Q. Do you mean they were railroad men?
A. Certainly; some of them. At this time probably twenty cars were on fire, and there were not over one hundred and fifty persons altogether on the railroad tracks.
By Mr. Larrabee:
Q. What hour was this?
A. Twelve o'clock on Saturday night. Just then a man came from the crowd of rioters—there was a crowd collected in front of the round-house for the purpose of fighting the militia—and he jumped on to a flat car and drew a sword—he had a belt around him, but had no uniform—and he immediately ordered them to stop burning the cars and pillaging the trains, saying that they had come not to burn and pillage, but to fight the military.
Q. Who was he?
A. He was evidently a leader, but I did not know him. He was from the party that came from Birmingham. Immediately when he jumped on that car, somebody hallooed "police," and in five minutes there was not a man left on the railroad track. The cry of "police" cleared the whole thing out, and any two police officers could have preserved the peace.
Q. You think that a small force of police there could have straightened things up?
A. At no time more than twenty men were engaged in the burning.
Q. How long did you stay?