IN THE HANDS OF THE MOB.
“Dutchy is a hard-hearted old wretch,” said Corporal Arkwright
indignantly. “He never asked if any of our boys were wounded.”
“Of course he didn’t,” replied Bert. “He took it for granted. If the
fight was as desperate as those men say it was, we shall soon have a
sorrowful report from Hamilton. I ought to write to my mother at once,
but I haven’t the courage to do it.”
The boys waited outside, as they were told to do, but they used their
best endeavors to overhear what passed between the professor and his
visitors. They had their trouble for their pains, however. The men
talked in low tones, and beyond an occasional ebullition of wrath from
Mr. Odenheimer, who invariably spoke in German, they could hear nothing.
Presently the door opened, and the three came out and hastened toward the
academy.
“It is fully as serious as we thought, Sam,” said Sergeant Gordon. “They
are going in to tell their story to the superintendent.”
Bert never slept a wink that night. He was at the gate at daylight, and
was the first to purchase a paper when the newsboys came around. As he
opened the sheet with trembling hands, his eye fell upon the following
paragraph:
“WEDNESDAY MORNING, 3 O’CLOCK.—We have delayed the issue of our paper
until this morning, hoping to obtain direct information from Hamilton;
but we have heard nothing but vague rumors, which grew out of all
proportion as they traveled. That the academy boys had a brush with the
strikers is evident. They were met before reaching the city by an immense
mob, and a fight ensued, in which some of our boys were wounded. The
following despatch, taken from last night’s _Town Line Democrat_, despite
some inaccuracies, probably has a few grains of truth in it:
‘This evening, when the Bridgeport Cadets got into Hamilton they were
stopped by striking rioters, who shoved their car upon a side track, and
then commenced stoning and shooting them. The Cadets, after standing the
fusillade for some time, opened fire and delivered volley after volley,
wounding thirty persons and killing many. The rioters finally succeeded
in getting upon the car and overpowering the company, capturing the guns,
and driving the boys out of the city.’
“Nine members of the academy company, having become separated from their
fellows in the _mêlée_, took the back track and are expected home to-day.”
After making himself master of everything in the paper that related
to the fight, Bert went into the academy and handed the sheet to the
orderly, with the request that he would give it to the superintendent as
soon as he got up. It was probable, he thought, that the latter would
want to do something to assist those nine boys who were now on their way
home. When they arrived he might be able to learn something about Don;
and in the mean time he could do nothing but wait.
No study-call was sounded that morning, and the day promised to be a
dark and gloomy one; but about ten o’clock little rays of sunshine began
breaking through the clouds. The first came when the word was passed
for Bert Gordon. He hurried into the superintendent’s office and was
presented with a despatch. He was about to go out with it when the
superintendent said:
“Read it here, sergeant. There may be news in it, and we should like to
know what it is, if you have no objections.”
Bert tore open the envelope and read aloud the following from Don, who
had telegraphed at the very earliest opportunity:
“Got in this morning after a night of trouble. No violence offered in the
city. I am all right, and so is Curtis, but our unlucky friend Hop is
missing, and Egan is wounded.”
Every one present drew a long breath of relief when Bert read these
words. This was the first reliable news they had received, and it removed
a heavy burden of anxiety from their minds.
“So it seems that the company was not cut to pieces after all,” said
the superintendent. “It is probable that the boys were roughly handled,
but that didn’t keep them from going into the city. I feel greatly
encouraged.”
And so did everybody. Bert would have felt quite at his ease if he could
have got over worrying about Hopkins and Egan. He feared the worst.
But then his fat crony was fortunate in some respects even if he were
unlucky in others, and it was possible that he might yet turn up safe and
sound and as jolly as ever, and that Egan’s wound might not be a serious
one.
After that despatches came thick and fast. As soon as they were received
they were read aloud to the students, who made the armory ring with
their yells of delight when one came from Professor Kellogg stating
that Captain Mack and his men had behaved with the utmost gallantry.
Thirty-two of the company were fit for duty, although they had but
seventeen guns among them, eight were slightly wounded, but, having good
care, were doing well, and the rest were missing. They had whipped the
mob twice and carried their wounded off the field.
