1877

The words of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.

 

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“You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free to be happy penned up, with no liberty to go where he pleases.”

 

Chief Joseph, Thunder Rolling in the Mountains

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Woodrow Wilson is a young man – and like any young man, prone to embarrassment. “At social functions he was self-conscious,” Walworth writes. “Once, entering a long, elegant drawing room, he slipped on a small rug, skated over a glossy floor, arms thrown out for balance, and stopped just short of an imposing hostess. The memory of his misery plagued him for years.” (10/20) 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: In attempting to show students that the people we study in history are like us, I used to use this example – pairing it with the story of how I lost my footing on ice, entering my high school in the winter of 1966, and took a dive in front of my dream woman, Melissa S. (I never did get a date with her.) Students could always relate to the feeling, and they were often happy to share their own most embarrassing moments.

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Andrews says that in 1877, “California was in the hands of a railroad monopoly which by threats or blandishments controlled nearly every State official.” (11/362)

 

*

Electoral College Mayhem.

January 31: As Benjamin Andrews explains, the disputed election of 1876 takes months to resolve. A fifteen member commission now meets to decide on the disputed electoral votes. (See: Year 1876 for the makeup of the commission.)

 

It was drawing perilously near to inauguration day. The commission met on the last day of January. The cases of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina were in succession submitted to it by Congress. Eminent council appeared for each side. There were double sets of returns from every one of the States named. In the three southern States the governor recognized by the United States had signed the republican certificates. The democratic certificates from Florida were signed by the state attorney general and the new democratic governor; those from Louisiana by the democratic gubernatorial candidate, who claimed to be the lawful governor; those from South Carolina by no state official, the Tilden electors simply claiming to have been chosen by the popular vote and rejected by the returning board. In Oregon the democratic governor declared one of the Hays electors ineligible because an office-holder, and gave the certificate to Cronin, the highest Tilden elector, instead. The other two Hayes electors refusing to recognize Cronin, and, associating with them the rejected republican elector, presented a certificate signed by the secretary of state. Cronin, appointing two new electors to act with him, cast his vote for Tilden, his associates voting for Hayes. This certificate was signed by the governor and attested by the secretary of state. (IV, 209-215)

 

March 2: Andrews notes,

 

After deciding not to go behind any returns which were prima facie lawful, the commission, by a strict party vote of eight to seven, gave a decision for the Hayes electors in every case. March 2d it adjourned, and three days later Hayes was inaugurated without disturbance.

 

*

 

March 5: The special commission, having decided against Samuel Tilden, clears the path for Rutherford Hayes to be inaugurated. As Andrews writes, “The whole country heaved a sigh of relief,” and Hayes took the oath of office as the 19^th President of the United States. “All agreed that provision must be made against such peril [of a disputed electoral vote] in the future; but it was not till late in 1886 that Congress could agree upon the necessary measure.” (See: Year 1887.) (IV, 209-215)

 

* 

Andrews speaks favorably, in regard to President Rutherford B. Hayes, who set out to enact civil service reform. 

Partly the mode of his accession to office and partly the rage of selfish placemen who could no longer have their way, made it fashionable for a time to speak of President Hayes as a “weak man.” This was an entire error. His administration was in every way one of the most creditable in all our history. He had a resolute will, irreproachable integrity, and a comprehensive and remarkably healthy view of public affairs. Moreover, he was free from that last infirmity, the consuming ambition which has snared so many able statesmen. He voluntarily banished the alluring prospect of a second term… (11/223)

 

John Sherman said of Hayes, “Among all the public men with whom I have been brought in contact, I have known none who is freer from personal objection, whose character was more stainless, who was better adapted for a high executive office.” (11/229) 

“Under President Hayes,” Andrews wrote, “the systematic prostitution of our public offices for partisan and private purposes was, if not definitively ended, so discouraged that it has never since recovered its old shamelessness.” (11/230) 

Civil service reform was sorely needed – which most Americans have long since forgotten. Now the laws changed: “Public competitive examinations were to be instituted, and a list of examinees made up and kept on record, with the order of their excellence. Each appointment was to be made from the three leading eligibles.” 

Best of all the regulations presented was the following: “No head of a department or any subordinate officer of the Government shall, as such officer, authorize or assist in levying any assessment of money for political purposes, under the form of voluntary contributions or otherwise, upon any person employed under his control, nor shall any such person pay any money so assessed.” (11/232)

 

*

 

April 24: President Hayes removes the last federal troops from Louisiana, bringing the Era of Reconstruction to an end. As Andrews writes, “President Hayes’s first important action was the withdrawal of troops from South Carolina and Louisiana, where the rival governments existed side by side. The republican governments at once fell to the ground.” (Andrews, IV, 217)

 

Or, as he also puts it, “so soon as bayonets were gone, fair means or foul would speedily remove the sceptre from colored hands.” (IV, 273)

 

Under Hayes, civil service reform “made considerable progress.” Secretary Schurz. “enforced competitive examinations in the Interior department.” Tests were also required in the New York City post office, the result being “one-third more work was done with less cost.”

 

Hayes “also strongly condemned political assessments upon office-holders, but with small practical effect.” (Andrews, IV, 222)

 

*

 

Assigned to the Tenth Cavalry.

 

June: Henry Flipper graduates from West Point, ranking number 50 in a class of 76. Even his fellow cadets applauded, he later wrote, although they had ignored him in public before, while privately treating him with respect: 

 

Even the cadets and other persons connected with the Academy congratulated me. Oh how happy I was! I prized these good words of the cadets above all others. They did not hesitate to speak to me or shake hands with me before each other or anyone else. All signs of ostracism were gone. (32)

 

Lt. Flipper.

 

Flipper’s problem? He was only the fifth African American ever accepted at West Point. (These notes are from “A Black Lieutenant in the Ranks,” written by Steve Wilson, and published in American History Illustrated. In December 1983, Wilson was director of the Museum of the Great Plains in Oklahoma.) Flipper had been born into slavery on March 21, 1856. His mother was owned by one family, his father by another. Both parents were mulatto. When his mother’s owner decided to move to Atlanta in 1859, his father, Festus Flipper, a skilled shoemaker and carriage trimmer, convinced his owner to purchase his wife Isabella and young son. Flipper even advanced his owner the cash, “and the Flipper family was kept together.” (31)

 

After the Civil War, his father prospered in business, and even hired the wife of a former Confederate officer to tutor his son. Henry was 10 when he finally learned to read and write.

