War of the Classes: A Gilded Age TL
- Thread starter Ofaloaf
- Start date
Curses! I tend to get Harrisburg and Pittsburgh confused. Thank you for pointing that out.
Rather surprised that comments have started showing up at this time, since I was about to post an update anyways...
It's frustrating, I know, since everybody pronounces it "Pitts-burg" and not "Pitts-borough" anyways. Or at least everybody I've talked to pronounces it that way.Curses! I tend to get Harrisburg and Pittsburgh confused. Thank you for pointing that out.
Eh? You mean, having the incumbents booted out of office after this is all said and done? Oh, I've got something in mind for that.
The Pittsburgh Uprising, Part 2
The minor skirmish at Twenty-Ninth street ended almost as suddenly as it had begun. After David Watt had been struck, the volunteer constables who had accompanied him to the scene charged in after him and arrested the offending striker, as well as three others who had the poor luck of being in the way. Quickly returning to the borough Police Station with the arrested strikers in tow, Watt wired City Hall to increase police presence in the Twelfth Ward to help suppress the “riot”, but only six or seven more volunteer constables were sent in response.
Roused to action by Watt's call for help but unable to arrive at the same time as the volunteer constables, county sheriff Hugh Fife arrived on the scene late on the evening of July 19th. Fife approached the throng of strikers and sympathizers and urged them to return to their homes. The crowd, irate and tired, crankily responded with an emphatic “No, you go home!” Sheriff Fife then tossed his hands up and declared himself fed up with the whole business, leaving the scene.
By the morning of the 20th, David Watt and his superiors were seriously alarmed by the growth of the strike. Nine hundred loaded freight cars sat idle in the Pittsburgh railyard due to the strike, and for every hour the strike continued, the company was losing thousands of dollars in the city. Further causing alarm was the sudden assertiveness and organization of the workers in response to the company's attempts to shut them down.
Rallying around the banner of the Trainmen's Union (a trade union that had been founded earlier that year), the PRR workers in Pittsburgh formed a striker's committee, with representatives from each branch of the workers (engineers, firemen, conductors, brakemen, and flagmen) elected by mass vote. The committee resolved that the Pennsylvania management had to rescind the eastbound doubleheader order (see Part 1 for elaboration), bring back an old seniority system which many workers had felt gave fairer wages, and re-employ all workers who had been fired thus far during the strike.
Unsurprisingly the management was against these suggestions, and immediately looked for outside help. Contacting Adjutant General James Latta, PRR officials begged him for help in ending the “violence” and “intimidation” being orchestrated by the Pittsburgh workers. Latta complied, and ordered General A.J. Pearson to call for duty one regiment of the Sixth Division of the Army, based in Pittsburgh. Roughly five-sixths of the regiment reported for duty, but Pearson, fearful that the local men in the regiment were too sympathetic to the workers to be reliable, was reluctant to use them directly against the strikers. Instead, he wired to Philadelphia, requesting that the First Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard be shipped out to Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia had, at this time, a long-standing rivalry. Pittsburgh, despite being the central hub of the Pennsylvania Railroad's western operations, had been passed over by PRR management as the site of the railroad's home office, that honor being given to Philadelphia instead. Philadelphia was seen as a most refined and upper-class town, while Pittsburgh was generally perceived (even by its own citizenry) as a more rough-and-tumble industrial town. When news of the Philadelphia militia being called up reached Pittsburgh, Pittsburghers were outraged. Their fury was only increased when rumors began floating around, mainly concerning alleged Philadelphian boasts that they were “going to clean up the workingmen's town.”
Naturally, when the Philadelphia militia arrived in Pittsburgh early in the afternoon of July 21st, the strikers were furious. That morning had seemed promising, with much of the local Pittsburgh militia fraternizing with the strikers, and sympathizers out in droves and everybody talking about “that horrible Watt” incident of two days before [1]. It was almost a festival-like atmosphere, until a locomotive pulled into Union Depot at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. As the crowd looked on in trepidation, several passenger cars full of the Philadelphia militia were unloaded south of the main Pittsburgh rail yard, in the Ninth Ward, loaded their rifles, and waited for the order to march. At five o'clock in the afternoon, that order came, and they marched straight towards the strikers and the railyard. At their head, oblivious to the controversy and outrage this would cause, was the Pennsylvania Railroad's superintendent, Robert Pitcairn, egging them on.
