Telegraph Bureau.--Its Work.--Skill and Daring and Success of its
Force.--Interesting Incidents.--Hairbreadth Escapes.--Detective
Force.--Its arduous Labors.--Its Disguises.--Shrewdness, Tact, and
Courage.--Narrow Escapes.--Hawley, the Chief Clerk.--His exhausting
Labors.
One thing Commissioners Acton and Bergen in their consultation settled
must be done at all hazards--telegraphic communication must be kept
open with the different precincts. Otherwise it would be impossible
to concentrate men at any given point, quick enough to arrest the mob
before they spread devastation and conflagration far and wide. Every
hour gained by a mob in accumulating or organizing its forces, increases
the difficulty of dispersing it. The rioters understood this partially,
and had acted accordingly; but the rich spoils they had come across
during the day, had driven, for the time being, all other thoughts
but plunder out of their heads. Some communications had already been
destroyed, and the rioters would evidently by morning have their eyes
open to the importance of doing this everywhere, and their efforts
must be foiled, no matter what the risk or sacrifice might be. They had
already cut down over sixty poles, and rendered upwards of twelve miles
of wire useless; and how much more would share the same fate the next
day, no one could tell.
The superintendent and deputy of the Telegraph Bureau, Messrs. Crowley
and Polhamus, with the operators mentioned before, were, therefore, set
at work this very evening in the storm, to restore the broken lines.
This was a perilous undertaking, for if once discovered, their lives
would be instantly sacrificed.
The details of their operations, their disguises, ingenious
contrivances, deceptions, and boldness in carrying out their object,
would make an attractive chapter in itself. Often compelled to mingle
with the mob, always obliged to conceal what they were about, not daring
to raise a pole or handle a wire unless cautiously or secretly, they
yet restored the lines in the north section by morning, and those in
the south by Wednesday evening. Sometimes they were compelled to carry
a wire over the top of a house, sometimes round it, through a back-yard;
in short, every device and expedient was resorted to by these daring,
sharp-witted men. Once Polhamus had his boots burned off in tramping
through the burning ruins of a building after the wires. Once he and Mr.
Crowley came near being clubbed to death by the police, who mistook them
for rioters, so ingeniously and like them were they at work among the
ruins. Captain Brower rescued them, or their services might have ended
on the spot.
This work was kept steadily up during the continuation of the riots. On
one occasion, Mr. Crowley, hearing that the wires were down in the Ninth
and Tenth Avenues, hastened thither alone, when he encountered a large
mob. Fearing to pass through it he hesitated a moment, when he noticed
a carriage driving in the direction he wished to go, in which was a
Catholic priest. He immediately hailed it and was taken in. As the
carriage entered the mob, the latter surrounded it, and supposing the
inmates were reporters, began to yell "Down with the d--d reporters;"
but the moment they recognized the priest, they allowed it to pass.
Often the two would take a hack; and passing themselves off as drivers,
go through infected districts, and search points to which they otherwise
could not have gone. One time they were returning from an expedition
through Third Avenue, and had reached Houston Street, when they were
hailed by a gang of rioters, who demanded to be taken downtown. They had
to comply, for the men were armed with pistols, and so took them in
and kept along Houston Street, under the pretence of going down through
Broadway, knowing that when they reached Mulberry Street they would
be in hailing distance of the head-quarters of the police. It was just
after daybreak, and Crowley and Polhamus urged on the horses, expecting
in a few minutes to have their load safely locked up. The fellows
evidently not liking the vicinity to which the drivers were taking them,
ordered them to wheel about, which they were compelled to do, and drive
under their direction to an old house in the Tenth Ward. There they got
out, and offering the drivers a drink and fifty cents, let them go. On
one occasion, Crowley, while examining the wires in Second Avenue, was
suspected by the mob, who fell upon him, and it was only by the greatest
coolness and adroitness he convinced them he was a rioter himself, and
so escaped. At another time they were going along in a common wagon,
when they were hemmed in by a crowd, and escaped by passing themselves
off as farmers from Westchester. Had they been discovered, they would
have been killed on the spot.
DETECTIVE FORCE.
