The city bells began to strike the hour of midnight. Suddenly into their measured and musical strokes clashed the discord of a fire-alarm. Before the trained ears of the professional firemen could count the number of the box whence it was sent, another followed. A third and fourth came almost simultaneously. It was impossible to tell how many different alarms were being sounded, or what was the number of a single one. The firemen were confused and uncertain. Messengers arrived at the engine-houses, in hot haste, begging for help in half a hundred different directions. The night skies were reddening with the light of conflagrations which seemed to be raging in every quarter of the city at once. Above all continued the unmeaning clangor of the bells. The engines were sent to the nearest fires of which the firemen could obtain information. But they found at every burning building a foe more terrible than the flames.
Obedient to the orders of their chiefs and pursuant to a carefully arranged plan, the socialists, the anarchists, the communists, the nihilists,—all the combined lawless hordes of the great city had gathered to strike their first real blow at society. They met with open opposition the firemen’s efforts to extinguish the flames. Hose was cut as fast as it could be laid. Engines were attacked and rendered useless. The entire police force was ordered out; but the fires, which by this time were raging in a hundred different streets, compelled their division into small parties. The firemen had been fought only by destroying their apparatus and by driving them from the buildings they were trying to save. The police, however, found that the mob was armed for them with deadlier weapons. Revolvers and rifles were more numerous among the rioters than clubs among the police. Divided as they were, and without hope of aid from reserves, the police were speedily overcome, one detachment after another falling back in defeat. The mayor was besought to order out the militia. But it was evident at once that he either sympathized with the mob or was afraid to take any earnest steps which might anger it. He had been elected as the representative of the worst political element in the city and nation. He professed to have scruples lest it should be found beyond his legal powers to summon the militia. Some of the merchants, disgusted and dismayed by his conduct, sent hasty despatches to the State capital, telling what was going on and begging for instant help. From Springfield orders were issued directing the entire militia of the State to rendezvous at Chicago.
Morning dawned at last. It found every piece of fire-extinguishing apparatus in Chicago a useless wreck; it found the firemen scattered and unable to perform their duties; it found over seven hundred buildings in ashes, and a still greater number on fire and doomed to certain destruction; it found ninety-one of the police force dead on the pavements, and twice as many more suffering from disabling wounds in hospitals hurriedly extemporized in the parks and among the suburbs; it found the city in the complete possession of a maddened mob, a mob numbering over eighteen thousand fully armed men; it found gathering to oppose them a force of ill-armed, half-drilled, utterly inexperienced militia, numbering about one third as many. No one at Springfield had a correct appreciation of the magnitude or character of the émeute. Even the officers commanding the militia failed to comprehend the difficulty of the task before them.
Hastily forming in front of the Chicago and Alton railroad station, two regiments, numbering a little over a thousand men, undertook to clear the street. The rioters met them with a determined front. As usual with citizen soldiery, their muskets were loaded with blank cartridges, and they hesitated to fire upon fellow-citizens. They believed that their appearance would be sufficient to cow the rioters into submission. They marched steadily to within a few yards of the mob. The officer in command stepped out in front of his troops and besought the crowd to disperse quietly, and thus prevent bloodshed. His answer was a laugh of derision, in the midst of which a rifle-shot was heard, and he fell mortally wounded on the pavement. The troops fired a volley from their blank cartridges. The mob responded with a rain of bullets from rifles and revolvers. With a wild yell they charged on the militia. Not a bayonet was fixed. The troops stood the onset but a moment, then broke into disorder. In two minutes they were in full flight, each one seeking a hiding-place to save his own life.
Elated by this success, the rioters—or the revolutionists, as they henceforth called themselves—formed in a cordon around the remaining militia. Among the State troops was one regiment gathered chiefly from Chicago. Seeing familiar faces in their ranks, some of the mob shouted to know if they would murder their friends. The regiment contained many who were themselves affected by socialistic doctrines. The men wavered. A signal for attack was given from the mob; and with a shout which rang over the roar of the burning city like the scream of ten thousand demons, it flung itself upon the little body of militiamen. The Chicago regiment threw down its arms and refused to fight, a considerable portion of its men going over to the revolutionists. The others fought desperately, seeing that it was for their lives. Their struggle was in vain. The enemy was as brave as they, four times more numerous, and better armed. Many of the troops had been summoned in such haste that they had not donned their uniforms, but appeared in the ranks in their ordinary dress. These, by throwing down their guns and mingling with the mob, escaped. Of those in uniform not a corporal’s guard survived.
An officer who contrived to escape unhurt sent the news to Springfield. Even before the arrival of his despatch the Governor had become alarmed and had telegraphed to Washington, asking aid from the National Government. As soon as he learned the disaster which had fallen upon his militia, he sent another appeal for haste. The national authorities responded with promptness and zeal. Before noon of the 20th, orders from Washington had been forwarded to all the available troops east of the Rocky Mountains to proceed to Chicago without delay and by the most expeditious routes. General Brook was ordered to take command of the forces which should meet there, and to suppress the riots.
It was not till the 23d that he felt himself strong enough to move on the city. On that day he had fifteen thousand troops at his command, and knew that other detachments, to the number of nearly five thousand more, were nearing his lines. Shortly before noon his advance entered Chicago.
It would be impossible to exaggerate the gloom of that entry. No city which had suffered the pillage and sack of a horde of Vandals in the early ages of the Christian era ever showed a more terrible picture of ruin and desolation than Chicago presented to the view of the soldiers as they marched slowly across what had once been its business centre toward Michigan Avenue, where it was reported the rioters were preparing to make a stand against them. All but the revolutionists and the Irish inhabitants of the city had fled from it. There was no sign of life in any of the stores or shops which had escaped the flames. Their doors and windows were generally open, but only to disclose the fact that they had been gutted by the mob. By far the greater portion, however, had been burned. The fires which had been kindled on the night of the 19th had raged all the following day and night, but had been partially extinguished by a heavy rain which fell all the night of the 21st. The city was still covered by a dense pall of smoke, and here and there flames showed themselves among the ruins. It was evident that there would be no lack of work for the troops, after the rioters were dispersed, in saving what was left of the city. Not a sign of life was to be seen along the streets, except when a party of pioneers, hurriedly searching some house in which there was the possibility that sharpshooters might be hiding to fire on the troops, now and then stirred up some drunken ruffian from his alcoholic stupor and dragged him into the light. The business portion of the city and that occupied by the residences of the wealthier citizens presented the most complete ruin. As the soldiers debouched on Michigan Avenue they saw that not a single one of the magnificent palaces which had once lined that street was left standing.
As had been expected, the revolutionists were found drawn up here, protected in front by a rude barricade, in which trunks of trees, paving-stones, pianos, and pieces of elegant furniture were inextricably confused. They had seized anything which had bulk, without reference to its character, to build into the barricade. It was open towards the lake, and was so clumsily and unskilfully constructed as to afford almost no protection to the six or eight thousand men who were seen huddled behind it.