It started with hisses and catcalls, but by the time the National Guard troops had reached the Twelfth Ward, stones, rail spikes, and more rained on the miltiamen, abuse coming in from all sides.
A contemporary image of the July 20th riots in Baltimore.
The Railyard Massacre in Pittsburgh would be remarkably similar in character, at first.
The Philadelphians did not wait long for the order to fix bayonets to come, and they eagerly did as they were told, firing a volley into the crowd before changing in and drawing blood. Panic-stricken, the crowds immediately ran in all directions. Blood flowed through the track ballast of the railyard, and several bodies were mutilated beyond recognition in the carnage that followed. While many agree that the Philadelphian National Guard troops ought to take most of the blame for the initial violence, it is likely (although no clear evidence exists) that some of the people killed in the “Railyard Massacre” were victims of the crowd's stampede rather than of the militia's volleys.
The Railyard Massacre is often marked as the true beginning of the 1877 Uprising due to the fateful actions of the Pittsburgh militia that day. Many of the Pittsburgh men had been mingling with the strikers and sympathizing crowd when the Philadelphian had arrived, and the remnant of the militia had looked on with increasing shock, horror, and disgust as the Philadelphian soldiers attacked the crowd. As the bloodied crowd of sympathizers dispersed and it became evident that several of the mingling Pittsburgh militiamen had been killed, the remaining Pittsburgher militiamen, in a fury, loaded their muskets and fired on the National Guard.
The Pittsburgh Sunday Globe Extra [2] probably summed the events following best:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[1] This is the first real divergence after the POD-- More Pittsburghers and local militiamen are drawn into the strike sympathizers' crowd to express their disgust over the David Watt fight (Watt striking back is the POD itself). Everything else is more or less OTL.
[2] This is based off a real blurb that the Sunday Globe printed following the railyard fighting in OTL.
The minor skirmish at Twenty-Ninth street ended almost as suddenly as it had begun. After David Watt had been struck, the volunteer constables who had accompanied him to the scene charged in after him and arrested the offending striker, as well as three others who had the poor luck of being in the way. Quickly returning to the borough Police Station with the arrested strikers in tow, Watt wired City Hall to increase police presence in the Twelfth Ward to help suppress the “riot”, but only six or seven more volunteer constables were sent in response.
Roused to action by Watt's call for help but unable to arrive at the same time as the volunteer constables, county sheriff Hugh Fife arrived on the scene late on the evening of July 19th. Fife approached the throng of strikers and sympathizers and urged them to return to their homes. The crowd, irate and tired, crankily responded with an emphatic “No, you go home!” Sheriff Fife then tossed his hands up and declared himself fed up with the whole business, leaving the scene.
By the morning of the 20th, David Watt and his superiors were seriously alarmed by the growth of the strike. Nine hundred loaded freight cars sat idle in the Pittsburgh railyard due to the strike, and for every hour the strike continued, the company was losing thousands of dollars in the city. Further causing alarm was the sudden assertiveness and organization of the workers in response to the company's attempts to shut them down.
Rallying around the banner of the Trainmen's Union (a trade union that had been founded earlier that year), the PRR workers in Pittsburgh formed a striker's committee, with representatives from each branch of the workers (engineers, firemen, conductors, brakemen, and flagmen) elected by mass vote. The committee resolved that the Pennsylvania management had to rescind the eastbound doubleheader order (see Part 1 for elaboration), bring back an old seniority system which many workers had felt gave fairer wages, and re-employ all workers who had been fired thus far during the strike.
Unsurprisingly the management was against these suggestions, and immediately looked for outside help. Contacting Adjutant General James Latta, PRR officials begged him for help in ending the “violence” and “intimidation” being orchestrated by the Pittsburgh workers. Latta complied, and ordered General A.J. Pearson to call for duty one regiment of the Sixth Division of the Army, based in Pittsburgh. Roughly five-sixths of the regiment reported for duty, but Pearson, fearful that the local men in the regiment were too sympathetic to the workers to be reliable, was reluctant to use them directly against the strikers. Instead, he wired to Philadelphia, requesting that the First Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard be shipped out to Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia had, at this time, a long-standing rivalry. Pittsburgh, despite being the central hub of the Pennsylvania Railroad's western operations, had been passed over by PRR management as the site of the railroad's home office, that honor being given to Philadelphia instead. Philadelphia was seen as a most refined and upper-class town, while Pittsburgh was generally perceived (even by its own citizenry) as a more rough-and-tumble industrial town. When news of the Philadelphia militia being called up reached Pittsburgh, Pittsburghers were outraged. Their fury was only increased when rumors began floating around, mainly concerning alleged Philadelphian boasts that they were “going to clean up the workingmen's town.”