 

After graduation, he requested assignment with the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, one of two black cavalry regiments, along with the Ninth, nicknamed the “Buffalo Soldiers.” Troop A was commanded by Captain Nicholas Nolan, an Irishman, who “knew the sting of prejudice,” and “took an immediate liking to the young lieutenant.” In 1880, he was assigned to duty at Fort Davis, Texas, and handed the job of quartermaster. His commander was a 260-pound, former infantry commander, Col. William Rufus Shafter. Wilson describes him as “notoriously course, profane and harsh with junior officers.”

 

Money in a trunk.

Flipper was told the quartermaster’s safe was not secure, and so kept funds in a trunk in his room. In July 1881, he discovered money was missing and “tried to conceal the loss until the money was found.” The loss was discovered, and Col. Shafter had his subordinate “arrested and lodged in a windowless six-and-one half by four-and-one half cell, where he remained in the sweltering heat until the sixteenth. He was released and confined to quarters only after superiors ordered Shafter to treat Flipper like he would a white officer. Flipper and his comrades finally repaid the entire lost sum; but Shafter had him court-martialed regardless. (32-33)

 

At the trial, his lawyer read a letter from Col. Benjamin Grierson, who had been Flipper’s commander with the Tenth Cavalry:

 

During the entire time specified, his veracity and integrity have never been questioned, and his character and standing, as an officer and gentleman, have certainly been beyond reproach. He came under my immediate command in 1880, during the campaign against Victorio’s band of hostile Indians and, from personal observation, I can testify to his efficiency and gallantry in the field. … My confidence in his honesty of purpose has not been shaken, and my faith in his final vindication is still as strong as ever. (34)

 

Innocent on the charge of embezzlement.

The court found Flipper innocent on the charge of embezzlement, but still sentenced him to be dismissed from the service. The Judge Advocate General of the Army tried to intervene in his case; but President Arthur confirmed the order of dismissal without any comment.

 

“Humiliated and dishonored,” as Wilson describes it, “Flipper sold his three horses and went to El Paso where he found a job as a clerk in a steam laundry.” Any lesser man might have been broken, but Flipper soon teamed up with a former Confederate soldier. He worked as a surveyor for American companies holding claims to vast swaths of land south of the border. By 1889 he served for four months as editor of the Nogales Sunday Herald. From 1893 until 1901, he worked for the Court of Private Land Claims formed by the U.S. Justice Department, and “researched the Mexican archives, translated thousands of Spanish documents, surveyed land grants over southern Arizona, prepared court materials, and testified as an expert on penmanship.” (36)

 

In 1898, during a trip to Washington D.C., Flipper met Barney M. McKay, an ex-sergeant in the Ninth U.S. Cavalry. McKay had served sixteen years, but been turned down when he tried to reenlist the year before. He urged Flipper to also seek vindication, and a bill was introduced in Congress to review his court-martial. When war broke out with Spain, newspapers in Washington and Arizona recommended that Flipper be made colonel on the Negro cavalry.

 

Congress failed to act on his petitions for redress, although the former officer returned several more times to press his claims of innocence. In 1921, he was still fighting for vindication and prepared a 51 page statement and brief. By that time he had done work for Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall, and the following year appealed to Fall for his help. “My whole soul is in this matter as you know,” he wrote. (37) Fall himself was soon enmeshed in the Teapot Dome Scandal,” and once more, Flipper’s appeals fell on deaf ears. By 1925, he was working for an American oil company in Venezuela, where his knowledge of Spanish was a plus. In 1930 he sailed home, and visited Atlanta, it would appear for the first time since graduating from West Point. His family and friends, however, always referred to him simply as “Lieutenant.”

 

He died in 1940, as one friend lamented, “unwept, unhonored, unsung.” Decades later, a Georgia schoolteacher, Ray MacColl, finally convinced the U.S. Army to do a review of Flipper’s court-martial. After a lengthy review, In December 1976, Lt. Henry O. Flipper was granted an honorable discharge, dated June 30, 1882. Wilson would write of him, that Flipper was “the man who rose above the injustices of his time.” (39)

 

Two views of the "Buffalo Soldiers."

  

* 

June 10: On this day, ten members of the Mollie Maguires are hanged. Descriving labor strife in this era, Andrews has this to say: 

The worst labor troubles of these years had to be settled not at the polls but by force. This was mainly due to the large number of immigrants now arriving, among them Hungarians, Poles, Italians and Portuguese, usually ignorant clay for the hand of the first unscrupulous demagogue.

 

He adds that immigration “multiplied the poor,” and exacerbated “the eternal angry strife of wealth with poverty, of high with low, of classes with masses,” which he says “crossed over from Europe and began on our shores.” 

The rise of trusts and gigantic corporations was connected with this struggle. Corporations worth nigh half a billion dollars apiece were able to buy or defy legislatures and make or break laws as they pleased; and since such corporations, instead of individuals, more and more became the employers of labor, not only did the old-time kindliness between help and hirers die out, but men the most cool and intelligent feared the new power as a menace to democracy. Strikes, therefore, commanded large public sympathy. (11/291-292)

 

He is less than sympathetic to the Molly Maguires, although he also takes note of the abuses of the large coal companies. 

In the Pennsylvania mining districts labor troubles early became acute. The great coal barons, offending the public by pricing their indispensable product extortionately high, long received no sympathy and no aid in repressing employés’ crimes. During 1873, 1874 and 1875, these grew frightfully common. Usually the motive seemed to be not so much to injure employers’ property as to scare “scab” help from the mines during contests against “cuts” in wages. A cut at the Ben Franklin Colliery had been accepted by the men, who were peaceably at work, when the “breaker” was burned, throwing them all out. Another “breaker” near by the gang of strikers fired almost by daylight, first driving the workmen away.

