Q. What business were you engaged in?

A. When I went into the army I was chief clerk in the county commissioners' office of Allegheny county. Prior to that I was a clerk in a store.

By Mr. Larrabee:

Q. Something has been said about picketing the railroad track where the riot occurred. Now, taking into consideration the number of cars around there, how many troops would it have taken to reasonably picket the track and the ground there in possession of the mob?

A. The ground in possession of the mob, from the round-house out to Lawrenceville, I think could have been sufficiently picketed by one hundred men on both sides. At no time were more than one hundred persons on the ground from twelve o'clock that night until four o'clock in the morning, from the round-house out to Two Mile run. I consider that the movement of the military into the round-house, at the time, was a good one, but they should have picketed the railroad, and all the approaches to the round-house. To have retired on the bluff, above the railroad tracks, would have been a military blunder, for if they were not strong enough to protect themselves where the cars and buildings afforded them shelter, they certainly could not have held a position on the hill face, where they could have been attacked from the open fields above them, and been within easy range of masked or rifle shots from the houses fronting on Liberty street. No officer of any military experience would have selected that hill face to bivouac his troops, under the circumstances then existing, but the retreat of two regiments of well armed and equipped soldiers, commanded by officers of undoubted courage, and large military experience in the face of a disorganized mob, was certainly a inexplicable blunder.

Q. You did not see the crowd before it was fired into and dispersed by the military?

A. I did not. I only arrived there afterward.

By Senator Yutzy:

Q. Now in your judgment, as a military man, do you think that there was any necessity for calling on the military to quell this riot?

A. I do not. I honestly believe that if the authorities of the county or Allegheny, or the city of Pittsburgh, had summoned a sufficient posse comitatus, they could have preserved the peace. They might not have been able to run the railroad cars, but the peace could have been preserved without calling the military.