Naturally, when the Philadelphia militia arrived in Pittsburgh early in the afternoon of July 21st, the strikers were furious. That morning had seemed promising, with much of the local Pittsburgh militia fraternizing with the strikers, and sympathizers out in droves and everybody talking about “that horrible Watt” incident of two days before [1]. It was almost a festival-like atmosphere, until a locomotive pulled into Union Depot at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. As the crowd looked on in trepidation, several passenger cars full of the Philadelphia militia were unloaded south of the main Pittsburgh rail yard, in the Ninth Ward, loaded their rifles, and waited for the order to march. At five o'clock in the afternoon, that order came, and they marched straight towards the strikers and the railyard. At their head, oblivious to the controversy and outrage this would cause, was the Pennsylvania Railroad's superintendent, Robert Pitcairn, egging them on.
It started with hisses and catcalls, but by the time the National Guard troops had reached the Twelfth Ward, stones, rail spikes, and more rained on the miltiamen, abuse coming in from all sides.
A contemporary image of the July 20th riots in Baltimore.
The Railyard Massacre in Pittsburgh would be remarkably similar in character, at first.
The Philadelphians did not wait long for the order to fix bayonets to come, and they eagerly did as they were told, firing a volley into the crowd before changing in and drawing blood. Panic-stricken, the crowds immediately ran in all directions. Blood flowed through the track ballast of the railyard, and several bodies were mutilated beyond recognition in the carnage that followed. While many agree that the Philadelphian National Guard troops ought to take most of the blame for the initial violence, it is likely (although no clear evidence exists) that some of the people killed in the “Railyard Massacre” were victims of the crowd's stampede rather than of the militia's volleys.
The Railyard Massacre is often marked as the true beginning of the 1877 Uprising due to the fateful actions of the Pittsburgh militia that day. Many of the Pittsburgh men had been mingling with the strikers and sympathizing crowd when the Philadelphian had arrived, and the remnant of the militia had looked on with increasing shock, horror, and disgust as the Philadelphian soldiers attacked the crowd. As the bloodied crowd of sympathizers dispersed and it became evident that several of the mingling Pittsburgh militiamen had been killed, the remaining Pittsburgher militiamen, in a fury, loaded their muskets and fired on the National Guard.
The Pittsburgh Sunday Globe Extra [2] probably summed the events following best:
FIRST BLOOD
The men of Pittsburgh and roughs of Philadelphia have at it
The Lexington of the Labor Conflict begins with a volley of bullets and flash of steel
Philadelphians still at large in our city
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[1] This is the first real divergence after the POD-- More Pittsburghers and local militiamen are drawn into the strike sympathizers' crowd to express their disgust over the David Watt fight (Watt striking back is the POD itself). Everything else is more or less OTL.
[2] This is based off a real blurb that the Sunday Globe printed following the railyard fighting in OTL.
Last edited:
I'm sigging that for shameless advertisement purposes.
Later more likely that sooner. After something like this, the government's more likely to crack down on the unions than it is to offer reform.
...although it might unintentionally give in to some demands.
What really pissed me off when I was first researching this was that it looks lik Detroit didn't get involved in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 at all. I really wanted to have the Ultimate Urban Teamup of Pittsburgh and Detroit versus everybody else, but it was not to be.
Still, though, at least the Philadelphians get shot at this time around!
mowque
Banned
Ugh, I can only imagine what TR will be like in TTL. So anti-socialist they hardly do anything progressive.
Yeah, he might actually turn out to be a hard core militarist ITTL which would be interesting.
Speculation is fine-- it actually can help iron out future ideas, after all.
What really pissed me off when I was first researching this was that it looks lik Detroit didn't get involved in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 at all. I really wanted to have the Ultimate Urban Teamup of Pittsburgh and Detroit versus everybody else, but it was not to be.
Deetroit? shit, Detroit wasnt much for a few years yet.. What about Chicago? only nine years till OTLs Haymarket...
Chicago will have it's time in the spotlight, don't worry.
Still, Detroit did surprise me. Even though it didn't have Ford yet, it still was a key rail and water transport hub, it was a solid manufacturing town already (many freight cars, a few locomotives, and some mine carts in the late nineteenth century were made in Detroit), and it certainly had the social conditions necessary for unrest-- but it didn't do anything!