 

A common method of intimidation was for ten or twelve roughs to form a gang, and, armed, to sweep through a mining camp, forcing every man to join; the numbers so collected being soon sufficient to overawe any inclined to resist. June 3, 1875, one thousand men thus gathered stopped work at several mines near Mahanoy City, and a similar band did the same at Shenandoah. At night there was an attempt to derail a passenger train approaching Shenandoah, but the plot was discovered in time. The same night a “breaker” near Mount Carmel went up in smoke, and a few days later two contractors at the Oakdale mine were shot.

 

For a time every passenger train on the Reading Railroad had to be proceeded through the mining districts by a locomotive carrying an armed posse. Watchmen and station agents were beaten; Loaded cars and other obstructions were put upon main tracks; Switches were misplaced and warehouses plundered. At every cut or forest along the line lay armed assassins to shoot trainmen and passengers. Each engineer ran his train, his left hand on the throttle, his right clutching a revolver.

 

Bosses and scabs especially hated by the desperate miners were served with notices denouncing vengeance on them if they did not leave.

 

One admonition ran:

 

“Now men i have warented ye before and i willnt warind you no more – but I will gwrintee you the will be the report of the revolver.” 

 

 The “Mollies” made many threats to bosses and foremen. Andrews cites several: 

Such threats, unless heeded, were nearly always executed. Among others notified in these ways was one McCarron, a policeman in Tamaqua, who had aroused the enmity of “Powder Keg” Kerrigan. Two men were detailed to kill McCarron late on a given night, and hid themselves for this purpose near his beat. But on this night McCarron happened to be have changed beats with another policeman named Yost, an old soldier, whom all, even the Mollies, liked. Climbing a lamp-post ladder early in the morning to turn off the gas, Yost was fatally shot by the men who had been lying low for McCarron.

 

The chief source of these atrocities was a secret society known as the “Mollie Maguires,” their name and spirit both imported from Ireland. They terrorized the entire Schuylkill and Shamokin districts. A superintendent or a boss was attacked, beaten or shot down somewhere almost every day. Gangs of these thugs would waylay a victim in the field or by the roadside if they could, but, failing in this, they surrounded his house, forced him out, and did him to death. Among the most brutal of their murders was that of Alexander Rea, a mine superintendent, pounded and shot to death in October, 1868. Driving along a lonely road between Mount Carmel and Centralia, supposed to be going to pay off his men, and therefore to have $19,000, more or less, in his buggy, he was set upon by a gang of Mollies, among them Dooly (or Tully), McHugh, and “Kelly the Bum.” After filling themselves with liquor, the squad, at dawn, hid in a piece of woods through which their victim was to pass, and, upon his approach, rushed at him, pistols in hand. “Kelly the Bum” fired first. Rea piteously begged for his life. He happened on this occasion to have only $60 with him, having paid at the colliery the day previous, a day earlier than usual; but he offered his assailants all he had, as well as his watch, agreeing also to sign a check for any amount if they would spare him. In vain. Having fired several bullets into the wretched man, they made sure of the work with clubs and the butts of their revolvers. The bloody conspirators were subsequently tried, convicted, and hung for this murder, save “Kelly the Bum,” who got off by turning State’s evidence.

 

Law-abiding people feared to stir out after dark, or even by day unless well armed. The Mollies had their signs and passwords for use when necessary, but they grew so bold that such devices were rarely needed. In case of arrest plenty of perjurers were ready to swear an alibi, though not a witness could be drummed up for the State. The Mollies nominated officers and controlled elections. Members of the Order became chiefs of police, constables and county commissioners. One of them came very near being elected to the Schuylkill County bench. Superintendents of jobs had to hire and discharge men at the Mollies’ behest, or be shot. At a certain State election a high State official gave the Order large money for casting its vote his way. Jack Kehoe, a leading Mollie, when in prison for murder, boasted that if he were convicted and sentenced “the old man up at Harrisburg would never let him swing.” The entire power of the Catholic Church in the region was used against the Order, but in vain.

 

Finally, the work of undercover agents – including one McParlan – for the mine bosses began to tell. One murder, in particular: 

One of these was that of Thomas Sanger, a young English boss miner. Early on the morning of September 1st Sanger started from his house to his work. Hardly out of sight of his door a man faced him and shot him through the arm. Running around a house near by he was met by a second villain, pistol in hand. Turning, he stumbled and fell, just as a third appeared, who shot him fatally. A fourth deliberately turned the body over so as to make sure of hitting a vital part, and shot him again. Robert Heaton, an employer, heard the firing and rushed, armed, to Sanger’s aid. The murderers fled. Poor, brave Sanger, bleeding to death, told Heaton: “Never mind me, give it to them, Bob.” Sanger’s agonized wife, from whom he had just parted, reached his prostate form barely in time to hear him gasp: “Kiss me, Sarah, for I am dying.”

 

The assassins escaped Heaton, but went straight to the house where McParlan was, acquainting him with every detail of their bloody deed.

 

McParlan testified in court against the killers, and “demolished the sham alibi which the culprits sought to establish.” He was also able to provide clues which led to the destruction of the “entire gang.” “Schuylkill County, where the worst crimes had occurred, rose in its might and stamped out the conspiracy. A small army of alibi witnesses were punished for perjury. Nine of the Mollies were sentenced to death, and most of the other leaders imprisoned for long terms. (11/291-300) 

 “Then, said Mr. McGowen, who acted as counsel for the prosecution, “we knew that we were free men. Then we could go to Patsy Collins, the commissioner of this county, and say to him: ‘Build well the walls of the new addition to the prison; dig the foundations deep and make them strong; put in good masonry and iron bars; for, as the Lord liveth, the time will come when, side-by-side with William Love, the murder of Squire Gwither, you will enter the walls that you are now building for others.’ Then we could say to Jack Kehoe, the high constable of a great borough in this county: ‘We have no fear of you.’ Then we could say to Ned Monaghan, chief of police and murderer and assassin: ‘Behind you the scaffold is prepared for your reception.’ Then we could say to pat Conry, commissioner of this county: ‘The time has ceased when a governor of this State dares to pardon a Molly McGuire – you have had your last pardon.’ Then we could say to John Slattery, who was almost elected judge to this court: ‘We know that of you that it were better you had not been born than that it should be known.’ Then all of us looked up. Then, at last, we were free, and I came to this county and walked through it as safely as in the most crowded thoroughfares of Philadelphia. (11/302-303)

 

*

“Most desperate and extensive strike.”

