While the good people on the banks of the Monongahela slept the sleep of contentment, the soldiers of the First Brigade were stretched shivering on the open ground at Mt. Gretna, and General Snowden, with all of the Second and Third Brigades, except the regiments of the extreme West, was traveling as fast as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company could carry him towards the scene of disturbance.
[CHAPTER X.]
Snowden's Sharp Tactics—The Taking of Homestead—Troops in Possession—Soldiers Repel Advances and the Fraternal Reception is Declared Off—O'Donnell's Committee at Headquarters—Suspicion and Resentment Abroad—The Little Bill Returns—Congressmen Hold an Investigation—Capital and Labor in Conflict on the Witness Stand—The Cost of Producing Steel Remains a Riddle.
IN pursuance of Gen. Snowden's plan to take Homestead by surprise, the Second and Third Brigades, instead of being massed as announced in the newspapers, at Brinton, a station on the Pennsylvania R. R. nearly opposite Homestead, came together at Radebaugh, a mile and a half west of Greensburg, and 28½ miles distant from Pittsburgh. By 2.30 A. M. all the regiments had reached the rendezvous, and at 5 A. M. the order to advance was given and the troops moved towards Homestead, crossing the Monongahela river over the P. V. & C. bridge near Braddock. The Tenth and Fourteenth regiments, and a battery, were left on the Braddock side of the river with orders to occupy the hills above Port Perry, from which the guns would sweep the mill yards and the Homestead river front.
The early morning hours were full of surprise for the people of Homestead. Look-outs were posted at all avenues of approach and anxious crowds hung around the telegraph offices. As it drew on towards 9 o'clock, a report was circulated that the troops were at Greensburg. Telegraphic inquiries dispatched to that place brought the response that they were not there. At 9.25 the operator at Greensburg sent this message: "No. 23 was wrecked above this place last night; tracks are blocked and troops are delayed." A bulletin conveying the news was pasted on the window of the telegraph office and elicited faint cheers from the crowd. Evidently several hours must yet elapse before the soldiers would arrive, and the interval was ample to rest and eat breakfast.