The duties of this force are well known, but during the riots they had
something more important to do than to work up individual cases. The
force, with John Young as chief, and M. B. Morse as clerk, consisted
in all of seventeen persons. These men are selected for their superior
intelligence, shrewdness, sagacity, and undoubted courage. Full of
resources, they must also be cool, collected, and fearless. During the
riots they were kept at work day and night, obtaining knowledge of facts
that no others could get, and thus supplying the different precincts
and head-quarters with invaluable information. Their duty was a most
perilous one, for it called them to go into the very heart of the
turbulent districts; nay, into the very midst of the mob, where
detection would have been followed by death, and that of the
most horrible kind. Chief Young, with his clerk, was engaged at
head-quarters, so that fifteen men had to perform the required work for
the whole city. Sometimes alone, sometimes two or three together, they
seemed omnipresent. In all sorts of disguises, feigning all sorts of
employments and characters, sometimes on horseback and again driving an
old cart or a hack, they pressed with the most imperturbable effrontery
into the very vortex of danger. Ever on the watch, and accustomed to
notice every expression of the countenance, they would discover at a
single glance when they were suspected, and remove the suspicion at once
by some clever device. Sometimes one of them, seeing himself watched,
would quietly ascend the steps of a residence, and ringing the bell,
make some inquiry as though he were on business, and then deliberately
walk off; or if he thought it would not do to have his face too
closely scanned, he would step inside and wait till the crowd moved on.
Sometimes, with a stone or club in their hands, they would shout
with the loudest, and engaging in conversation with the ringleaders
themselves, ascertain their next move; then quietly slip away to the
nearest station, and telegraph to head-quarters the information. When
the telegraph had been cut off, they had to take the place of the
wires, and carry through the very heart of the crowd their news to the
department.
On their ears again and again would ring the fearful cry, "There
goes Kennedy's spies;" and it required the most consummate acting and
self-possession to allay the suspicion. Often on a single word or act
hinged their very lives. Some of these men were in the mob that made the
first attack on Mayor Opdyke's house, and while apparently acting with
it, learned of the intended movement down to police head-quarters, and
at once telegraphed the fact, which enabled Carpenter to prepare for
them, and give them the terrible beating we have described. At the
burning and sacking of different buildings they were present, and often
would follow unnoticed the ringleaders for hours, tracking them with the
tireless tenacity of a sleuth hound, until they got them separate from
the crowd, and then pounce suddenly upon them, and run them into the
nearest station. The lawlessness that prevailed not only let loose all
the thieves and burglars of the city, but attracted those from other
places, who practised their vocation with impunity. To lessen this
evil, the detectives one night quietly made visits to some half a dozen
"lushing cribs," as they are called, in Eighth and Fourteenth Streets,
and seized about thirty noted thieves, burglars, and garroters, and
locked them up for safe-keeping. They also warned the negroes of
threatened danger, and directed them, to places of safety; and in case
of emergency acted as guides to the military in their operations. In
short, they were ubiquitous, indefatigable, and of immense service. They
played the part of unerring pointers to the commissioners, telling them
when and where to strike; yet strange to say, such was their skill,
their ingenuity, and exhaustless resources, that they all escaped being
assaulted, save one named Slowly. He was passing through the very
heart of the riotous district, in Second Avenue, when some one who had
evidently been once in his clutches, recognized him, and pointing him
out, shouted "Detective!" Instantly a rush was made for him, and he was
knocked down, and kicked and stamped upon. Regaining, with a desperate
effort, his feet, he sprang up the steps of a house, and fought his
assailants fiercely, till the lady of the house, seeing his perilous
situation, courageously opened the door and let him in, and then bolted
and barred it in the face of the mob. Through some strange apprehension,
the baffled wretches, though they howled, and swore, and threatened, did
not force an entrance, and he escaped.
In this connection, while speaking of those whose duties were uniform
and running through the whole period of the riots, might be mentioned
Seth C. Hawley, the chief clerk. Like Acton, he has a nervous, wiry
temperament. This often makes a man rash and headlong, and hence not
reliable; but when combined, as in him, with perfect self-possession
and self-control, imparts enormous power. It matters not how nervous and
excitable a man is, if danger and responsibility instead of confusing
and unsettling him, only winds him up to a higher tension, till he
becomes like a tightly-drawn steel spring. Excitement then not only
steadies him, but it quickens his perceptions, clears his judgment,
gives rapidity to his decisions, and terrible force to his blow. Mr.
Hawley's duties were of a various and exhausting kind, so that during
all the riots, he allowed himself only one hours' rest out of every
twenty-four. Besides his ordinary supervisory duties over the clerks,
etc., he had to see to the execution of the almost incessant orders
of the commissioners, provide and issue arms, see to the refugees and
prisoners, and act as commissary to over four thousand men on duty in
and around head-quarters. Two men more perfectly fitted to work together
in such a crisis as this, than he and Acton, could not well be found.