 

July 14: Tens of thousands of railway workers go out on strike, as described by Andrews:

 

The most desperate and extensive strike that had yet occurred in this country was that of 1877, by employees of the principal railway trunk lines, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the New York Central, and their western prolongations. At a preconcerted time junctions and other main points were seized. Freight traffic on the roads named was entirely suspended, and the passenger and mail service greatly impeded. When new employees sought to work, militia and United States troops had to be called out to preserve order. Baltimore and Pittsburgh were each the scenes of a bloody riot. At the latter place, where the mob was immense and most furious, the militia were overcome and besieged in a roundhouse, which it was then attempted to burn by lighting oil cars and pushing them against it. Fortunately the soldiers escaped across the river. The torch was applied freely and with dreadful effect. Machine-shops, warehouses, and 2,000 freight-cars were pillaged or burnt. The loss of property was estimated at $10 million. In disturbances at Chicago nineteen were killed, at Baltimore nine, at Reading thirteen, and thrice as many wounded. One hundred thousand laborers were believed to have taken part in the movement, and at one time or another 7,000 miles of road were in their power. (IV, 327)

 

By the end of the month, the rail strike had been broken, but “Hosts of Pennsylvania miners went out on strike along with the railway men.” The railway workers had been told they’d see wage reductions of ten percent.

 

The next decade witnessed continual troubles of this sort, though rarely if in any case so serious, between wage-workers and their employers in nearly all industries. The worst ones befell the manufacturing portions of the country. Strikes and lockouts were part of the news almost every day. The causes were various, one lay in the vast numbers of immigrants Heather and the low, ignorant character of many of them – clay for the hand of the first unscrupulous demagogue.

 

Another cause was the wide and sedulous inculcation in this country of the communist and anarchist doctrines long prevalent in Europe. Influences concurrent with both these were the actual injustice and the proud, overbearing manner of many employers.

…

 

The rise of trusts and gigantic corporations was connected with this struggle. Corporations worth nigh half a billion dollars apiece were able to buy or defy legislatures and make or break laws as they pleased; and as such corporations, instead of individuals, more and more became the employers of labor, not only did the old time kindliness between help and hirers die out, but men the most cool and intelligent feared the new power as a menace to democracy.

 

With little choice, workers and farmers turned to “counter organization.”  Andrews mentions, for example the Patrons of Husbandry, in the West and the Knights of Labor in the East. (IV, 328-330)

* 

Andrews is more nuanced when discussing the labor problems of the era. He calls the rail strike of 1877, the “most desperate” that had yet occurred in this country. 

The immediate grievance was a ten per cent. “wage cut,” reinforced, however, by irregular employment, irregular and tardy payment, forced patronage of “pluck-me” hotels, and the like. On some roads the trainmen were assessed the cost of accidents. At preconcerted time junctions and other main points were seized. Freight traffic on the roads named was entirely suspended, and the passenger and mail service greatly impeded. When new employees sought to work, militia had to be called out to preserve order. Pittsburg was the scene of a bloody riot. At Martinsburg, also at Pittsburg, a great part of the State troops sympathized with the strikers and would not fire upon them. At Pittsburg, where the mob was immense and most furious, the Philadelphia militia were besieged in a round-house, which it was then attempted to burn by lighting oil cars and pushing them against it, until the soldiers were compelled to evacuate. Fortunately they made good their retreat was only four killed. The militia having had several bloody and doubtful encounters on July 21, 22 and 23, at the request of the Governors, President Hayes dispatched the United States troops to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia. Faced by these forces the rioters in every instance gave way without bloodshed.

 

Scranton’s mayor narrowly escaped death, but was rescued by a posse of special police, who killed three of the mob ringleaders. In disturbances at Chicago nineteen were killed, at Baltimore nine. At Reading, endeavoring to recapture a railroad train held by the mob in a cut near the city, the soldiers were assailed with bricks and stones hurled from above, and finally with pistol shots. One militiaman retorted, scattering shots followed, and then a sustained volley. Only 50 of the 253 soldiers escaped unhurt, but none were seriously injured. Of the crowd eleven were killed and over 50 wounded, two of the killed and some of the wounded being mere on-lookers. (11/304-305)

 

Andrews adds that in the coming years “strikes and lock-outs were part of the news almost every day.”

 *

“A reduction of ten percent in the wages.”

 

Edward S. Ellis, writing in 1895, presented this view of the workingman’s effort to win more favorable treatment on the job.

 

The most alarming incident of the Hayes administration was the great railroad strike in the summer of 1877. Trouble had been brewing for a considerable time in the mining districts over the question of wages, and it soon disturbed the manufacturing towns and cities. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company made a reduction of ten percent in the wages of its employees, who refused to accept it and struck, July 14, all the different branches joining in the revolt. A general sympathy was felt for the workmen, and a few days later strikes followed on the Pennsylvania, the Erie, and New York Central and their connections, including the Missouri and Pacific, and several lines west of the Mississippi. This great strike was led by the Brotherhood of Engineers, probably the most intelligent and powerful association of the kind in the country. It has more than fifty thousand members, several million dollars in its different treasuries, and is so conservative in its action that when it does strike it  is promptly followed by the firemen, brakemen, and the rest of the railway employees.

 

The strike assumed such formidable proportions that railway traffic was at a virtual standstill. The strikers would allow no one to take their places, and destroyed so much property that the militia were called out to protect the interests of the employers; but the militia either sympathized with, or were afraid of, the strikers. Then appeal was made to the United States authorities, whose soldiers know only one law – obedience to their officers.

 

When the militia was sent to break the deadlock at Baltimore, the rioters routed them “horse, foot, and dragoons,” but the blockade was raised, July 19, by three hundred regulars under General French. In an attempt to clear the streets the next day, nine persons were killed and twenty wounded. The strike spread until all the States except the cotton-growing ones were involved, and travel and the freight business were paralyzed.

