Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-04-15

ers said: Pay no attention to him we
don't care a d-n for law. He is a scab.'
All that I said had no effect upon the crowd.
While some Of my men were at dinner Mr..
Sample came to me and said: Hewlett,
hurry and get some men to help bring on
our coal train. There are 500 strikers at
the crossing This was about 1.3O o'clock.
Sample came to me again in a few minutes
and said: "Come on, we have no time to
eat now. They have halted our train at
Broadway crossing We had six or seven
deputies at the crossing to protect the train
and I started with about twelve other dep
uties to reinforce them. The crowd when
we got there was massed or the bridge over
Cahokia Creek and on the east side of our
tracks around the Green Tree House and
about the Illinois and st. Louis passenger
platform. There was a great deal of yell
ing from the crowd. They jerred to us and
called US everything they could think of.
This thing lasted quite a awhile-until the
general manager induced the engineer to
run the train through the crowd with a
rush. While we were waiting there at the
crossing to protect the fireman and engineer,
a striker said to a deputy: You will never
get out of these yards alive l said: i
will arrest that man it is my sworn duty
to do it, I took hold of him to arrest him
and he resisted. He swore he would not
be arrested, and attempted to jerk away
from me, but l held on to him. The mob
then closed in on me, but with the assis-
lance of one of my deputies we forced the
man out of the crowd. I turned around to
the crowd then and said: For Gods sake,
men, disperse, while l am carrying out the
law. Don't persist Just about that time
I hearda pistol shot in my rear. 1t sound
ed like the report from a small pistol, and
-,.s11r - - a,r1 T rnSt, n cfnnn 0nTnI O +
my head. 1 lodged and it struck me on
the shoulder. 1 judge the first shot came
from the rear window of the barroom on
the west side of the creek. My deputy,
Kinsler, says it came from there. After
the first shot was fired the shooting became
general. We were between two fires and
then noticed shots coming from the rear
barroom windows. Shots were fired at us
from the east side of the track, from the
little house or from the coal cars on the
indianapolis and st. Louis track. The crowd
then started west along the dixie to cut us
off by a cross street from our depot. | saw
this movement, and started with my depu-
ties across our ~trestles on a run for the
depot, and got there in advance of the
crowd. We halted at the depot and the
freight men came and begged for protection,
saying that the strikers would murder eV-
cry one them. 1 told them to go to the
bridge and we would protect them."
The scene at the bridge and the occurren-
ces leading to it are thus described in the
newspaper accounts:
The guards stationed at the Louisville
and Nashville yards, near Broadway, fired
into a crowd Of three hundred strikers at
about 2.3O o'clock Friday afternoon. Six
the men were killed, and the Woman is sup
posed to be MORALLY wounded. The killed
are Pat Driscoll, II employee of the water
works and not a striker; Oscar Washington,
a painter /; John Bohman, a water-Works
laborer, not a striker, and IT. E. Phompton.
Major Richman is shot in the head and
shoulder and will probably die; Mrs. John
Pfeifer is shot in the back and probably
MORALLY wounded an unknown man was
shot at the bridge approach.
The crowd had made no attack upon the
yards, as was at first reported, but were
standing at the Cahokia bridge, near the
Louisville and Nashville yards, jeering at
the guards, when, without the slightest APP
parent provocation, the deputies levelled
their rifles and fired two volleys. The
crowd Immediately separated, running in all
directions, and the deputies ran over the
Cahokia bridge towards the Mississippi
River bridge, still holding their rifles and
firing to cover their retreat. When it was
known by the strikers that the guards had
fed, the former returned to recover their
dead. The crowd, after firing, began to run
up Broadway, shouting 'To arms toarms!
We will get guns and return that fire."
Women and children ran out of their houses
and met them in the streets, weeping and
Wringing their hands.
After the crowd returned to the scene and
the excitement had abated, several of the
leading strikers drew their revolvers and
swore that they would drive all the depu-
ties out of the city even at the loss OF their
own lives.
In the stampede which followed the first
volley from the rifles of the deputies one
man, name unknown, was forced from the
Cahokia Creek bridge and killed.
The deputies who did the shooting, eight
in number, went to the third district police
station in this city and surrendered them
selves, and were taken to the Four Courts,
where they were taken into custody and
were relieded of their arms. They say that
the crowd began firing into them first, and
and that they simply returned fire. After
the first firing was over, and the strikers
had become bent on revenge, a number OF
them armed themselves with rev0lvers and
road yards, where they surprised the depu-
ties on guard and fired on them, killing one.
A man named Andrew Jones, a Knight
of Labor, was shot in East st. Louis, after
the scenes above mentioned, making the
eighth person killed on that day.
On Friday night by direction of the Gov
erner the adjutant General offered seven adj
ditional companies of the 9th and Sth reg
iments to report at East st. Louis. This
wa not done owing to the fear of an open
conflict with the riotouS element, but SIM
ply as q precaution to insure the guarding
of railroad and other valuable property.
The city has very few policemen and has
very limited facilities for subduing fires.
The railroad yards and grain warehouses
extend for a distance of fully six miles
along the east bank of the Mississippi Riv-
err, and the difficulty which is presented of
guarding the property scattered over such
extent of territory requires necessarily q
very large body of men. The arrival of
the additional force makes seventeen com
panies of infantry in addition to the gat-
ling gun detachment. Gen. Reese, com
manding the I'd brigade, assumed command
Of the force, under personal orders from
Governor Oglesby.
On Friday night, in retaliation for the
slaughter on that day, considerable amount
of railroad property was destroyed by in
cendiary fires, started about 8 O'Clock at
night. The fires were confined to railroad
property and lumber yards. The property
destroyed represents a loss of S32,00O, eX-
elusive of the merchandise in the cars.
The general manager Of one of the roads,
witnessed the scene of Friday night, declar-
ed the property of the railway companies
would positively have been wiped out be-
fore morning but for the ~interposition Of
the soldiery. The hotels of the city and all
proprietors of shops have been warned not