DESPERATE FIGHTING.
HAVING again reached police headquarters, Merwyn rested but a short
time and then joined a force of two hundred men under Inspector
Dilkes, and returned to the same avenue in which he had already
incurred such peril. The mob, having discovered that it must cope
with the military as well as the police, became eager to obtain
arms. It so happened that several thousand carbines were stored in
a wire factory in Second Avenue, and the rioters had learned the
fact. Therefore they swarmed thither, forced an entrance, and began
to arm themselves and their comrades. A despatch to headquarters
announced the attack at its commencement, and the force we have
named was sent off in hot haste to wrest from the mob the means
of more effective resistance. Emerging into the avenue from 21st
Street, Dilkes found the thoroughfare solid with rioters, who, instead
of giving way, greeted the police with bitter curses. Hesitating
not a moment on account of vast inequality of numbers, the leader
formed his men and charged. The mob had grown reckless with every
hour, and it now closed on the police with the ferocity of a wild
beast. A terrible hand-to-hand conflict ensued, and Merwyn found
himself warding off and giving blows with the enemy so near that
he could almost feel their hot, tainted breath on his cheek, while
horrid visages inflamed with hate and fury made impressions on his
mind that could not easily pass away. It was a close, desperate
encounter, and the scorching July sun appeared to kindle passion
on either side into tenfold intensity. While the police were
disciplined men, obeying every order and doing nothing at random,
they WERE men, and they would not have been human if anger and
thoughts of vengeance had not nerved their arms as they struck down
ruffians who would show no more mercy to the wounded or captured
than would a man-eating tiger.
Since the mob would not give way, the police cut a bloody path
through the throng, and forced their way like a wedge to the factory.
Their orders were to capture all arms; and when a rioter was seen
with a carbine or a gun of any kind, one or more of the police would
rush out of the ranks and seize it, then fight their way back.
By the time they reached the factory so many of the mob had
been killed or wounded, and so many of their leaders were dead or
disabled, that it again yielded to panic and fled. One desperate
leader, although already bruised and bleeding, had for a time
inspired the mob with much of his own reckless fury, and was left
almost alone by his fleeing companions. His courage, which should have
been displayed in a better cause, cost him dear, for a tremendous
blow sent him reeling against a fence, the sharp point of one of
the iron pickets caught under his chin, and he hung there unheeded,
impaled and dying. He was afterwards taken down, and beneath
his soiled overalls and filthy shirt was a fair, white skin, clad
in cassimere trousers, a rich waistcoat, and the finest of linen.
His delicate, patrician features emphasized the mystery of his
personality and action.
When all resistance in the street was overcome, there still remained
the factory, thronged with armed and defiant rioters. Dilkes
ordered the building to be cleared, and Merwyn took his place in
the storming party. We shall not describe the scenes that followed.
It was a strife that differed widely from Lane's cavalry charge
on the lawn of a Southern plantation, with the eyes of fair women
watching his deeds. Merwyn was not taking part with thousands in a
battle that would be historic as Strahan and Blauvelt had done at
Gettysburg. Every element of romance and martial inspiration was
wanting. It was merely a life-and-death encounter between a handful
of policemen and a grimy, desperate band of ruffians, cornered like
rats, and resolved to sell their lives dearly.
The building was cleared, and at last Merwyn, exhausted and panting,
came back with his comrades and took his place in the ranks. His
club was bloody, and his revolver empty. The force marched away in
triumph escorting wagons loaded with all the arms they could find,
and were cheered by the better-disposed spectators that remained
on the scene of action.
The desperate tenacity of the mob is shown by the fact that it
returned to the wire factory, found some boxes of arms that had been
overlooked, filled the great five-story building and the street
about it, and became so defiant that the same battle had to be
fought again in the afternoon with the aid of the military.
For the sake of making a definite impression we have touched upon
the conflicts taking place in one locality. But throughout this awful
day there were mobs all over the city, with fighting, plundering,
burning, the chasing and murdering of negroes occurring at the same
time in many and widely separated sections. Telegrams for aid were
pouring into headquarters from all parts of the city, large tracts
of which were utterly unprotected. The police and military could be
employed only in bodies sufficiently large to cope with gatherings
of hundreds or thousands. Individual outrages and isolated instances
of violence and plunder could not be prevented.
But law-abiding citizens were realizing their danger and awakening
to a sense of their duty. Over four hundred special policemen were
sworn in. Merchants and bankers in Wall Street met and resolved to
close business. Millionnaires vied with their clerks and porters
in patriotic readiness to face danger. Volunteer companies were
formed, and men like Hon. William E. Dodge, always foremost in every
good effort in behalf of the city, left their offices for military
duty. While thousands of citizens escaped from the city, with their
families, not knowing where they would find a refuge, and obeying
only the impulse to get away from a place apparently doomed, other
thousands remained, determined to protect their hearths and homes
and to preserve their fair metropolis from destruction. Terrible
as was the mob, and tenfold more terrible as it would have been if
it had used its strength in an organized effort and with definite
purpose, forces were now awakening and concentrating against it
which would eventually destroy every vestige of lawlessness. With
the fight on Broadway, during Monday evening, the supreme crisis
had passed. After that the mob fought desperate but losing battles.
Acton, with Napoleonic nerve and skill, had time to plan and
organize. General Brown with his brave troops reached him on Monday
night, and thereafter the two men, providentially brought and kept
together, met and overcame, in cordial co-operation, every danger
as it arose. Their names should never be forgotten by the citizens
of New York. Acton, as chief of police, was soon feared more than
any other man in the city, and he began to receive anonymous letters
assuring him that he had "but one more day to live." He tossed
them contemptuously aside, and turned to the telegrams imploring
assistance. In every blow struck his iron will and heavy hand were
felt. For a hundred hours, through the storm, he kept his hand on
the helm and never closed his eyes. He inspired confidence in the
men who obeyed him, and the humblest of them became heroes.
