Q. What success did you meet with in trying to organize a force on Sunday morning?

A. On Sunday morning the citizens met near the old city hall and formed a kind of organization there, and finally adjourned to the new city hall, and there we organized a committee of safety, composed of citizens, to take measures to assist the mayor—employ a force of policemen, as he was very deficient in a police force at the time, and had but a few men on duty; and the object was to organize a strong police force to aid and assist the mayor in suppressing the riot, which then had become very alarming. We were all day nearly in doing a very little. The citizens seemed to be panic stricken, and there seemed to be no head at all in the city amongst the officials or amongst the people. The mayor seemed to be powerless. The sheriff, I believe, had ran away, and, in fact, we seemed to have no city government for the protection of the city or the people.

Q. What did the mayor do in the way of assisting in this organization?

A. The mayor—he didn't do a great deal, he seemed to be running around at one thing and another, and he seemed to be so confused and incapable of organizing anything, that he really did do nothing. I understood there was two companies of troops come down from up the Monongahela in charge of an old army companion of mine. I suggested that he had better try to get those two companies, and take them down where the riot was going on, and do something. We found that these troops had returned again, and they were not there, and we came back again, and, finding that the riot was still going on and nothing being done, he authorized me to collect as many citizens as I possibly could, and go down there and see if we could suppress the disturbance, and I organized about sixty men, composed partly of lawyers, a few physicians, and other gentlemen, who were determined to use every effort to suppress the disturbance; and we first armed ourselves with axe handles, which a gentleman on Wood street procured for us out of his store. I considered that didn't look very military, and somebody suggested that there were rifles at the Western University, up on Diamond street, and we concluded to make a raid on the university. We did so, with the sanction of the mayor, and we got the rifles, and then there was no ammunition, and we put the bayonets on them, and with a company of sixty men, and myself as the colonel—I had been commissioned by the mayor to act as such—we marched down to the scene of the riot and arson, each gentleman had a white handkerchief tied on his arm to distinguish them from the rest of the crowd that was there assembled—it may look very ludicrous just now, but it was a very serious matter then. We marched down amongst them, and the crowd sort of stood to one side and let us pass through. I arranged the men on each side of Liberty street, where I supposed they were going to set lire to the large stores. At that time the grain elevator had been destroyed, and the property adjoining the metal yard, adjoining this large ware-house, was also on fire. There was a fence running from the middle yard up to one of the stores, I proposed to some of the rioters present to tear that fence down and save that property, two or three of them said, well, what do you want, I said we didn't want private property destroyed, so a gang of them went over and tore the fence down, and the flames didn't extend any further in that direction. After staying there some time, and seeing that there was no evidence of breaking into stores or setting fire to private property, we retired; that is, we retreated to the city hall, and stacked our arms in the building, and dispersed for the night. The next morning we were not organized again, the city seemed pretty quiet, and the crowd had understood that the citizens were taking an active part in protecting the city.

Q. Let me ask you a question there. Supposing you had arrived with your regiment—you say you were a commissioned colonel—suppose you had arrived on the ground before the fire reached the Union depot, do you think that you could have kept the mob back and prevented the firing of the Union depot with that body?

A. I do think that if I had been authorized and given me fifty or sixty good men, that understood their duty, and were obedient to orders and had loaded rifles before that depot burned, it could have been saved. I went there and tried to save that depot, and took Bishop Tuigg with me to go out there, thinking that there might be a number of our countrymen there engaged in that, and that he would have some influence with them, to save the property of the company, and save the building. I stood on the platform of a car with the bishop, and he first addressed them, and in looking over the crowd, I found that the crowd were not Irishmen. As we soon discovered, they began throwing iron ore and other missiles at the bishop's head, which no good Catholic would do, unless he was an Orangeman. I also addressed them, and a burly fellow came up and said, get down from here, Doctor, we are going to set fire to this, and I considered it most prudent to get down. With fifty good men, I would have cleared that place in a very few minutes.

By Mr. Means:

Q. Do you know that man that came up to you?

A. I would know him if I ever saw him. I felt very vindictive towards him at that moment. I did try to save an engine by pulling a fellow off who would not allow the engineer to try to run it off. I pulled him off and said let that man take the engine off. He was drunk at the time, and he said something to me, but anyhow they kept the engine there until it was burned. If the officials even of the depot—if the officials of the road, or the employés of the road, had any courage at all on Monday, they could have saved that building. There was no trouble about it, because the outside people were perfectly indifferent, looking on and affording no resistance.

By Mr. Lindsey: