While this tragedy was being enacted here, similar scenes were occurring all over the city. Mobs were everywhere, the spirit of pandemonium was abroad, and havoc and revenge let loose.
Lieutenant Wood, whom General Brown had sent off, with a company of regulars, came in conflict with a mob, two thousand strong, in Pitt and Delancey Streets. Marching along Houston to the Bowery, he turned down the latter, and kept on to Grand. On reaching Pitt Street, he beheld the hooting, yelling crowd coming straight towards him. He immediately formed his little force of one hundred and fifty men in line across the street, and brought them to "shoulder arms." One of the ringleaders stepped forward to speak to him, when Lieutenant Wood waved him off. This was the signal for the attack, and immediately a shower of stones fell among the soldiers. The officer ordered the men to fire—it was said over the heads of the rioters—in order to disperse them. The result was scattering shots in return from the latter. Wood then ordered a point-blank volley, when men tumbled over right and left. The crowd did not wait for a second, but fled in every direction. Wood then marched back to headquarters, but on the way slipped and sprained his ankle, which caused a report that he had been wounded.
A bloody conflict also took place between the police and mob in the same avenue where Colonel O'Brien fell, below Thirtieth Street. There was a wire factory here, in which several thousand carbines were stored. Of this, some of the rioters were aware, and communicated the fact to others, and a plan was formed to capture them. Having discovered from the morning's experience that the military had been called in to aid the police, arms became imperatively necessary, if they hoped to make a successful resistance. All public depositories of arms they knew were guarded, but this factory was not, and hence they resolved to capture it without delay. Swarming around it, they forced the entrance, and began to throw out the carbines to their friends. The attack, however, had been telegraphed to head-quarters, and Inspector Dilks was despatched with two hundred men to save the building, and recover any arms that might be captured. He marched rapidly up to Twenty-first Street, and down it to the avenue. Here he came suddenly upon the mob, that blocked the entire street. As the head of the force appeared, the rioters, instead of being frightened, greeted it with jeers and curses. It was two hundred against a thousand; but the inspector did not hesitate a moment on account of the inequality of numbers, but instantly formed his men and ordered a charge. The mob, instead of recoiling, closed desperately on the police, and a fierce hand-to-hand encounter took place. The clubs, however, mowed a clean swath along the street, and the compact little force pushed like a wedge into the throng, and cleared a bloody space for itself. The orders were to recapture all the arms; for this was of more vital importance than the capture of men. Wherever, therefore, a musket was seen, a man would dash for it, and, seizing it, fight his way back into line. On the pavement, the sidewalk, and in the gutters, men lay bleeding and dying, until at last, the more resolute having been knocked on the head, the vast crowd, like a herd of buffalo, broke and tore madly down the street. One of the leaders was a man of desperate courage, and led on the mob with reckless fury, though bleeding freely from the terrible punishment he received. As his comrades turned to flee, leaving him alone, a fearful blow sent him reeling and staggering towards the sidewalk. As he reached it, he fell heavily over against the iron railing, and his chin striking one of the iron pickets, the sharp point entered it and penetrated through to the roof of his mouth. No one noticed him, or if they did, paid no attention to him in the headlong flight on the one hand, and swift pursuit on the other. Thus horridly impaled, his body hanging down along the sidewalk, the wretched man was left to die. At length Captain Hedden noticed him, and lifting up the corpse, laid it down on the sidewalk. It was found, to the surprise of all, to be that of a young man of delicate features and white, fair skin. "Although dressed as a laborer, in dirty overalls and filthy shirt, underneath these were fine cassimere pants, handsome, rich vest, and fine linen shirt." {Footnote: D.M. Barnes.} He was evidently a man in position far above the rough villains he led on, but had disguised himself so, as not to be known. He never was known. The corpse, during the fight that followed, disappeared with the bodies of many others.
The street being cleared, Dilks turned his attention to the factory, which was filled with armed rioters, who were determined to defend it to the last. Detaching a portion of his force, he ordered it to take the building by storm. Dashing over all obstacles, the men won the stairway step by step, and entering the main room on the second story, felled a man at almost every blow. Those who succeeded in escaping down-stairs were knocked on the head by the force in the street, and soon no rioters were left but the dead and dying. How many fell in this fight it is impossible to tell; but one physician alone dressed the wounds of twenty-one desperately wounded men. Taking what guns they could find and had captured in the street, the force marched triumphantly back, cheered on their way by the spectators.
In the meantime, Mayor Opdyke's house in Fifth Avenue had again been attacked and partially sacked. Captain Maniere, one of the provost marshals, however, assembled a small force, and drove out the rioters, who were mostly young men and boys, before the work of destruction was complete. The news of this attack had been telegraphed to head-quarters of the police, and Captain Helme, of the Twenty-seventh Precinct, despatched to its defence. At his approach the rioters dispersed. Soon after, he was ordered with his command over to the Second Avenue, accompanied by a detachment of troops under Captain Franklin. This was in the afternoon—the mob had reassembled, and reinforced by those who had been dispersed at Thirty-fourth Street, where Colonel O'Brien fell, had overcome the small body of police at the wire factory, and again taken possession of it. They had found some boxes of guns that had been overlooked by Dilks, and having armed themselves, determined to hold it. Even women joined in the defence. As the force approached, it was greeted with shouts of defiance and missiles of every kind. An immense crowd was gathered outside, while the windows of the five-story building were filled with angry, excited faces, and arms wildly gesticulating. Charging on this dense mass, and clubbing their way to the building, the police entered it, and streaming up the stairways, cleared it floor by floor, some being knocked senseless, others leaping from windows, to be killed by the fall, and others escaping down-stairs, to be met by the force in the street. A thorough search was now made for arms, and the building emptied of them. Taking possession of these, the police and military took up their line of march for head-quarters. They had not proceeded far, however, before the mob that had scattered in every direction began to pour back again into the avenue, and close on the military that were bringing up the rear. Following them with hoots and yells that were unheeded, they became emboldened, and pressing nearer, began to hurl stones and bricks, and everything they could lay their hands on, against the soldiers. The latter bore it for awhile patiently; but this only made the wretches more fierce and daring. Seeing there was but one way to end this, Captain Franklin ordered his men to "About face;" and "ready, aim, fire," fell in quick succession. The yelling, shouting crowd were in point-blank range, and the volley told with deadly effect. The street was strewed with dead and dying, while the living fled down the avenue.
In the meantime, mobs had sprung up in every part of the city; some larger and some smaller; some after negroes, others firing buildings or sacking them.
Some idea of the pressure on the Police Commissioners during this forenoon, and the condition the city was in, may be gathered from the following despatches, which are only a small portion of those received and answered in two hours:
10.20. From Thirteenth. Send military here immediately.
10.22. To Seventh. Find military and send them to Thirteenth Street forthwith.
10.45. From Sixteenth. A mob has just attacked Jones' soap factory; stores all closed.