A. I know that the people of the city of Pittsburgh almost universally condemned the reduction of the salaries of the railroad men at that time. The strikers knew that they had the sympathies of the people of Allegheny county—of all classes—in their efforts to have a living rate of wages restored to them, and thousands of people not engaged in the strike, on that Saturday afternoon, in July last, were gathered in the vicinity of the Pennsylvania railroad workshops, not for the purpose of violating any law, but either from motives of sympathy with the strikers or prompted by curiosity to witness the military. It may be inferred, that at least one half of those people were women and children, and these, without warning, were fired into and many of them killed or wounded. Of course, this caused universal indignation and condemnation, and was the occasion of all the subsequent troubles and destruction. A pacific course pursued towards these men would have avoided the catastrophe that followed. The first great blunder in dealing with the strikers in Pittsburgh, was in the attempt to operate the road by the use of a military force, instead of using the troops to preserve order and to keep the peace.

Q. You say that the sympathies of the people of Pittsburgh were with the strikers or with the railroad employés and against the reduction of their wages. Do you mean as long as no overt act was committed? Or what did they regard as an overt act?

A. They would have regarded as an overt act the destruction of property.

Q. Did they regard the stopping of trains as an overt act?

A. I think that certain classes of people did not regard the stopping of the trains an overt act, but they would have regarded the forcible taking of men from the trains—men who were willing to work—or the preventing them from working, as an overt act.

By Mr. Lindsey:

Q. Will you tell us what you did in your own city—tell us how you managed the trouble there?

A. The authorities of Allegheny managed the strikers differently—in a different way from that pursued in Pittsburgh. Several days prior to the burning in Pittsburgh, the strikers took possession of the railroad tracks, and the workshops of the Pennsylvania company operating the Pittsburgh, Port Wayne and Chicago railroad. They threw up breast-works,and held armed possession of the railroad property, and even took possession of, and regulated the running of passenger trains and the United States mail trains. At all interviews, they insisted that it was not their intention to destroy property, but to protect the railroad property, and that they wouldn't commit any overt act in violation of law, as they understood it. Many of them believed they were not violating any law, and assumed that they had a right to accomplish the object they had in view, by the method they then were pursuing. The authorities and the citizens of Allegheny City knew that they were dealing with a powerful, intelligent, and well organized body of men, who were determined and resolute in their purposes. To have attempted to force those men from their position, would have precipitated the same troubles that culminated in Pittsburgh a few days subsequently. So the citizens appealed to the better judgment of those strikers, they reasoned with them, and instead of irritating them, or attempting to force them, they permitted them to have their own way, believing that the railroad officials and their employés, would, in a few days, adjust all differences. This policy, under the circumstances, proved to be a wise one, as when danger came, and when the mob were burning and destroying in Pittsburgh, the strikers in Allegheny actually removed all the rolling stock out of the way of danger, and volunteered to assist the organized citizens in protecting the depots and workshops, and all other railroad property in the city of Allegheny. Had the same policy been pursued in Pittsburgh, there would have been no destruction of property.

Q. You were in the army. What position in the army did you hold during the late war?

A. In 1861—in May, 1861—1 enlisted as a soldier, and was elected lieutenant of my company, and went out as a member of the Second Virginia regiment, as lieutenant, and afterwards became captain of my company.