The railroad strikes carried the spark of rebellion to other workers and the unemployed, and within days more than 100,000 were on strike nationwide; in St. Louis it became a general strike. Only by unleashing the state militia and U.S. army were the bosses able to defeat the strikers in the first generalized confrontation between capital and labor in the history of the country. Copyright © 1977. Subheadings are by the Militant.

BY PHILIP FONER  
Saturday, July 21, a day long to be remembered by Pittsburghers, dawned bright and beautiful. The strikers had remained stationed along the line during the entire night. Early the next morning, they were joined by rolling-mill men, mechanics, the unemployed, and women and children. Regiments of the Pittsburgh militia were stationed near the strikers and their sympathizers. The soldiers joked and fraternized with the crowd. Most of the time their arms were stacked. The strikers let them know that they would resist any attempt to start a freight train out under the doubleheader order.

It was the custom for the different mills and shops in Pittsburgh and its vicinity to shut down at about noon on Saturday. Fearing that the sudden increase in the crowd following such shutdowns would create complications, several Pittsburgh manufacturers approached Vice-President Cassatt and urged him not to attempt to open the road that afternoon, but rather to wait until Monday afternoon, when the mills would be operating.

They pointed out that it was natural that the local militia "should sympathize with the strikers" and therefore could not be depended upon in case of a riot. To call in the Philadelphia troops under these circumstances, they insisted, was fraught with the utmost danger.  
 
Arrival of the troops
At about one o’clock in the afternoon of July 21, a passenger train arrived at the Pittsburgh Union Depot. From six cars, uniformed Philadelphians emerged, armed and equipped with blankets. An hour later, another train arrived with several hundred more Philadelphians. The six hundred soldiers were furnished with refreshments at the depot; and when news came that the railroad officials wanted to send out a freight train immediately, the order was given for the Philadelphia troops to occupy those positions at which the most resistance was likely to come from the strikers and their sympathizers.

The news of the troop’s arrival brought a vast assemblage of men, women, and children to the Outer Depot, where the freight trains lay idle. The crowd was quiet and orderly. At five o’clock in the afternoon, cries of "There they come!" arose. All eyes were turned toward the Union Depot. In the distance was seen a solid column of soldiers, marching steadily toward the Outer Depot, their bayonets glistening in the sun.

At the head of the soldiers were Superintendent Pitcairn of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Sheriff Fife, and a posse of constables and police officers. The sheriff, the constables, and the police were accompanying the troops to arrest the strike leaders on a warrant issued by Judge Ewing at the request of solicitors for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The unnamed ringleaders were charged with riot.

As the troops approached the Outer Depot, the silence was broken by a storm of hisses, hoots, and yells. The women led the hissing and urged the men to outdo them in jeering at the Philadelphians. As the soldiers began pushing the crowd back so as to clear the tracks, the cries and yells grew louder and fiercer. Regiments of the local militia mingled with the crowd, and a number of its members urged the Philadelphians to "take it easy." Several strikers joined the refrain, and one shouted, "You sympathize with our cause, and you wouldn’t shoot a workingman!"

At that very moment, an order was issued to the Philadelphia "Dark Blues" to charge with fixed bayonets. The soldiers responded, and several people were stabbed. When the crowd saw the blood trickling from these men, an angry roar arose. At this point, several boys let loose a volley of stones at the soldiers.

The command "Fire!" rang out, and immediately the troops began firing directly into the crowd. The panic-stricken men, women, and children, trapped and unarmed, surged in all directions, and several fell....

Within a few minutes, at least twenty were dead (including one member of Pittsburgh’s Sixth Division) and twenty-nine maimed or wounded by the Philadelphia citizen-soldiers. The dead included a woman and three small children. A grand jury investigation termed the action of the troops "an unauthorized, willful and wanton killing...which the inquest can call by no other name than murder."  
 
Workers control the city
As the word of the massacre spread through the city, thousands of workers from the rolling mills, coal mines, and factories hurried to the scene of the killings. The angry crowds forced the Philadelphians to retreat to the roundhouse, where a siege began. Within fifteen minutes, the crowd had broken every window in the building. Only a last-minute decision prevented the soldiers from responding with the Gatling guns. A wagon bringing food for the soldiers was seized by the crowd.

With the Sixth Division practically disbanded, the police nowhere to be found, and the Philadelphia militiamen besieged in the roundhouse, the crowd had full control of the city. The aroused citizenry, determined to avenge the murders, put the railroad’s property to the torch. The fire alarms were cut, but an alarm was somehow sent in. The first department responded, but upon arriving within a block of the fire, the engines were stopped by the crowd. Meanwhile, the striking of the alarms was a signal for thousands of additional people from all parts of the city to proceed to the scene of the blaze....

In its report, the state legislative committee stressed the role of the women in urging "the mob to resistance," and pointed out that "during Saturday night and Sunday, they [the women] brought tea and coffee to the men engaged in the destruction of property and were the most active in carrying away goods taken from the cars."

What the report failed to mention was that in the testimony it took, the fact was emphasized that if the goods had not been taken, they would have been destroyed by fire.  
 
 
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