 

Pittsburg for two days was at the mercy of a mob of twenty thousand rioters, who were as fierce as so many tigers. Law was trampled under foot, and property destroyed wholesale. A few ringleaders were shot down in self-defense by the soldiers, who were finally assailed with such ferocity that they were compelled to take refuge in the round-house belonging to the railway company. Thirsting for blood, the rioters set fire to oil-cars and pushed them against the building. The firemen who hastened to put out the flames were told that the first man who made the attempt would be killed. The torch was applied to the other buildings, and the Union depot, the machine shops, and all the railway structures were burned. The soldiers imprisoned in the blazing round-house managed to escape across the river. One hundred and twenty-five locomotives and twenty-five hundred cars filled with valuable freight were destroyed. Men, women, and boys fought for plunder, which included almost every article that can be thought of, from pins to sugar, flour, sewing machines and gas stoves. Whiskey barrels were rolled into the street, the heads knocked in, and many of the rioters, already like savage beasts, became intoxicated maniacs.

 

It being apparent that no other recourse was left, President Hayes, at the request of the governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia, sent regular troops into those States. In their presence the rioters succumbed without resistance. Before quiet was restored however, a hundred persons were killed in Pennsylvania, and $10,000,000 worth of property destroyed.

 

There was rioting in many other places. An outbreak in Chicago, on the 26th of July, resulted in the death of nineteen persons. Thirteen were killed at Reading, and many wounded. Fully one hundred thousand laborers took part in the strike, and at one time more than six thousand miles of railway were rusting with disuse. Then came the reaction, the employees began returning to work, and by the end of the month the great railway strike was over. (1418-1422)

 

McMaster describes events of this summer, “almost an industrial insurrection.” The strikers’ grievances included “reduction of wages, irregular employment, irregular payment of wages, and forced patronage at the company store.” (97/408)

*

Murderers like rattlesnakes.

 

Ellis had zero sympathy for the Molly Maguires, describing them this way, and even revealing his bias against Native Americans, in the process:

 

The attention of the country had been drawn for several years to the coal regions of Pennsylvania, where an organization of murderous miscreants came into existence, under the name of “Molly Maguires,” and perpetuated crimes at which humanity shuddered. The wealthy mine owners persisted in keeping the price of coal at an extortionate figure, and thus repelled the sympathy which otherwise would have been felt for them. At the same time the coal barons held the wages of the miners at the lowest point. These men, most of whom were foreign born, frequently struck. The “scabs” who came to take their places did so at the peril of their lives. They were driven away, or shot, or beaten to death, while bosses and superintendents, who simply carried out the orders of their employers, were assassinated. Some of these crimes were committed by daylight, and the murderers were well known in the community, but no one dared molest them.

 

The lodges of Molly Maguires devoted their chief energies to killing the hated bosses and scabs. When it was decreed that someone was thus to be disposed of, the party selected to do the deed was notified, and he rarely or never failed to obey orders. Passenger trains were derailed; watchmen and station agents pounded to death; switches displaced, and trainmen shot by ruffians crouching like Indians in the woods.

 

Sometimes the murderers, like the rattlesnake, gave warning before they struck. A notice was served on the person that had offended them to leave within a brief space under penalty of death. If the warning was unheeded, death was almost inevitable. These notices were generally in execrable English, and ornamented with rude drawings of skull and crossbones, daggers, pistols, or coffins.  

 

The Molly Maguires terrorized the whole Schuylkill and Shamokin districts in Pennsylvania. Their atrocities were like those of the Apaches of the Southwest. They shot men in the presence of their pleading wives and children, and beat innocent persons to death while on their knees praying for mercy.

 

Some of the doings of the Maguires were incredible. Many men did not venture out by day unless well-armed, and stayed within doors at night and kept away from the windows. If a Molly was arrested, his comrades eagerly provided an alibi by committing perjury. They nominated officers and controlled elections. Members of the order became constables, county commissioners, policemen, chiefs of police, and one of them came within a hair of being elected a judge in Schuylkill County.

 

There was no more determined enemy of this hideous organization than the Catholic Church, which denounced and excommunicated in vain. One prominent priest, observing a well-known Molly in his congregation, “scored” him by name and then drove him out of his church. Another brawny, athletic priest attacked a leading Molly in the street and beat him into insensibility. When within reach of any of the frequent affrays, the priests rushed amid the combatants and made sure that every blow descended upon the head of one of the detested wretches.

 

Those men, however, cared naught for church, for man, nor for God. They could not be crushed by ordinary means, and therefore extraordinary means was adopted.

 

“Wonderful nerve and tact of this detective.”

One day an Irish tramp, called McKenna, straggled into the coal regions representing himself as having fled from Buffalo for killing a man, and as being engaged in disposing of counterfeit money. He could sing a rollicking song, dance a jig, and make merry with all. It was not long before he was admitted into the order, and soon elected to an office, with whose innermost secrets he became familiar. He seemed to have become the most ferocious of all the Maguires.

 

But, despite the wonderful nerve and tact of this detective, he was suspected by some of the leading Molly Maguires. Men who had been selected for victims received mysterious warnings, and the schemes of murder placed in charge of McKenna miscarried in some way and seemingly without any fault of his. This daring officer was obliged to send a daily report to headquarters in Philadelphia. He carried a small ink-bottle in his boot heel and wrote his reports late at night. Once a careless clerk sent him a letter directed to “James McParlan,” but the latter secured it without the secret becoming known. Several of the most desperate Mollies determined to shoot the new member of their order, but he was never caught off his guard. When he knew a gang were waiting for him at a railway station, he sprang from the train and made off before it came to a stop. He was known to be an expert with the revolver, and he did not allow a man to “get the drop” on him.

 

Franklin B. Gowen, president of the Pennsylvania and Reading Coal and Iron Company, had employed McParlan with the express agreement that he should never be called as a witness or be compelled to show his hand. But the suspicion against him and his intimate knowledge of a number of the most atrocious murders led McParlan voluntarily to go on the witness-stand. The Mollies, who were under trial for their lives, and were confident of acquittal through the usual perjured alibis, saw with consternation the man who had been trusted by so many, and who carried with him all the secrets of their doings, walk forward to the witness-stand and announce his real name as James McParlan, a detective in the employ of Pinkerton, of Chicago.