The city was smitten with an awful paralysis. Stages and street
cars had very generally ceased running; shops were closed; Broadway
and other thoroughfares and centres usually so crowded were at times
almost deserted; now and then a hack would whirl by with occupants
that could not be classified. They might be leaders of the mob,
detectives, or citizens in disguise bent on public or private
business. On one occasion a millionnaire whose name is known and
honored throughout the land, dressed in the mean habiliments of a
laborer, drove a wagon up Broadway in which was concealed a load
of arms and ammunition. In hundreds of homes fathers and sons kept
watch with rifles and revolvers, while city and State authorities
issued proclamations.
It was a time of strange and infinite vicissitude, yet apparently
the mob steadily attained vaster and more terrible proportions,
and everywhere lawlessness was on the increase, especially in the
upper portions of the city.
Mr. Vosburgh, with stern and clouded brow, obtained information from
all available sources, and flashed the vital points to Washington.
He did not leave Marian alone very long, and as the day advanced
kept one of his agents in the house during his absences. He failed
to meet Merwyn at headquarters, but learned of the young man's
brave action from one of his wounded comrades.
When Mr. Vosburgh told Marian of the risks which her new friend was
incurring, and the nature of the fighting in which he was engaged,
she grew so pale and agitated that he saw that she was becoming
conscious of herself, of the new and controlling element entering
into her life.
This self-knowledge was made tenfold clearer by a brief visit from
Mrs. Ghegan.
"Oh! how dared you come?" cried Marian.
"The strates are safe enough for the loikes o' me, so oi kape out
o' the crowds," was the reply, "but they're no place fer ye, Miss
Marian. Me brogue is a password iverywhere, an' even the crowds is
civil and dacent enough onless something wakes the divil in 'em;"
and then followed a vivid account of her experiences and of the
timely help Merwyn had given her.
"The docthers think me Barney'll live, but oi thank Misther Merwyn
that took him out o' the very claws uv the bloody divils, and not
their bat's eyes. Faix, but he tops all yez frin's, Miss Marian, tho'
ye're so could to 'im. All the spalpanes in the strates couldn't
make 'im wink, yet while I was a-wailin' over Barney he was as
tender-feelin' as a baby."
The girl's heart fluttered strangely at the words of her former
maid, but she tried to disguise her emotion. When again left alone
she strained her ears for every sound from the city, and was untiring
in her watch. From noon till evening she kept a dainty lunch ready
for Merwyn, but he did not come.
After the young man's return from his second fight he was given some
rest. In the afternoon, he, with others, was sent on duty to the
west side, the force being carried thither in stages which Acton
had impressed into the service. One driver refused to stir, saying,
insolently, that he had "not been hired to carry policemen."
"Lock that man in cell No. 4," was Acton's answer, while, in the
same breath, he ordered a policeman to drive.
That was the superintendent's style of arguing and despatching
business.
Merwyn again saw plenty of service, for the spirit of pandemonium
was present in the west side. Towards evening, however, the rioters
ceased their aimless and capricious violence, and adopted in their
madness the dangerous method of Parisian mobs. They began throwing
up a series of barricades in Eighth Avenue. Vehicles of all
kinds within reach, telegraph poles, boxes,--anything that would
obstruct,--were wired together. Barricades were also erected on
cross-streets, to prevent flank movements. Captain Walling, of the
police, who was on duty in the precinct, appreciated the importance
of abolishing this feature from street fighting as speedily
as possible, and telegraphed to headquarters for a co-operating
military force. He also sent to General Sanford, at the arsenal,
for troops. They were promised, but never sent. General Brown,
fortunately, was a man of a very different stamp from Sanford, and
he promptly sent a body of regulars.
Captain Slott took command of the police detailed to co-operate
with the soldiers, and, with their officers, waited impatiently
and vainly for the company promised by Sanford. Meanwhile the mob
was strengthening its defences with breathless energy, and the sun
was sinking in the west. As the difficult and dangerous work to be
done required daylight it was at last resolved to wait no longer.
As the assailants drew near the barricade, they received a volley,
accompanied by stones and other missiles. The police fell back a
little to the left, and the troops, advancing, returned the fire.
But the rioters did not yield, and for a time the crash of musketry
resounded through the avenue, giving the impression of a regular
pitched battle. The accurate aim of the soldiers, however, at last
decided the contest, and the rioters fled to the second barricade,
followed by the troops, while the police tore away the captured
obstruction.
Obtaining a musket and cartridges from a wounded soldier, Merwyn,
by explaining that he was a good marksman, obtained the privilege
of fighting on the left flank of the military.
The mob could not endure the steady, well-directed fire of the
regulars, and one barricade after another was carried, until the
rioters were left uncovered when they fled, shrieking, yelling,
cursing in their impotent rage,--the police with their clubs and
the soldiers with their rifles following and punishing them until
the streets were clear.
Merwyn, having been on duty all day, obtained a leave of absence till
the following morning, and, availing himself of his old device to
save time and strength, went to a livery stable near the station-house
and obtained a hack by payment of double the usual fare. Mounting
the box with the driver, and avoiding crowds, he was borne rapidly
towards Mr. Vosburgh's residence. He was not only terribly exhausted,
but also consumed with anxiety as to the safety of the girl who
had never been absent long from his thoughts, even in moments of
the fiercest conflict.