“I tell you it makes a good deal of difference where the news comes
from—from your own side or from the enemy’s,” said Bert. “Things don’t
look as dark as they did. I wish those nine boys who are now on the way
home would hurry up. I am impatient to talk to them.”
“They will soon be here,” replied one of the students. “I heard the
superintendent say that the citizens have sent carriages after them.”
While those at the academy are waiting for these boys, let us go back
to the third company and see what really happened to them, and how
they acted when they found themselves surrounded by the mob. Of course
they did not know what was in store for them, but the majority made up
their minds that they would be called upon to face something decidedly
unpleasant when they reached Hamilton, for their train had hardly moved
away from the depot before it was whispered from one boy to another that
some one on the platform had been heard to say that they (the students)
were going into a hotter place than they ever dreamed of. Still they
kept up a good heart, although they did not at all like the looks of the
crowds of men and boys who were assembled at every station along the
road. They did not know that two unhanged villains, Michael Lynch, the
fireman of their train, and William Long, the Western Union operator at
Bridgeport, had conspired to make their reception at Hamilton a warmer
one than they had bargained for, by sending a despatch announcing their
departure to an office in the lower part of the city that was in the
hands of the strikers.
For a while it looked as though the ball would be set in motion at Town
Line; for the large depot through which their train passed was literally
packed with strikers and their aids and sympathizers, who had a good deal
to say about the young soldiers and their object in going to the city.
But they went through without any trouble, and when they reached a little
station a few miles beyond, Professor Kellogg telegraphed for orders.
These having been received the train moved on again, and Captain Mack
came and perched himself upon the arm of the seat in which Don and Egan
were sitting.
“I tell you, fellows, this begins to look like war times,” said he.
“Where are we going, and what are we to do when we get there?” inquired
Egan.
“We are not going into the city to-night,” answered the captain. “We are
sent down here simply to act as guards, and if there is any fighting to
be done, the 61st will have to do it. Our orders read in this way: ‘You
will leave the train at Hamilton creek and guard the railroad property
there during the night. Use such cars as you can, and keep all the guards
out that may be necessary.’ There are no signs of a gathering at the
creek, but in order to be on the safe side the professor has ordered the
conductor to let us out at least a quarter of a mile from the bridge. If
a mob appears anywhere along the road, we are to get off and form before
we go up to it.”
There was nothing in these plans with which any military man could have
found fault. They would have met the requirements of the case in every
particular, had it not been for the fact that Professor Kellogg had to
deal with men who were as treacherous as the plains Indians are said to
be. There _was_ a mob at the bridge, and the engineer saw it long before
he reached it. In fact he ran through a part of it, and did not stop his
train until he was right in the midst of it. The first thing the boys
knew their car was standing still, hoarse yells and imprecations which
disturbed their dreams for many a night afterward were arising on all
sides of them, and the rioters were crowding upon the platforms.
“Lave this kyar open; we’re strong,” said a man, in a voice which
proclaimed his nationality; and as he spoke he threw open the rear door
and placed one end of his heavy cane against it, at the same time
drawing himself back out of sight as much as he could.
“Attention!” shouted Captain Mack, prompted by the professor; whereupon
the young soldiers arose and stood in front of their seats. Their
bayonets were fixed, they had loaded their guns when they left the
station at which they had stopped for orders, and if they had been
commanded to act at once, the mob never would have gained a footing in
the car. But Mr. Kellogg did just what he ought not to have done—he stood
in the front door, blocking the way as well as he could, and trying to
reason with the leaders of the rabble, who demanded to know why he had
come down there, and what he was going to do. The professor told them in
reply that he was not going into the city that night, that he had been
ordered to stop at the bridge and guard the railroad property there, and
this seemed to satisfy the mob, who might have dispersed or gone back to
Hamilton, as their leaders promised, had it not been for one unfortunate
occurrence.