 

Then the whole horrible story was told, and the guilt of the leading criminals laid bare. Nine of the Mollies were sentenced to death, and more sent to prison for long terms. The band was extirpated, and as Franklin Gowen, who acted for the prosecution, said: “Then all of us looked up. Then, at last, we were free, and I came to this country and walked through it as safely as in the most crowded thoroughfares of Philadelphia.”

Many Americans feared the "negative" influence of Irish immigrants.

 

Ellis adds this footnote:

 

Once when a gang of strikers and Mollies were overawed by the military, one of the order stepped out, and denounced the soldiers in such fierce language that their rage could hardly be controlled. Not only that, but he hurled stones at the men and called them cowards because they dared not fire. A private begged his captain to let him have a single shot at the ragged miscreant, but strict orders had been issued that there was to be no firing except in self-defense. The soldier asked his captain whether he would accept his plea of accident in case his gun happened to be discharged and the Molly killed. The captain was tempted to consent, but hesitated, and the defiant Molly slouched away. It was afterward proved that this man, who came so near death, was McKenna, or, in other words, James McParlan, a Pinkerton detective, who had been sent into the coal regions to help undo the Molly Maguires. (1436-1438)

 

A total of twenty Mollies were executed before the organization was snuffed out. As the State of Pennsylvania itself admits today, “the facts of the labor, class, and ethnic conflicts, even the existence of the organization, remain contested.”

 

Modern sculpture: A "Molly" is hung.

 

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Students should be made aware of the kind of working conditions that prevailed in the latter stages of the nineteenth century.

 

A list of coal-mining deaths, compiled by the U.S. government is illustrative. For example, as late as 1907, 3,242 miners were killed in accidents at work. At least a thousand coal miners died annually, every year from 1900 to 1947. The number of mine fatalities has declined greatly in recent years; and in 2019, only a dozen miners were killed while at work.

 

*

“We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears.”

 

May-October: In the spring, members of a large Nez Perce band are informed by government agents that they must give up their lands in the Wallowa Valley (northeastern corner of Oregon) and move to a reservation. Chief Joseph and three other leaders reluctantly agree. On the way to their new “home,” however, three Nez Perce, one 17 years old, one the son of a man murdered by whites, “unleashed their bitterness,” and killed four settlers, “well known as Indian haters.” (Source: “Chief Joseph,” National Geographic, March 1977).

Chief Joseph and his people were robbed of their lands.

 

Joseph realizes war is inevitable, and he and other tribal leaders gather 750 followers, two-thirds women and children, and decide to flee rather than surrender their freedom. His younger brother, Ollokot, will lead the warriors in weeks to come. Joseph (whose tribal name was Hinmahtooyahlatkekht or “Thunder Rolling in the Mountains”), will become spokesman for his people. He explained the situation his people faced, before the killings, this way:

 

The white men were many and we could not hold our own with them. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears. We had a small country. Their country was large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit made them. They were not, and would change the rivers…if they did not suit them. 

 

Two years earlier, the U.S. government had invoked a treaty that members of other Nez Perce bands signed, but not Joseph or his people. Now they had demanded that Joseph move. He explained simply enough why he and his followers had refused.

 

Suppose a white man should come to me and say, “Joseph, I like your horses, and I want to buy them.” I say to him, “No, my horses suit me, I will not sell them.” Then he goes to my neighbor, and says to him: “Joseph has some good horses. I want to buy them, but he refuses to sell.” My neighbor answers, “Pay me the money, and I will sell you Joseph’s horses.” White man returns to me and says, “Joseph, I have bought your horses, and you must let me have them.” If we sold our lands to the government, this is the way they were bought.

 

As for ownership of the land in dispute, he was also clear: “All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it,” he said. “You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free to be happy penned up, with no liberty to go where he pleases.”

 

General Oliver O. Howard, a one-armed veteran of savage Civil War fighting, and the man who would be responsible for making sure the Nez Perce moved, had called the decision by his own government, to take the valley, “a great mistake.” “Possibly,” he wrote at the time, “Congress can  be induced to let these really peaceable Indians have their poor valley for their own.”

 

That valley was, as National Geographic explained, “good country for raising horses – lush, high meadows for summer range, and mountain-protected canyons rich in bunchgrass for winter grazing. Expert horsemen, they were the only Indians known to practice selective breeding.” Their animals were prized for hunting, trading, and racing. Lewis and Clark had relied on purchasing horses from the tribe in 1805-06 in order to complete their epic journey.

 

Unfortunately, Congress did not see the point; and in May 1877, the order to move was given. When the Nez Perce balked, Gen. Howard warned that they had 30 days to give up their valley. “If you let the time run over one day, the soldiers will be there to drive you on the reservation.”

 

He told superiors he was confident he could move the tribe. “Think we will make short work of it,” he said.

 

Joseph tried reasoning with agents sent by the U.S. government to convince him to move. He told the story of his father, Tuekakas, and the last advice he had ever given his son:

 

Always remember that your father never sold his country. … A few years more, and white men will be all around you. They have their eyes on this land. My son, never forget my dying words. This country holds your father’s body. Never sell the bones of your father and your mother.

 

I buried him in that beautiful valley of winding waters. I love that land more than all the rest of the world. A man who would not love his father’s grave is worse than a wild animal.

 

*

 

Here, we interject with an incident not mentioned in the National Geographic article. Once we accept that the Nez Perce were unfairly driven from their homes, who the good guys and bad guys were isn’t entirely clear.

 

August 24: A party of nine tourists, from Radersburg, Montana is finishing up an exciting tour of Yellowstone Park. At 5 a.m. they are up and preparing breakfast when a group of Nez Perce warriors appears. They want to know if the group has seen any soldiers; and they demand food.

