in the course of an editorial headed
"The Talk of the Desperate," which formulated what was assumed as the
expression of a workingman, used this language:

This may be the great civil war in this country between labor and
capital that is bound to come.... The workingmen everywhere are in
fullest sympathy with the strikers, and only waiting to see whether
they are in earnest enough to fight for their rights. They would
all join and help them the moment an actual conflict took place....
The governor, with his proclamation, may call and call, but the
laboring people, who mostly constitute the militia, won't take up
arms to put down their brethren. Will capital then rely on the
United States Army? Pshaw! Its ten to fifteen thousand available
men would be swept from our path like leaves in a whirlwind. The
workingmen of this country can capture and hold it, if they will
only stick together, and it looks as though they were going to do
so this time. Of course, you say that capital will have some
supporters. Many of the unemployed will be glad to get work as
soldiers, or extra policemen; the farmers, too, might turn out to
preserve your law and order; but the working army would have the
most men and the best men. The war might be bloody but the right
would prevail. Men like Tom Scott, Frank Thomson--yes, and William
Thaw--who have got rich swindling the stockholders of railroads, so
that they cannot pay honest labor living rates, we would hang to
the nearest tree.

Although the paper in a later edition suppressed that part of the
editorial, and the other papers of the city refrained from any
editorials that might increase the excitement, yet the mischief had been
done, the unfortunate words had been widely read, and the more
intelligently vicious of the rioters proceeded to make the most of
them.

The eastern troops left Philadelphia on Friday night and arrived at the
Union Depot on Saturday afternoon, tired and hungry. After a scant and
hasty lunch they were placed out along the tracks to the roundhouse
where the great bulk of the mob was assembled. In order to secure and
protect the building and tracks it was necessary that the crowd should
be forced back. When the troops undertook this movement some stones were
thrown and a few soldiers were hit. Then one of the subordinate officers
gave an order to fire, and about tw