The attention of everybody in the car was directed toward the men who
were gathered about the front door, and no one seemed to remember that
there was a rear door at which no guard had been stationed. The rioters
at that end of the car did not at first make themselves very conspicuous,
for they did not like the looks of the muskets the young soldiers held
in their hands; but in a very few minutes they grew bold enough to move
across the platform in little squads, stopping on the way to take a hasty
glance at the interior, and finally some of the reckless ones among them
ventured to come in. These were followed by others, and in less time than
it takes to tell it the aisle was packed with strikers, who even forced
their way into the seats, crowding the boys out of their places. About
this time Mr. Kellogg happened to look behind him, and seeing that he
and his men were at the mercy of the mob—there were more strikers than
soldiers in the car now—he called out to the conductor, who stood on the
front platform, to go ahead with the train.
“I can’t do it,” was the reply. “The strikers are in full possession of
it.”
“Well, then, cut loose from us and go ahead with your passengers,” said
Professor Kellogg. “This is as far as I want to go anyhow.”
“And you couldn’t go any farther if you wanted to,” said a loud-mouthed
striker. “We’ll have the last one of you hung up to the telegraph poles
before morning.”
“Who said that?” exclaimed one of the leaders at the front door. “Knock
that man down, somebody, or make him keep his tongue still.”
“Shove the car on to the switch,” yelled somebody outside.
“Yes; run ’em into the switch!” yelled a whole chorus of hoarse voices.
“Dump ’em over into the creek.”
Some idea of the strength of the mob may be gained from the fact that
the car, heavily loaded as it was, began to move at once, and in a few
minutes it was pushed upon a side-track, and brought to a stand-still on
the edge of a steep bank. While the car was in motion Don, who had grown
tired of being squeezed, sought to obtain an easier position by stepping
into his seat and sitting down on the back of it. As he did so he nearly
lost his balance; whereupon a burly striker, who had stepped into his
place as soon as he vacated it, reached out his hand and caught him, in
the most friendly manner.
“Thanks,” said Don, placing his hand on the striker’s broad shoulder and
steadying himself until he was fairly settled on his perch. “Now, since
you have showed yourself to be so accommodating, perhaps you wouldn’t
mind telling me where those fellows on the outside are shoving us to, and
what they intend to do with us.”
“They are going to throw you into the creek, probably.”
“I don’t see any sense in that,” observed Don. “What’s the meaning of
this demonstration, anyhow?”
“It means bread!” said the man so firmly that Don thought it best to hold
his peace.
There were few in the mob who seemed inclined to talk. They answered all
the questions that were asked them, but gave their entire attention to
what was going on in the forward end of the car. Their recognized leaders
were there, talking with Professor Kellogg, and they were waiting to see
how the conference was going to end. Those who spoke for the strikers
seemed to be intelligent men, fully sensible of the fact that Professor
Kellogg and his company had not come to the city to trample upon the
rights of the workingman, and for a time the prospect for a peaceful
settlement of the points under discussion looked very bright indeed.
But there were some abusive and violent ones in the mob who could not be
controlled, and they always spoke up just at the wrong time.
“Take the bayonets off the guns!” piped a forward youngster, who ought to
have been at home and in bed. “That’s the way we did with the 61st.”
“I’ll tell you how to settle it,” said a shrill voice, that was plainly
audible in spite of the tumult in the car and the continuous yells of the
mob outside. “If they’re friendly toward us, as they say they are, let
them give up their guns. We’ll see that nobody harms them.”
“Yes; that’s the way to settle it,” yelled the mob. “Let them give up
their guns.”
This proposition startled the young soldiers. If they agreed to it they
would be powerless to defend themselves, and what assurance had they that
the strikers would not wreak vengeance upon them? Nothing but the word of
half a dozen men who could not have controlled the turbulent ones among
their followers, even if they had been disposed to try. But fortunately
Mr. Kellogg was not the man they took him for. As soon as the yells of
approval had subsided so that he could make himself heard, his answer
came clear and distinct;
“I shall not disarm my men; you may depend upon that.”
“Let’s run ’em back to Bridgeport, where they belong,” shouted a striker.
“That’s the idea,” shouted the mob. “We don’t want ’em here. Run ’em back
where they came from. We can easy find an engine.”
