Commencement of the Mob.--Its Line of March.--Its immense Size.--Attacks
a Provost-marshal's Office, in Third Avenue.--Set on Fire.--Terrible
Struggle of Kennedy for his Life with the Mob.--Carried to Head-quarters
unconscious.--Acton's Preparations.--The Telegraph System.--Mob cutting
down Telegraph Poles.--Number of Despatches sent over the Wires during
the Riot.--Superintendent of Telegraph Bureau seized and held Prisoner
by the Mob.
Meanwhile, events were assuming an alarming aspect in the western part
of the city. Early in the morning men began to assemble here in separate
groups, as if in accordance with a previous arrangement, and at last
moved quietly north along the various avenues. Women, also, like camp
followers, took the same direction in crowds. They were thus divided
into separate gangs, apparently to take each avenue in their progress,
and make a clean sweep. The factories and workshops were visited, and
the men compelled to knock off work and join them, while the proprietors
were threatened with the destruction of their property, if they made any
opposition. The separate crowds were thus swelled at almost every step,
and armed with sticks, and clubs, and every conceivable weapon they
could lay hands on, they moved north towards some point which had
evidently been selected as a place of rendezvous. This proved to be a
vacant lot near Central Park, and soon the living streams began to flow
into it, and a more wild, savage, and heterogeneous-looking mass could
not be imagined. After a short consultation they again took up the
line of march, and in two separate bodies, moved down Fifth and Sixth
Avenues, until they reached Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Streets, when
they turned directly east.
The number composing this first mob has been so differently estimated,
that it would be impossible from reports merely, to approximate the
truth. A pretty accurate idea, however, can be gained of its immense
size, from a statement made by Mr. King, son of President King, of
Columbia College. Struck by its magnitude, he had the curiosity to get
some estimate of it by timing its progress, and he found that although
it filled the broad street from curbstone to curbstone, and was moving
rapidly, it took between twenty and twenty-five minutes for it to pass a
single point.
A ragged, coatless, heterogeneously weaponed army, it heaved
tumultuously along toward Third Avenue. Tearing down the telegraph poles
as it crossed the Harlem & New Haven Railroad track, it surged angrily
up around the building where the drafting was going on. The small squad
of police stationed there to repress disorder looked on bewildered,
feeling they were powerless in the presence of such a host. Soon a
stone went crashing through a window, which was the signal for a general
assault on the doors. These giving way before the immense pressure, the
foremost rushed in, followed by shouts and yells from those behind, and
began to break up the furniture. The drafting officers, in an adjoining
room, alarmed, fled precipitately through the rear of the building. The
mob seized the wheel in which were the names, and what books, papers,
and lists were left, and tore them up, and scattered them in every
direction. A safe stood on one side, which was supposed to contain
important papers, and on this they fell with clubs and stones, but in
vain. Enraged at being thwarted, they set fire to the building, and
hurried out of it. As the smoke began to ascend, the onlooking multitude
without sent up a loud cheer. Though the upper part of the building
was occupied by families, the rioters, thinking that the officers were
concealed there, rained stones and brick-bats against the windows,
sending terror into the hearts of the inmates. Deputy Provost Marshal
Vanderpool, who had mingled in the crowd, fearing for the lives of the
women and children, boldly stepped to the front, and tried to appease
the mob, telling them the papers were all destroyed, and begged them to
fall back, and let others help the inmates of the building, or take hold
themselves. The reply was a heavy blow in the face. Vanderpool shoved
the man who gave it aside, when he was assailed with a shower of blows
and curses. Fearing for his life, he broke through the crowd, and
hastened to the spot where the police were standing, wholly powerless in
the midst of this vast, excited throng.
In the meantime, the flames, unarrested, made rapid way, and
communicating to the adjoining building, set it on fire. The volumes of
smoke, rolling heavenward, and the crackling and roaring of the flames,
seemed for a moment to awe the mob, and it looked silently on the
ravaging of a power more terrible and destructive than its own.
At this time Superintendent Kennedy was quietly making his way across
the town toward the office of with a heavy club, endeavored to break in
his skull, but Kennedy dodged his blows. Careful only for his head, he
let them beat his body, while he made desperate efforts to break through
the mass, whose demoniacal yells and oaths showed that they intended
to take his life. In the struggle the whole crowd, swaying to and fro,
slowly advanced toward Lexington Avenue, coming, as they did so, upon a
wide mud-hole. "Drown him! drown, him!" arose at once on every side,
and the next moment a heavy blow, planted under his ear, sent him
headforemost into the water.