 

Smithsonian (January/February 2021) describes what came next:

 

Then more warriors appeared in the distance. The Radersburg party nervously packed up their wagons and started down the Firehole River, where they encountered some 800 Nez Perce and 2,000 horses. The nine tourists, having come to Yellowstone as sightseers, now found themselves in the thick of an armed conflict between the Nez Perce and the U.S. Army….A group of young warriors ended up looting the Radersburg party’s wagons and killing two of the tourists.

 

The Nez Perce hoped to find refuge with the Crows; but their old friends turned them away, and they continued to flee northward, hoping to escape into Canada.

 

The U.S. Cavalry patrolled the park for the next 32 years, to make sure tourists felt safer.

 

*

 

Back to the National Geographic story:

Then came the killing of the four other whites. The Nez Perce decided to flee. They would seek safety with other bands, or even other tribes, or possibly cross the border into Canada. U.S. troops would have to chase them for four months, across 1,700 miles, fighting (and usually losing) repeated battles with Joseph’s warriors, before finally forcing them to surrender.

 

The first fight, at White Bird Creek, on June 17, erupted when the Nez Perce sent out a truce party, still hoping to avoid war. A U.S. cavalry patrol opened fire. The Nez Perce warriors responded, killing 30 soldiers, and capturing many valuable rifles and pistols. None of Joseph’s people were killed.

 

The Nez Perce fought a running battle in days to follow, with members of the band picked off here and there. The U.S. Army called in more troops to join the chase. On July 11-12, the Indians are hit hard by Gen. Howard, who has 500 men, and artillery. The Nez Perce lose four killed, six wounded. But they also dig in, for protection, almost like white soldiers during the Civil War, a rare tactic for native warriors. The Nez Perce soon retreat, losing valuable supplies, and being momentarily scattered.

 

Howard fails to pursue; and the Nez Perce nickname him, “General Day After Tomorrow.”

 

The Nez Perce crossed the daunting Bitterroot Mountains, using Lolo Pass, at 5,233 feet above sea level. Then they turn south. The tribe had often sent buffalo hunting parties into Montana, and there was hope that they could live in peace, now that they had left the Wallowa Valley far behind. The U.S. Army, however, was relentless. On August 9, U.S. cavalry surprised the Nez Perce in their camp, during a dawn attack. Eighty of Joseph’s people were killed, including fifty women and children, including his wife. Col. John Gibbon, who led the attack later recalled, “Few of us will soon forget the wail of mingled grief, rage, and horror which came from the camp…when the Indians recognized their slaughtered warriors, women, and children.”

 

The Nez Perce fighters held off Gibbon’s men, killing 29, and actually pinned down the soldiers with “superb marksmanship.”  That night, they buried their dead, “sang the mourning song and wept.” The next day, they commenced their retreat again, now burdened with added wounded. One of the soldiers told his son about the battle, and his son, by then 88 year old, told a writer for National Geographic his father’s story, a hundred years after the fight:

 

He said a young girl with blond braids was standing behind an Indian woman in the doorway of a teepee. My father said the woman was holding a muzzle-loading pistol and a soldier killed her. The bullet passed through the woman and killed the girl. Later they found the girl buried beneath a strip of sod, covered with a fawn skin. They never were able to discover her identity or why she was there.

 

A warrior named Looking Glass had been leading the fighting, but after he ignored warnings before the attack on August 9, his importance waned. Lean Elk now became the principal war leader.

 

National Geographic explains:

 

The bitter Nez Perces now considered all whites as enemies, and some civilians were killed along their route, including two Yellowstone tourists (see separate entry for August 24 based on an article in Smithsonian). But no women or children were slain, no women were assaulted, and no scalps were taken. This could not be said of Howard's Bannock Indian scouts, who mutilated and scalped throughout the war.

 

Yellow Wolf, a Nez Perce warrior, recalled, “I do not understand how the Crows could think to help the soldiers. They were fighting against their best friends!”

 

____________________

 

“Children crying with cold….Everywhere the crying, the death wail….I felt the coming end. All for which we had suffered lost!”

 

Yellow Wolf

____________________

  

At Canyon Creek, on September 13, soldiers again caught up with the retreating Indians. Nez Perce warriors held off 400 soldiers at the mouth of a narrow canyon, while the women and children, and their large horse herds pushed to the north. By now, Joseph’s people were running low on food. During their retreat, the Nez Perce had often protected non-combatant whites and even paid settlers for any supplies they took. On September 23, they fought a battle at Cow Island Landing, and captured a U.S. Army supply depot.  A week later, in the high mountains of northern Montana, they made camp again. Gen. Howard, they believed, was at least two days behind. So they might get some rest. But other soldiers, led by Col. Nelson “Bear Coat” Miles had marched from a new direction to cut them off before they could cross into Canada, now less than 40 miles away. That morning, a bugle call was sounded, and Miles, with 383 soldiers and Cheyenne scouts, swept down on the Nez Perce. The outnumbered Nez Perce fought back – stopped the attack – and dug in again, with women digging trenches and rifle pits with any tools they could find. The soldiers pulled back, but used cannon to break the resistance. For five days, the Nez Perce refused to surrender. Yellow Wolf remembered, “Children crying with cold….Everywhere the crying, the death wail….I felt the coming end. All for which we had suffered lost!” One night, the air filled with snow.

 

On October 4, Gen. Howard and his forces helped surround the camp. The next day, Joseph surrendered his rifle and his band. By then, Looking Glass had been killed. Lean Elk had been killed. Ollokot had died fighting. Two of the Nez Perce leaders, White Bird and Yellow Wolf refused to surrender, and during the night had fled north with about 200 people, and managed to cross into Canada a few days later. There, they joined Sitting Bull and his people.

 

Joseph spoke to the white officers, and explained why he was finally giving up:

 

It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are – perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

 

Col. Miles promised Joseph that he and his people, now reduced to 87 men and 331 women and children, would be sent back to Idaho. The U.S. government countermanded the surrender terms. The Nez Perce ended up first in Kansas, and then on a reservation in Oklahoma. Miles later apologized, but Joseph replied simply, “When will the white man learn to tell the truth?”