“I am not going back,” replied the undaunted professor. “I was ordered to
come here, and now that I got here, I am going to stay.”
“Well, you shan’t stay with these guns in your hands,” said the
shrill-voiced man. “All of us who are in favor of disarming them say ‘I.’”
“I! I!” was the almost unanimous response.
If there were any present who were opposed to disarming the boys, they
were not given an opportunity to say so. Encouraged by their overwhelming
numbers, and by the fact that the mass of the soldiers were mere
striplings to be strangled with a finger and thumb, the rioters went to
work to secure the muskets, and then there was a scene to which no pen
could do justice.
The fight, if such it could be called, was a most unequal one. That
portion of the mob which had possession of the car, was composed almost
entirely of rolling-mill hands, and not of “lazy, ragged tramps and
boys,” as a Hamilton paper afterward declared. They were powerful men,
and the young soldiers were like infants in their grasp. But, taken at
every disadvantage as they were, the most of the boys gave a good account
of themselves. A few, terrified by the sight of the revolvers and knives
that were flourished before their eyes, surrendered their weapons on
demand, and even allowed their cartridge-boxes to be cut from their
persons; but the others fought firmly to retain possession of their guns,
and gave them up only when they were torn from their grasp. Among the
latter was Don Gordon.
When the proposition to disarm the boys was put and carried, the man who
was standing in Don’s seat, and who had caught him when he came so near
losing his balance, faced about, seized the boy’s musket, and, in spite
of all Don could do to prevent it, forced it over toward his friends
in the aisle. A dozen hands quickly laid hold of it, but Don would not
give it up. He held to it with all his strength, until one of the mob,
enraged at his determined resistance, gave a sudden jerk, pulling the
weapon out of his hands and compelling Don to turn a somerset over the
back of his seat.
One thing that encouraged Don to make so desperate a struggle for the
possession of his piece, was the heroic conduct of a little pale-faced
fellow, Will Hovey by name, who occupied the seat in front of him. Will
didn’t look as though he had any too much courage, but his actions proved
that he had plenty of it. He was confronted by a ruffian big enough to
eat him up, who was trying to disarm him with one hand, while in the
other he had a formidable looking knife with a blade that was a foot long.
“Give it up, I tell you,” Don heard the striker say.
“I’ll not do it,” was Will’s reply. “I’ll die first.”
The knife descended, and Don expected to see the brave boy killed before
his eyes; but he dodged like a flash, just in the nick of time, and the
glittering steel passed over his shoulder, cutting a great hole in his
coat and letting out the lining. Will lost his gun in the end, but he
wore that coat to the city, and was as proud of that rent as he would
have been of a badge of honor. He was a soldier all over, and proved it
by stealing a gun to replace the one the strikers had taken from him.
When Don was pulled over the back of his seat, he fell under the feet
of a party of struggling men and boys, who stepped upon and knocked him
about in the most unceremonious way, and it was only after repeated
efforts that he succeeded in recovering his perpendicular. No sooner had
he arisen to an upright position than he fell into the clutches of a
striker who seized his waist-belt with one hand and tried to cut it from
him with a knife he held in the other, being under the impression that if
he succeeded, he would gain possession of the boy’s cartridge-box. But
there’s where he missed his guess, for the cartridge-box which hung on
one side and the bayonet scabbard that hung on the other, were supported
by breast belts; and the waist belt was simply intended to hold them
close to the person, so that they would not fly about too much when the
wearer was moving at double time. Don, however, did not want that belt
cut, and he determined that it should not be if he could prevent it.
The striker was larger and much stronger than he was, but Don fought him
with so much spirit that the man finally became enraged, and turned the
knife against him. If he had had any chance whatever to use his weapon,
he would certainly have done some damage; but he and Don were packed in
so tightly among the strikers and the students, who were all mixed up
together now, that neither one of them had an inch of elbow-room. The
struggling crowd was gradually working its way toward the rear door, and
Don saw that he must do something very quickly or be dragged out of the
car into the hands of the outside mob. After trying in vain to disarm his
assailant, and to free himself from his grasp by breaking the belt, he
set to work to unhook it; but he was knocked about so promiscuously by
the combatants on all sides of him, that he couldn’t even do that.
