The Erie had brought some men
up from New York to fill the strikers' places. The new hands were lodged
in freight cars, when off work, for it wasn't safe for them to pass
outside the guard lines of soldiers. Some of the strikers applied for
work, and were reinstated. They only did it to get inside our lines. At
night, when the substitutes in the cars were fast asleep, tired out with
the double work they had done, the strikers locked the car-doors. They
pulled the two cars into a shed full of freight, broke open a petroleum
tank, and with it wet the cars and some others loaded with jute. They
set fire to the cars and barricaded the shed doors. Of course we didn't
know till the flames burst through the roof of the shed, when by the
light, one of the superintendents found the bunk cars gone. The
fire-department was useless, for the strikers two days before, had cut
all the hose. So we were ordered up to get the cars out. Some strikers
had concealed themselves in buildings where they could overlook the
shed, and while we were working at the door, they kept firing on us.
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