When the rioters beheld their associates attacked, their rage passed all control, and the troops were closed in upon and driven into the roundhouse. Encouraged by this retreat, the mob took steps to burn them out. Many cars loaded with whisky and petroleum were set on fire and sent down the track against the building, and fire was opened on it with a cannon which the crowd had seized from a local armory. General Brinton came personally to one of the windows of the roundhouse and appealed to the mob to desist, warning them that if they did not he must and would fire. The rioters paid no attention to his appeal, but continued their assaults, whereupon General Brinton gave orders to his men to fire at those who were handling the cannon, and several of them were killed and wounded. Incendiarism, having been inaugurated, went on through the night, whole trains being robbed and then burned. The troops held their position until Sunday morning, and then retreated out Penn Avenue to Sharpsburg, where they went into camp.
During Saturday night and Sunday morning the mob seemed to have taken possession of the city. They broke open several armories and gun stores, and supplied themselves with arms and ammunition. The banks were threatened, and the city seemed about to be pillaged, the business part of the city being filled with bands of rioters who uttered threats of violence and murder. On Sunday morning the roundhouse and all the locomotives which it contained were destroyed by fire. The Union Depot, the grain elevator, the Adams Express building, and the Pan Handle depot were also set on fire and consumed. The firemen who hastened to the scene and attempted to extinguish the flames were met by armed men and driven back. At half past twelve on Sunday morning a committee appointed by a citizens' meeting tried to open a consultation with the mob, but were promptly driven away. The committee found that they were not dealing with dissatisfied railroad employees but with a mob of the worst of the city's population, there being neither organization nor leader, but each man or party of men doing what the frenzy of the moment suggested. When it seemed as if the whole city was to be destroyed, some of the original strikers were persuaded to attend a meeting of the citizens at four o'clock and arrange to aid in suppressing the incendiarism, and they did this with such a good spirit as showed that the railroad strikers were not a part of the mob and did not countenance its violence. At this meeting the mayor was authorized to enroll five hundred police, but the accounts of the day show that the ranks filled up slowly. The state of terror continued through all of Sunday night, and on Monday morning the mob was still in an unorganized control.
Throughout the thirty-six hours from Saturday night until Monday morning a most unusual state of public mind developed here and there which seemed like a moral epidemic. There was almost a wholesale appropriation of goods from the burning cars by men and even women who would at other times have shuddered at the idea of robbery; and after the riot was suppressed goods were for some time voluntarily returned by persons who had taken them unreflectingly, having at length recovered their moral perceptions, which had seemingly been clouded by the vicious influence of the mob.
On Monday morning, however, the uprooted law seemed to be recovering a portion of its dissipated majesty. During the night posters had been placed conspicuously throughout the city, on which was printed the law under which the citizens of Allegheny County were liable for all the damage done by the mob or arising from its actions. At eleven o'clock in the morning, a meeting of citizens was called at the Chamber of Commerce, to form a Committee of Public Safety to take charge of the situation, as the city authorities, the sheriff, and the military seemed powerless to control it. This committee presented the following address to the public:
The Committee of Public Safety, appointed at the meeting of citizens held at the Chamber of Commerce July 23d, deeming that the allaying of excitement is the first step toward restoring order, would urge upon all citizens disposed to aid therein the necessity of pursuing their usual avocation, and keeping all their employees at work, and would, therefore, request that full compliance be accorded to this demand of the committee. The committee are impressed with the belief that the police force now being organized will be able to arrest and disperse all riotous assemblages, and that much of the danger of destruction to property has passed, and that an entire restoration of order will be established. The committee believe that the mass of industrious workmen of the city are on the side of law and order, and a number of the so-called strikers are already in the ranks of the defenders of the city, and it is quite probable that any further demonstration will proceed from thieves and similar classes of population, with whom our working classes have no affiliation and will not be found among them.
It is to this end that the committee request that all classes of business be prosecuted as usual, and our citizens refrain from congregating in the streets in crowds, so that the police of the city may not be confused in their effort to arrest rioters, and the military be not restrained from prompt action, if necessary, from fear of injuring the innocent.
While the rioters had by this time been somewhat restrained by the resolute action of the committee, yet they were, although dispersed as a body, holding meetings and still breathing sullen threats of further outrage and murder. The strike had spread to the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway, and its trains were for two or three days virtually stopped; in other sections of the country the railroad troubles were increasing, and the committee thought best to call Major-General Joseph Brown and Colonel P. N. Guthrie, of the Eighteenth National Guards, into consultation. Under their advice a camp of the military was formed at East Liberty, to be held in readiness for any further outbreak. Mayor McCarthy, at last inspirited by the determined men who urged him to his duty, enrolled five hundred extra police, and issued a proclamation in which he said:
I have determined that peace, order, and quiet shall be restored to the community, and to this end call upon all good citizens to come forward at once to the old City Hall and unite with the police and military now organizing. I call upon all to continue quietly at their several places of business and refrain from participating in excited assemblages.
A proclamation had also been issued by Governor Hartranft, and he had come to Pittsburgh to address the rioters, and subsequently two or three thousand troops were ordered by him to Pittsburgh, and were encamped near East Liberty for several days.
Under these vigorous measures quiet was in a few days restored, although the Committee of Public Safety continued to hold sessions and to take steps not only to prevent any further demonstrations, but to arrest and bring to punishment a number of the prominent rioters.
Claims for losses in the riot were made on Allegheny County in the sum of $4,100,000, which the commissioners settled for $2,772,349.53. Of this sum $1,600,000 was paid to the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose claim for $2,312,000 was settled for that sum. In addition to the buildings already specified as burned, there were 1,383 freight-cars, 104 locomotives, and 66 passenger coaches destroyed by fire. Twenty-five persons in all were killed.