This man was W. L. Iams, a youth belonging to one of the best families in Greene County, who was serving in Company K, Tenth Regiment, under Colonel Hawkins.
Iams was stretched on the grass outside Lieutenant Colonel J. B. Streator's tent, chatting with a group of comrades, when the news of the attempt on Frick's life was brought in. Acting on the impulse of the moment, and doubtless without measuring the significance of his words, the young man jumped to his feet and shouted "Three cheers for the man who shot Frick." Colonel Streator heard the remark and, stepping out of his tent, asked who had uttered it. Receiving no response, he ordered the regiment drawn up in line in the company streets, and, after condemning the language used by Iams as treasonable, demanded from one company after another the name of the offender. When he came to Company K, Iams stepped forward from the ranks and said "I did it." The Colonel asked him why. "Because I do not like Frick" was the answer. Iams was ordered to apologize before the regiment but refused, and was thereupon sent to the guard-house and subjected, without the benefit of a trial by court-martial, to the most degrading punishment known under military law. He was first strung up by the thumbs with notice that he would be cut down as soon as he apologized. Although suffering exquisite torture, the young man remained firm and declined to retract his words. After hanging for a quarter of an hour, he lost consciousness and the regimental surgeon, Dr. Neff, ordered him to be cut down. Iams was then placed in the guard-house until his case was reported to Colonel Hawkins, at the headquarters of the provisional brigade. The report was returned with the approval of Colonel Hawkins and General Snowden and an order from the latter that the man be disgraced and drummed out of camp. Colonel Streator executed these directions to the letter. Iams' head and face were half shaved; his uniform was exchanged for an old pair of overalls and a shirt and dilapidated hat to match, and in this wretched condition he was led out of camp to the tune of the "Rogues' March." His sentence carried with it permanent exclusion from the National Guard and disenfranchisement.
Iams proceeded to Pittsburgh and, strange to say, became the lion of the hour. He announced his intention of prosecuting the officers concerned in his punishment and a score of attorneys volunteered their services as his counsel. Among these was Frank P. Iams, Esq., a cousin of the young man, who was engaged in practice at the Pittsburgh bar.
Within twenty-four hours the Iams case became a National cause celebre. It was discussed everywhere from Maine to California. Military authorities waxed warm over it. Legal authorities squabbled over it. Professional publicists were interviewed concerning it.
Editors made it the subject of tremendous publications. Pictures of Iams, hairless, mustacheless and defiant appeared in the illustrated weeklies. The Allegheny County Democrats, happening to have another convention on hand at this time, took the matter up in a political way, and as it happened that Colonel Streator was a well-known and popular Democratic club man, "confusion worse confounded" followed the endeavors of the workingmen in the convention to secure the passage of resolutions excoriating the "brutal and inhuman" conduct of Iams' superior officers.
The preponderance of sentiment was everywhere against the officers. In inflicting a punishment so severe and unusual on a thoughtless youth, whose insubordinate conduct might have been otherwise chastised with equally good effect, and especially in denying him even a drumhead court-martial, they were held guilty of tyrannically exceeding their authority.
Iams carried out his threat of prosecuting the officers and indictments were subsequently found against General Snowden, Colonel Hawkins, Colonel Streator and Surgeon Neff. The trial, however, resulted in the acquittal of the defendants, the judge and jury being satisfied that whether the punishment inflicted on Iams fitted the crime or not, military law permitted its infliction.
After two weeks' service, the military force at Homestead was reduced to three regiments of infantry, a troop of cavalry and a battery, the retiring regiments breaking camp on July 27 and 28. Those that remained were booked for a term of service which was to end only when the Carnegie mills were in undisturbed operation, an order of things which was not to be finally established until more than two months later.
Mr. Frick's illness did not stay the hand of Secretary Lovejoy, who continued to lodge informations against the participants in the affair of July 6. Pinkerton detectives and a few newspaper reporters who had been placed on the Carnegie Company's pay-roll furnished the secretary with the necessary testimony. The first of the workmen to be held without bail was Sylvester Critchlow, a daring fellow who had done active duty as a sharpshooter in the mill-yard. Samuel Stewart, a clerk in the mill, swore that he had seen Critchlow fire at the men in the barges, and on this evidence the defendant was held liable for first degree murder and committed to jail pending his trial.
The workmen, for their part, proceeded to carry out their threat of prosecuting the Carnegie officials. Hugh Ross, himself under bail on the charge of murder, made information before Alderman King, of the South Side, Pittsburgh, charging that H. C. Frick, F. T. F. Lovejoy, Robert Pinkerton, William Pinkerton, J. A. Potter, G. A. Corey, J. G. A. Leishman, H. M. Curry, C. W. Bedell, Fred. Primer, W. H. Burt, Nevin McConnell, James Dovey, John Cooper and Fred. W. Hinde "did kill and murder John E. Morris, George W. Rutter, Silas Wain and Joseph Sotak." The arrest of Chairman Frick was to be deferred until he should recover from his wounds. As the Homestead men, for the most part, had been arrested at such times and under such circumstances as compelled them to spend a night in jail, before securing a hearing in court on their application for admission to bail, Ross made special efforts to have the Carnegie officials subjected to the same experience. This manœuvre, however, was defeated. Messrs. Leishman, Lovejoy and Curry, hearing that warrants were out for their arrest, went at once, in company with a formidable array of counsel, to the criminal court where Judge Ewing was sitting, and asked for admission to bail. Judge Ewing said he could not hear the applications until the defendants had appeared before an alderman and either waived examination or been held for court; but with a degree of courtesy probably never before exhibited in a criminal court he dispatched a messenger for Alderman King, permitted the defendants to waive a hearing and then went on to consider the question of bail. This was speedily disposed of. The Judge declined to consider the representations made by the attorneys of the Amalgamated Association as to the entrance into the case of the elements of first degree murder. There was no equality, he held, between the Carnegie officials and the men in the conflict of July 6. The former were exercising their rights; the latter were rioters and trespassers, whom it was proper to oppose with arms. He, therefore, would admit the defendants to bail in the sum of $10,000.