As the column halted, the crowd which had been following us and which gathered at the blast of the steam whistle rushed in around the four foremost companies, completely shutting them off from our view, except for the line of bayonets which glistened above the heads of the mob. Then commenced a scene of confusion almost indescribable. Shouts, cheers and hoarse commands mingling in an uproar that at times was deafening. The strain on the San Francisco troops now became intense; the lack of sleep and food, combined with the terrific heat and the excitement and anxiety of the occasion, began to have its effect; many of the men tottered and fell. They were quickly borne off by their comrades in the ranks or by men of the fife and drum corps, who did efficient service on that trying day, to the hospital, established temporarily in the pipe house of the water company, where the Hospital Corps of the First did heroic work; gaining, as of course, no recognition thereof by the press.
The uproar in front continued. Suddenly the glittering line of bayonets fell and shouts from the mob of “Fall in there!” “Get in front!” “Don’t give a step!” resounded over the tumult. Anxiously we waited to hear the next order, which might ring the deathknell of many of our comrades, when shout after shout pealed out from the excited mob. A thrill ran along our ranks. “They had thrown down their arms.” We gritted our teeth and waited breathlessly for the order to charge. But that order was not to come during that whole trying day. Three times did the report run along the line that the Sacramento men had thrown down their arms and then taken them up again at the entreaty of their officers. The men in our ranks began to feel disgusted. Was this to be the performance gone through by each company in turn? Were they to be cheered and argued with, coddled and cajoled out of the ranks? Standing there in the dust, burning with thirst for water we dare not touch, with the thermometer above one hundred and five degrees in the shade, watching the farce in front, and looking off toward the vacant unprotected south front of the depot, knowing well that a corporal’s squad, if thrown in from the rear, could clear it, and yet powerless to move, it would have been little wonder if the best trained regular troops became disgusted. “Why do we not take the strikers in the rear while they palaver with the men in front?” “Where are our Generals, not a sign of whom have we seen since our arrival, and their staffs, numbering enough in themselves to clear the depot?” However,
“Their’s not to reason why.”
We must stand there and await developments. They were certainly improving our tempers to fight, for we would have fought an European host for the chance to get into that shady depot and escape the burning heat of the dusty road. The men continued to fall on all sides exhausted, and it seemed as if the laurels of victory would deck the brow of a third party—Old Father Sol. The uproar of shouts, cheers, and yells continued in front. Suddenly a wave of surprise, then of satisfaction, passed over us. The Sacramento troops were marching off the ground, followed by a frantic mob of men and boys. Our chance would come soon. Speculation now became rife. Would the Stockton men do the same, or would they press forward against the mob? A few minutes of tumult, mingled yells and cheers for “Stock” settled the question for us. We saw the flash of the bayonets as the pieces were brought to the right shoulder; fours right, column right, and the Stockton companies marched by, cheered to the echo by the strikers.
Our turn at last! A yell of “Three cheers for the San Francisco boys” was answered lustily by the mob. But we had gone beyond that; we wanted that depot, and meant to have it if the officers would only give the order. We grasped our pieces ready for the order, “Forward,” those who were growing sick and dizzy bracing themselves for a final rush. But the order never came. Cries for quiet and of “Baldwin” came from the mob nearest the Depot, and looking over the heads of the crowd we could see Marshal Baldwin mounting to the roof of the cab of one of a string of dead locomotives which stretched along the main line west. He was quickly followed by three or four leaders of the mob, who succeeded in quieting the crowd by assurances of “keep quiet”; “one at a time”; “you’re next”; etc. Now began a novel scene indeed. Imagine a United States marshal, with six hundred soldiers at his back, pleading with a mob with, as it seemed to us, tears in his eyes, to disperse, to surrender the Depot, to return to their homes. From that moment the strikers knew that the day was won, that no troops, no matter how willing, would enter that building while commanded by Marshal Baldwin, without the strikers’ own kind permission. How that mob enjoyed our humiliation and the scene of a United States marshal pleading with them like a child. We had been called from our homes for active service, and now stood, in all our useless bravery, the audience of a farce in real life.
The farce proceeded. The men on the cab draped the marshal’s head with small American flags, exchanged hats with him, and indulged in a few other pleasantries for the edification of their friends below.
THE DEPOT AT SACRAMENTO, JULY 4TH, 1894.
Failing in his first purpose the marshal now began to plead for time that he might meet Mr. Knox or Mr. Compton and talk it over with them; methods which were supposed to have been tried before the call for military aid. He begged for a truce until 3 o’clock. Oh, the irony of it! He, the aggressor, begging for a truce at the hands of a mob until then plainly on the defensive. They refused the truce, the time was too short, they said. “Then 5, 6 o’clock,” appealingly spoke the marshal. Seeing plainly that the day was lost and that any greater delay would now only be injurious to his own men, Col. Sullivan of the First, who, by the way, appeared to be the ranking officer present, though there had been at least four general officers with us in the morning, stepped upon the cab and told the mob, not in tones of pleading, but decidedly, that this truce must be entered into; that his men were not used to such extreme heat, and that he intended to move them into the shade. Suddenly Knox, the leader of the strikers, escorted by a large American flag, emerged from the depot, cheered loudly by the mob. Now, it appears a truce until 6 o’clock was quickly entered into, and the men who had marched confidently through the town that morning were, amid the hoots and jeers of the people, led away, sullen and dispirited, to a vacant lot by the side of the depot. Here the men of the First were allowed to rest and take advantage of such shade as they could find. B and the section of Light Battery A took possession of an old shed; C and G found another in rear of the first, which they appropriated to their own use; D was stretched on the ground a short distance farther on, and the other companies mingled together in the shade of some trees some distance to the right of B’s position. It could now be seen that, among the men, the disgust at the failure to accomplish what we had come such a distance to do, was very great. In B, at least, it was deep and genuine. All during that long sultry day the unprotected front entrance of that cool, shady building had stared us in the face, and yet, for some unaccountable reason, we did not get the order to enter. We felt that the strikers would retire if a company were thrown quietly in through that end, and were justified in our opinion, when, some days later, a corporal’s squad of regulars cleared the place in a few moments.
Under the influence of the rest and shade our excited feelings gradually became relieved. Talk as we might we could not improve our situation, so we soon resigned ourselves to circumstances, and waited as quietly as possible for 6 o’clock. The men of the Hospital Corps, under whose care 150 men had been placed during those three hours, now gradually drew ahead with their work, and soon had all their patients relieved. Out of the 150 soldiers prostrated we are glad to be able to say that only three were from B, and even these, after a few minutes’ rest, were able to lend their assistance to the Hospital Corps themselves.