 

As National Geographic explains, Kansas and Oklahoma were foreign country to these mountain people. Many of them died of malaria and of loneliness perhaps impossible for a white man to fathom. By 1879 nearly 100 of those who had surrendered had died in Kansas. Joseph pleaded to Congress for the ones who were left.

 

I only ask... to be treated as all other men are treated. If I cannot go to my own home, let me have a home in some country where my people will not die so fast….

whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other, then we shall have no more wars. We shall be all alike – brothers of one father and one mother, with one sky above us and one country around us, and one government for all. Then the great spirit chief who rules above will smile upon this land, and send rain to wash out the bloody spots made by brothers’ hands upon the face of the earth. For this time the Indian race are waiting and praying.

 

In 1885, more than a hundred Nez Perce were allowed to return to Idaho. Joseph and 149 followers were exiled to a reservation in Washington State, since he was still considered dangerous. He died in exile there, while in Idaho, many of his people adopted Christianity as a faith.

 

Today, nearly 3,500 Nez Perce, or Nimiipuu people (their original name), still live on the Idaho reservation. Among other tribal enterprises, they run the Clearwater River Casino on tribal land.

 

When I check their website on June 13, 2021, I notice that the tribal offices will “be CLOSED on Thursday, June 17, in remembrance of the Whitebird Battle.”

 

The tribe works to keep old traditions and customs alive, including language. “The Nimipuutímt language is an integral part of Nez Perce culture,” their website explains. “Our language program offers learning tools to keep the language thriving.”

 

 

*

 

“The Nez Percés territory was purchased by the United States.”

 

Ridpath, writing in 1895, has a different view of events:

 

The war with the Sioux was soon followed by that with the Nez Percés. These Indians had their haunts in Idaho. Since 1806 they had been known to the government. Lewis and Clarke [sic] had made a treaty with them and missionaries had been sent among them. In 1854 a part of the Nez Percés territory was purchased by the United states, but large reservations were made in Northwestern Idaho and Northeastern Oregon. Some of the chiefs refused to ratify the purchase, and came at length into conflict with white settlers who had entered the disputed regions.

 

War ensued. General Howard with a small force of regulars, was sent against the hostile tribes, but the latter, under their noted chief, Joseph, fled in this direction and that, avoiding battle. The pursuit was kept up until fall, when the Nez Percés were hemmed in in Northern Montana by the command of Colonel Miles. Driven across the Missouri River, the Indians were surrounded in their camp north of the Bear Paw Mountains. A hard battle was fought, and only a few braves, led by the chief, White Bird, succeeded in escaping. All the rest were either killed or taken. Three hundred and seventy-vie of the captive Nez Percés were brought back to the military posts on the Missouri. The troops of General Howard had made forced marches through a mountainous country for a distance of sixteen hundred miles. (1219-459-460)

 

That emphasis is in the original.

 

*

 

Above all: Billy was a killer, and not to be admired. 

 

Cahill, a burly blacksmith, likes to pick on Billy, a much smaller man, and throws him to the ground in a fight. Billy pulls a pistol and shoots his foe, who dies the following day. He will go on to claim at age 21, that he had killed 21 men, “One for every year of my life.”  He also claims to have shot seven Mexicans, “just to see them kick.” He does not live to see 22, and is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in July 1881. For some odd reason, Hollywood later turns the Kid into a hero. A play that opened about his life in 1906 ran until 1918, and producers claimed ten million people saw it. At least twenty films were also made about his life – and that detail comes from an old, undated story. (Peter Lyon, noted several times, above.)

 

I wonder if students would be in agreement that modern movies glamorize all kinds of violence?

 

*

 

Autumn: The first signs of rich silver deposits are discovered in the area around Leadville, Colorado. (See: 1879)

 

*

 

December: Sarah Josepha Hale lays down her editorial pen, in her last essay for Godey’s Lady’s Book.

 

And now, having reached my ninetieth year, I must bid farewell to my countrywomen, with the hope that this work of half a century may be blessed to the furtherance of their happiness and usefulness in their Divinely appointed sphere. New avenues for higher culture and for good works are opening before them, which fifty years ago were unknown. That they may improve these opportunities, and be faithful to their high vocation, is my heartfelt prayer. (Finley, 312-313)

 

Finley describes Hale as, “A liberal of liberals, she was superlatively brilliant in four things – her energies, her sympathies, her vision and her judgments.” (311)

 

*

 

December 14: Not sure about the year this poem was published, but since it’s from John Greenleaf Whittier, looking back on life, let’s put it here, on his seventieth birthday.

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: It’s possible that students might relate, since many a young person will remember being in love in elementary school.

 

This blogger can still recall chasing the dark-haired beauty, Becky G., around the playground at Richfield Elementary School in 1957. That was his inept way of showing his love. 

 

In School-days 

Still sits the school-house by the road,

   A ragged beggar sleeping;

Around it still the sumachs grow,

   And blackberry-vines are creeping. 

Within, the master’s desk is seen,

   Deep scarred by raps official;

The warping floor, the battered seats,

   The jack-knife’s carved initial; 

The charcoal frescos on its wall;

   Its door’s worn sill, betraying

The feet that, creeping slow to school,

   Went storming out to playing! 

Long years ago a winter sun

   Shone over it at setting;

Lit up its western window-panes,

   And low eaves’ icy fretting. 

It touched the tangled golden curls,

   And brown eyes full of grieving,

Of one who still her steps delayed

   When all the school were leaving. 

For near her stood the little boy

   Her childish favor singled:

His cap pulled low upon a face

   Where pride and shame were mingled. 

Pushing with restless feet the snow

   To right and left, he lingered;—

As restlessly her tiny hands

   The blue-checked apron fingered. 

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt

   The soft hand’s light caressing,

And heard the tremble of her voice,

   As if a fault confessing. 

“I’m sorry that I spelt the word:

   I hate to go above you,

Because,”—the brown eyes lower fell,—

   “Because, you see, I love you!” 

Still memory to a gray-haired man

   That sweet child-face is showing.

Dear girl! the grasses on her grave

   Have forty years been growing! 

He lives to learn, in life’s hard school,

   How few who pass above him

Lament their triumph and his loss,

   Like her,—because they love him.