Falling with his face amid the stones, he was kicked and trampled on,
and pounded, till he was a mass of gore. Still struggling desperately
for life, he managed to get to his feet again, and made a dash for the
middle of the pond. The water was deep, and his murderers, disliking to
get wet, did not follow him, but ran around to the other side, to meet
him as he came out. But Kennedy was ahead of them, and springing up
the bank into Lexington Avenue, saw a man whom he knew, and called
out: "John Eagan, come here and save my life!" Mr. Eagan, who was a
well-known and influential resident of that vicinity, immediately
rushed forward to his assistance, and arrested his pursuers. But the
Superintendent was so terribly bruised and mangled, that Eagan did not
recognize him. He, however, succeeded in keeping the mob back, who,
seeing the horrible condition their victim was in, doubtless thought
they had finished him. Other citizens now coming forward, a passing feed
wagon was secured, into which Kennedy was lifted, and driven to police
head-quarters. Acton, who was in the street as the wagon approached, saw
the mangled body within, did not dream who it was. The driver inquired
where he should take him. "Around to the station," carelessly replied
Acton. The driver hesitated, and inquired again, "Where to?" Acton,
supposing it was some drunkard, bruised in a brawl, replied rather
petulantly, "Around to the station." The man then told him it was
Kennedy. Acton, scanning the features more closely, saw that it indeed
was the Superintendent himself in this horrible condition. As the
officers gathered around the bleeding, almost unconscious form, a murmur
of wrath was heard, a sure premonition what work would be done when the
hour of vengeance should come.
Kennedy was carried into head-quarters, and a surgeon immediately sent
for. After an examination had shown that no bones were broken, he was
taken to the house of a friend, and, before the week closed, was on his
feet again.
Acton, now the legal head of the police force, soon showed he was the
right man in the right place. Of a nervous temperament, he was quick and
prompt, yet cool and decided, and relentless as death in the discharge
of his duty. Holding the views of the first Napoleon respecting mobs,
he did not believe in speech-making to them. His addresses were to
be locust clubs and grape-shot. Taking in at once the gravity of the
situation, he, after despatching such force as was immediately available
to the scene of the riot, telegraphed to the different precincts to have
the entire reserve force concentrated at head-quarters, which were in
Mulberry Street, near Bleecker.
He saw at once, to have his force effective it must be well in hand,
so that he could send it out in any direction in sufficient strength
to bear down all opposition. Subsequent events proved the wisdom of his
policy, for we shall see, after it had been accomplished, the police
never lost a battle.
There being thirty-two precincts in the limits of the Metropolitan
Police, a vast territory was covered. These were reached by a system of
telegraph wires, called the Telegraph Bureau, of which James Crowley
was superintendent and Eldred Polhamus deputy. There were three
operators--Chapin, Duvall, and Lucas. A telegraph station was in
each precinct--thus making thirty-two, all coming to a focus at
head-quarters. These are also divided into five sections--north, south,
east, west, and central. The Commissioners, therefore, sitting in
the central office, can send messages almost instantaneously to every
precinct of the city, and receive immediate answers. Hence, Mr. Acton
was a huge Briareus, reaching out his arms to Fort Washington in the
north, and Brooklyn in the south, and at the same time touching the
banks of both rivers. No other system could be devised giving such
tremendous power to the police--the power of instant information and
rapid concentration at any desired point. That it proved itself the
strong right arm of the Commissioners, it needs only to state, that
during the four days of the riot, between five and six thousand messages
passed over the wires, showing that they were worked to their utmost
capacity, day and night. The more intelligent of the mob understood
this, and hence at the outset attempted to break up this communication,
by cutting down the poles on Third Avenue. This stopped all messages
to and from the precincts at Fort Washington, Manhattanville, Harlem,
Yorkville, and Bloomingdale, as well as with the Nineteenth Precinct.
But fortunately, the orders to these had passed over the wires before
the work was completed. Subsequently, the rioters cut down the poles
in First Avenue, in Twenty-second Street, and Ninth Avenue, destroying
communication between several other precincts.
Mr. Crowley, the Superintendent of the Telegraph Bureau, was made
acquainted early, Monday, by mere accident with this plan of the
rioters. Coming to town in the Third Avenue cars from Yorkville, where
he resided, he suddenly found the car arrested by a mob, and getting out
with the other passengers, discovered men chopping furiously away at the
telegraph poles; and without stopping to think, rushed up to them and
ordered them to desist. One of the ruffians, looking up, cried out, "he
is one of the d--d operators." Instantly yells arose, "Smash him," "Kill
him," when those nearest seized him. By great adroitness he disarmed
their suspicions sufficiently to prevent further violence, though they
held him prisoner for an hour. At last, seeing an opportunity when more
important objects attracted their attention, he quietly worked his way
out and escaped.