Possibly. I had to go back and look over some old Pennsylvania Railroad maps (I've got a nice high-resolution one from 1874 on the computer) and squint really hard to find Johnstown, but it's marked as part of the main Pennsylvania line, roughly halway between Pittsburgh and Altoona.
It seemed like a generally happy place with few strikes, though. We can't have something like that in this TL! Maybe this time 'round it'll flood early then catch on fire.
The Pittsburgh Uprising, part 3
As news of the Railyard Massacre and following skirmish spread across the city, Pittsburghers across the metropolitan area dropped their pickaxes, their shovels, their hammers, and rushed to the scene of the violence. Rightfully scared of the ever-growing crowds and still reeling from their earlier encounter with the local militiamen (who had all scattered after the first throngs of people had shown up), the Philadelphians retreated to the Pennsylvania Railroad's main roundhouse, to their instant regret.
A vast mob of Pittsburghers surrounded the roundhouse, small arms fire and stones peppering the building from every angle conceivable. Peeping outside, the Philadelphians could see locals intercepting supply wagons intended for the strikebreakers, and further out in the railyard someone had caught a freight train on fire and was driving it towards the roundhouse at an alarmingly fast speed. The trapped militiamen panicked, and like all men who panicked they did something incredibly stupid.
Although many officials at the time had considered it excessive to bring the weapons, the Philadelphia militia had brought two Gatling guns to Pittsburgh along with them, and had been carrying the pieces around with them throughout all the chaos of the day, eventually setting up the guns at two key points atop the roundhouse. Skittish and trigger-happy, the Philadelphians now responded to the crowd's threats with Gatling fire.
The carnage was immense, but all it served to do was to increase Pittsburgh's thirst for blood and revenge. A “fire-train” (as it was described by the Post-Gazette later[1]) smashed into the roundhouse with a burst of fire, and the mob retreated as the building began to be consumed in flame.
A view of the Pennsylvania Railyard after the roundhouse fire spread.
Although most of the the Philadelphians managed to escape the roundhouse before it was consumed with flame (firing haphazardly as they went), not all made it out of the conflagration alive. General Robert Brinton, nominal leader of the Philadelphian National Guard unit, was trapped in the roundhouse and presumed dead, although Superintendent Pitcairn (who had accompanied the Guard unit) managed to escape north with remnants of the Philadelphian militia.
First fleeing to Lawrenceville[2] (where a local garrison force fired again on the troops), the National Guard troops eventually were forced to follow the Allegheny River north to Kittaning, Pennsylvania, where they managed to catch a local train to as far as Mahononing. There, they were coerced into disembarking by local strikers and had to march on foot once more. Pitcairn and the Philadelphians' later experiences in Pennsylvania during the Uprising would later become fictionalized and turned into the basis of the early Technicolor film “Blue Men in Red Country”.
"Major Robert" fights alongside "Right-Hand Rennie," a loyalist railroad worker in "Blue Men in Red Country".
Back in Pittsburgh, meanwhile, strike sympathizers took out their rage on all that they could. While much of the rail yard and PRR roundhouse was already ablaze, rioters spread in all directions from the Twelfth Ward, setting fire to Union Depot and removing good from the warehouses along the riverfront before setting them on fire as well. While some apologists later claimed this was an effort by Pittsburghers to save the valuable goods from fire and was wholly done with good intentions, many (including, most importantly, many East Coast newspapers) simply called it looting.
By the 23rd of July, all strikebreaking efforts had ceased for the simple reason that there was no one left willing to try anything. The National Guard had been driven out of town, the police had scattered, and the local Pittsburgh militia had sided with the strikers and now acted independent of any state or federal authority. Control of the city was completed when a “mob” (surprisingly, no firsthand accounts remain of this incident) marched on Pittsburgh's besieged city hall late on the morning of the 24th and demanded the resignation of Mayor William McCarthy. With no other options, McCarthy had no choice but to comply, and so Pittsburgh became the one of the first cities to be taken over by the strikers.
With the city under their control, though, the strikers now had to ask themselves: Now what?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[1] The “fire train”: Most likely, this was simply a string of coal and petroleum cars set on fire by rioters and shoved towards the PRR Roundhouse by a single “switcher” locomotive. The composition of the “fire train” will always be uncertain, though, as all evidence disappeared in the fires of July 22nd and 23rd.
