyers, the can-makers,
and the trainmen had definitely resolved on quitting their employments,
and already more than four thousand persons had joined in the strike,
refusing to labor themselves, and determined to prevent others from
taking their places. But even with the evidences of the fitness of
public sentiment to foster and encourage a strike, no one at the close
of the first day after the strike began could have anticipated the
tremendous uprising to which the events about Baltimore and Martinsburg
were but the prelude.
But, if the developments during the first ten hours of the strike, while
the movement was yet in its incipient stage, were sufficient to engender
feelings of uneasiness in the public mind, the events of the following
day justified the sensation of intense alarm.
Martinsburg, a city of no great extent, occupying a romantic site in a
valley among the mountains of West Virginia, was destined to be the
scene of the first real conflict between the representative forces of
the State and the strikers. At an early hour on the morning of the 17th,
Captain Charles James Faulkner, Jr., Aid-de-Camp to Governor Matthews,
arrived at the post of duty at Martinsburg, in command of seventy-five
men of the Berkeley Light Guard Infantry. He had been ordered to protect
that point by the Governor, who had been applied to for aid by Vice
President King of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.
[Illustration: THE MOB ASSAULTING A MEMBER OF THE MILITIA.]
Captain Faulkner at once proceeded to the railway track and deployed his
men as a guard for a West bound freight train, which the Railway Company
determined to dispatch in spite of the orders of the strikers. The train
started, and had proceeded nearly to the switch at the Company’s yards,
when suddenly one of the strikers, named Wm. Vandergriff, ran forward
and seized the switch-ball for the purpose of opening it to “side track”
the train. At this time the train was moving slowly. A guard of militia
was on the engine. The movement of Vandergriff was observed by John
Poisal, a member of Captain Faulkner’s command, who immediately sprang
from the pilot of the engine where he had been stationed, and attempted
to replace the switch in order to allow the train to proceed.
Vandergriff resented this action, drew a pistol and fired two shots at
the militia-man, one of which took effect in the side of his head.
Poisal returned the fire, shooting Vandergriff through the hip. This
firing led to a regular fusilade. A number of shots were fired at
Vandergriff and he was shot in the head and arm. The report of firearms,
speedily attracted to the spot a great multitude of railroad men and
citizens. The excitement was intense. The engineer and fireman who had
engaged with the Company to run the train, fled when the firing
commenced. Captain Faulkner ordered the mass of strikers to keep back,
and commanded them to disperse. This order was received by them with
jeers and threats. Finding that the engineer and fireman had deserted
the train, Captain Faulkner declared that he had fully discharged his
duty, marched his command to their armory, where they were disbanded,
leaving the strikers in full possession of the field. The road was now
completely blocked up with standing trains. The cars were all uncoupled,
and the links and pins were either hidden or broken.
During the day the force of strikers at Martinsburg, was greatly
augmented. The citizens of the town, the disbanded militia, and the
rural population of the surrounding country fraternized with them, and
encouraged them in the determination to persist in their demands.
Railroad men from the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway also arrived in
considerable numbers at Martinsburg during the day. At three o’clock in
the afternoon it was estimated that the strikers and their allies at
Martinsburg numbered not less than one thousand men. The State
authorities were powerless. Telegraphic messages passed between the
Governor and the officers of the road. The Governor himself, with the
Matthews Guards, left Wheeling for Martinsburg, and proceeded as far as
Cumberland. But he hastily returned from that point to the Capital on
receiving intelligence that the strike had reached that city, and that
all freight trains were being stopped. The police and constabulary force
of the municipality could afford no protection to trainmen who were
willing to continue in the service of the Company. The two military
companies at Martinsburg, openly affiliated with the strikers. Another
company of volunteer militia was thirty-eight miles from any railroad.
The Matthews Guards at Wheeling, numbered but forty-eight men, and even
the loyalty of these was not to be depended on in this emergency.
At night the situation at Martinsburg, Cumberland, Grafton, Keyser,
Wheeling, and indeed all along the line of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad, was critical in the extreme. The canal-boatmen were with the
railroad men at Martinsburg, and the citizens all along the line were
apparently sympathizers. Meanwhile, rumors of an alarming character
concerning movements among railroad, and other classes of workingmen all
over the country, were circulated in all directions. In the portion of
country most affected, a sort of dread of impending disasters had taken
possession of the friends of law and order. Lawlessness reigned supreme
from the Patapsco to the Kanawha. The second day of the great strikes
closed. The movement had become formidable. Men experienced a feeling of
intense alarm at the prospects before them.