How long the fight over the guns and cartridge-boxes continued no one
knows; and the reports in our possession, which are full and explicit on
all other points, are silent on this. But it took the strikers a long
time to disarm the boys, and even then they had to leave without getting
all the guns.
Up to this time not a shot had been fired or a stone thrown. The mob
outside could not bombard the car for fear of injuring some of their own
men, and the students could not shoot for the same reason. Besides, the
order not to pull a trigger until they were told to do so was peremptory,
and in his report Professor Kellogg takes pains to say that this command
was strictly obeyed. The order to fire on the mob would have been given
before it was but for one thing: The only officer who had the right to
give it was being choked so that he could not utter a sound. The strikers
were quick to see that Professor Kellogg was the head and front of the
company, and believing that if they could work their will on him, they
could easily frighten the boys into submission, they laid hold of him and
tried to drag him out of the car; and failing in that, the door being
blocked by their own men, who were anxious to crowd in and take a hand in
the fracas, they bent the professor backward over the arm of a seat and
throttled him. The students in his immediate vicinity defended him with
the utmost obstinacy and courage, and a sword, and at least one bayonet,
which went into the fight bright and clean, came out stained. At any
rate the rioters did not succeed in killing the professor, as they fully
intended to do, or in dragging him out of the door. After a desperate
struggle he succeeded in freeing himself from their clutches, and as soon
as he could speak, he called out:
“Clear the car! Clear the car!”
This was the order the students were waiting for, and if the order had
not been so long delayed their victory would have been more complete
than it was, for they would have had more guns to use. They went to work
at once, and the way those rioters got out of that car must have been a
surprise to their friends on the outside. Swords, bayonets and the butts
of the muskets were freely used, and when the last rioter had jumped from
the platform, the real business of the night commenced. All on a sudden
the windows on both sides were smashed in, and stones, chunks of coal,
coupling-pins, bullets and buck-shot rattled into the car like hail.
“Come on, me brave lads!” yelled a voice on the outside. “Let’s have the
last one of ’em out of there an’ hang them to the brudge.”
A simultaneous rush was made for both the doors, but the maddened mob
had no sooner appeared than a sheet of flame rolled toward them, and
they retreated with the utmost precipitancy. Forbearance was no longer
a virtue. His own life and the lives of the boys under his charge were
seriously threatened now, and with the greatest reluctance Professor
Kellogg gave the order to fire. It was obeyed, and with the most telling
effect. After repulsing three charges that were made upon the car, the
boys turned their guns out of the windows, and firing as rapidly as they
could reload, they drove the mob over the railroad track and forced them
to take refuge behind the embankment.
Although the students had full possession of the car, their position was
one of extreme danger. They were surrounded by a rabble numbering more
than three thousand men, sixty of whom were armed with their own muskets,
while the students had only seventeen left with which to oppose them;
the rioters were securely hidden behind the embankment, while the car
was brilliantly lighted, and if a boy showed the top of his cap in front
of a window, somebody was sure to see and shoot at it; and worse than
all, some of the mob, being afraid to run the gauntlet of the bullets
which were flying through the air from both sides, had taken refuge under
the car, and were now shooting through the bottom of it. One of the
lieutenants was the first to discover this. He reported it to Captain
Mack, and the latter reported it to the professor.
“That will never do,” said Mr. Kellogg. “We must get out of here.
Attention!”
The boys, who were crouched behind the seats and firing over the backs
and around the sides of them, jumped to their feet and stepped out into
the aisle, while Don opened the door so that they could go out.
“Where’s your gun, Gordon?” demanded the professor.
“It was taken from me, sir,” replied Don. “But I’ll have another before
many minutes.”
Don knew very well that somebody would get hurt when they got out on the
railroad, and if he were not hit himself, he wanted to be ready to take
the gun from the hands of the first boy who _was_ hit, provided that same
boy had a gun. He secured a musket in this way, and he did good service
with it, too.