The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-07-26
GREAT RAILWAY STRIKE.
Collision Between the Strikers
and a Body Of Militia at
Pittsburgh.
A Large Number of People
Killed and Wounded.
Great Destruction of PrOperty-Un.
paralleled Scenes of Violence.

From the Pittsburgh papers we CLEAN the
following particulars of the terrible deeds of
violence, growing out of the great railroad
strike, enacted in that city on Saturday and
Sunday, July 81 and %:
Nearly 1900 troops arrived in Pittsburgh
from Philadelphia at o'clock on the afternoon
Of Sunday, the 21st, and few minutes later
they left the Union Depot for the scene of dis
turbance Oh the Twenty-eighth street crossing,
marching out along the track, and preceded by
the Sheriff and his posse comitatus. The
Sheriff and his posse reached Twenty-eighth
street shortly after o'clock, by which time an
immense crowd had congregated at that point.
The hillside was literally black with people,
vast majority of whom had been attracted to
the spot by mere curiosity. No demonstration
was made until the Black Hussars, Of Philader-
phia, who were dismounted, were Or
dered to clear the Twenty-eighth
street crossing of the crowds. The
moment the Hussars attempted to execute
the order they were assailed by the crowd on
the hillside, who sent shower of stones with the
force of meteorites upon the soldiers. Anumber
of the latter were seriously injured, and their
companions, goaded to desperation, COM
menced firing.
The first shots were aimed above the heads of
the crowd, which had now become a mob, but
the shower of stones continued. Then some of
the mob drew their revolvers and fired at the
military, but their shooting was wild, and was
much less effective than the missiles which had
been hurled. The military then fired directly
into the crowd, and the volley proved to be
most disastrous to the assailants
The excitement at this moment Was simply
understandable, and it was not until after some
moments that the effect of the firing was made
known. It was soon ascertained that fourteen
| persons had been killed and the same number
wounded. The crowd, however, soon rallied,
and so vigorous was their onset that the mill
tary were forced to retire from their position.
Then the strikers retreated, and started in the
direction of the arsenal for the avowed purpose
Of securing arms and ammunition.
| Three of the killed were women, and Of the
wounded large proportion were women and
children who were among the spectators on the
hillside. Very few of the strikers were among
the killed or injured.
Owing to their sympathy for the strikers
fully one-half of the Pittsburgh militia stacked
! their arms and dispersed.
| The strikers and their synpathizers were in
censed beyond all measure at the killing Of
| their comrades To the number of several
thousand they made raid into the city, the
| puny police offering no resistance, marched
into a number Of gun-shops and relieved them
| OF their arms and ammunition. A battery was
| also taken from the arsenal. Thus armed and
| equipped the rioters fastened back toward the
round-house, bent upon avenging the death Of
| their comrades, and uttering the most terrible
| threats against the ''insolent Philadelphia mi
| htia." The latter, meantime, had taken refuge
| in the round-house. Upon the approach Of the
rioters three Of them endeayored to steal out
of the building, but, being discovered by the
mob, they were riddled with bullets and in
| stantly killed. In a short time the round
house, with its 400 besieged nilitiamen, was
closely invested by the mob, and all egress cut
| off. They were surrounded by at least 10000
| desperate men crying aloud fer their blood
and vowing that not one should escape alive
The excitement was terrible to behold. No
such scene was ever witnessed in this coun-
try before. To add to the horror of
the scene the rioters applied the torch
to a large oil train, and the light
from the flames lit up the entire city. The fire
| communicated to other cars, and soon 200 or
| 800 of them were reduced to ashes. Many Of
| these trains were laden with valuable goods,
| and the loss from this source is estimated at
| $4,000, 600. Many of the cars burned were
loaded with grain and general merchandise.
| Thieves piled their vocation during the night
with untiring industry. Trunks containing
| fine clothing silks, laces and other goods were
burst open, and their contents appropriated.
| Flour, hams, fruit and other eatables were car
ried off in immense quantities. Scarcely q soul
in the whole town slept during the night. Such
excitement has never been known in this
part of the country, and old army officers say
that the bowling crowd and the peculiarites Of
the situation conspired to present an aspect
never rivaled by the horrors of war. The
streets were filed with women wringing their
hands in despair and shrieking piteously for
their husbands sons or fathers. who were in
the riot. The crowd itself was largely COM
posed of women who, in their frenzied fear for
their relatives made the horrible night hideou3
with their lamentations and wailings
Among the killed outright by the militia were
q number Of women. over whose bloody bodies
friends knelt III the very agony Of despair,
sometimes calling upon them for a word, and
again urging the crowd to seek double venge-
ance for the outrage, as they term it. The
mangled bodies of children shot down while
clinging to the garments of their craZed moth
ers marked, too the terrors OF the night, and
wrought the crowd to pitch untamable and
indescribable.
It should not be inferred that the rioters
were all railroad men Or strikers. Lron-Work-
ers, stevedores, miners, thieves, thugs from
Baltimore and tramps from the surrounding
country. poured in to swell the mob, generally
leaving the fighting to railroad men and Gevot-
ing their own attention to plumber. t.1
The hills overlooking the track and the now
famous round-house were jammed with people,
maddened by the excitement Of the night and
clamorng for vengeance for the friends they
had lost under the murderous fire Of the sol
diery. Men with pallid, distorted faces rushed
hither and thither, their hands clenched and
their teeth set. The strike was not thought Of,
A passionate hatred for the men who had op-
posed them, and a hellish desire to root out the
soldiers had taken possession Of the original
strikers, and, reckless OF any and all conse-
quences, they struggled only to work some. ter
rible damage to their opponents. fa
This feeling. was aided by the disaffection
Of the local militia, and the manifest synpa-
thy on the part OF citizens generally for the
men who claim to have been interrupted by
foreign intervention while figbting for their