[2] Lawrenceville: Nowadays simply another borough on the north side of Pittsburgh, Lawrenceville used to be the site of a large Federal Arsenal complex. In OTL, National Guard troops were denied access to the Arsenal following a similar incident in Pittsburgh, being simply locked out of the complex. Here, though, the local garrison troops aren't nearly as cordial.
As news of the Railyard Massacre and following skirmish spread across the city, Pittsburghers across the metropolitan area dropped their pickaxes, their shovels, their hammers, and rushed to the scene of the violence. Rightfully scared of the ever-growing crowds and still reeling from their earlier encounter with the local militiamen (who had all scattered after the first throngs of people had shown up), the Philadelphians retreated to the Pennsylvania Railroad's main roundhouse, to their instant regret.
A vast mob of Pittsburghers surrounded the roundhouse, small arms fire and stones peppering the building from every angle conceivable. Peeping outside, the Philadelphians could see locals intercepting supply wagons intended for the strikebreakers, and further out in the railyard someone had caught a freight train on fire and was driving it towards the roundhouse at an alarmingly fast speed. The trapped militiamen panicked, and like all men who panicked they did something incredibly stupid.
Although many officials at the time had considered it excessive to bring the weapons, the Philadelphia militia had brought two Gatling guns to Pittsburgh along with them, and had been carrying the pieces around with them throughout all the chaos of the day, eventually setting up the guns at two key points atop the roundhouse. Skittish and trigger-happy, the Philadelphians now responded to the crowd's threats with Gatling fire.
The carnage was immense, but all it served to do was to increase Pittsburgh's thirst for blood and revenge. A “fire-train” (as it was described by the Post-Gazette later[1]) smashed into the roundhouse with a burst of fire, and the mob retreated as the building began to be consumed in flame.
A view of the Pennsylvania Railyard after the roundhouse fire spread.
Although most of the the Philadelphians managed to escape the roundhouse before it was consumed with flame (firing haphazardly as they went), not all made it out of the conflagration alive. General Robert Brinton, nominal leader of the Philadelphian National Guard unit, was trapped in the roundhouse and presumed dead, although Superintendent Pitcairn (who had accompanied the Guard unit) managed to escape north with remnants of the Philadelphian militia.
First fleeing to Lawrenceville[2] (where a local garrison force fired again on the troops), the National Guard troops eventually were forced to follow the Allegheny River north to Kittaning, Pennsylvania, where they managed to catch a local train to as far as Mahononing. There, they were coerced into disembarking by local strikers and had to march on foot once more. Pitcairn and the Philadelphians' later experiences in Pennsylvania during the Uprising would later become fictionalized and turned into the basis of the early Technicolor film “Blue Men in Red Country”.
"Major Robert" fights alongside "Right-Hand Rennie," a loyalist railroad worker in "Blue Men in Red Country".
Back in Pittsburgh, meanwhile, strike sympathizers took out their rage on all that they could. While much of the rail yard and PRR roundhouse was already ablaze, rioters spread in all directions from the Twelfth Ward, setting fire to Union Depot and removing good from the warehouses along the riverfront before setting them on fire as well. While some apologists later claimed this was an effort by Pittsburghers to save the valuable goods from fire and was wholly done with good intentions, many (including, most importantly, many East Coast newspapers) simply called it looting.
By the 23rd of July, all strikebreaking efforts had ceased for the simple reason that there was no one left willing to try anything. The National Guard had been driven out of town, the police had scattered, and the local Pittsburgh militia had sided with the strikers and now acted independent of any state or federal authority. Control of the city was completed when a “mob” (surprisingly, no firsthand accounts remain of this incident) marched on Pittsburgh's besieged city hall late on the morning of the 24th and demanded the resignation of Mayor William McCarthy. With no other options, McCarthy had no choice but to comply, and so Pittsburgh became the one of the first cities to be taken over by the strikers.
With the city under their control, though, the strikers now had to ask themselves: Now what?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[1] The “fire train”: Most likely, this was simply a string of coal and petroleum cars set on fire by rioters and shoved towards the PRR Roundhouse by a single “switcher” locomotive. The composition of the “fire train” will always be uncertain, though, as all evidence disappeared in the fires of July 22nd and 23rd.
[2] Lawrenceville: Nowadays simply another borough on the north side of Pittsburgh, Lawrenceville used to be the site of a large Federal Arsenal complex. In OTL, National Guard troops were denied access to the Arsenal following a similar incident in Pittsburgh, being simply locked out of the complex. Here, though, the local garrison troops aren't nearly as cordial.