But law-abiding citizens were realizing their danger and awakening to a sense of their duty. Over four hundred special policemen were sworn in. Merchants and bankers in Wall Street met and resolved to close business. Millionnaires vied with their clerks and porters in patriotic readiness to face danger. Volunteer companies were formed, and men like Hon. William E. Dodge, always foremost in every good effort in behalf of the city, left their offices for military duty. While thousands of citizens escaped from the city, with their families, not knowing where they would find a refuge, and obeying only the impulse to get away from a place apparently doomed, other thousands remained, determined to protect their hearths and homes and to preserve their fair metropolis from destruction. Terrible as was the mob, and tenfold more terrible as it would have been if it had used its strength in an organized effort and with definite purpose, forces were now awakening and concentrating against it which would eventually destroy every vestige of lawlessness. With the fight on Broadway, during Monday evening, the supreme crisis had passed. After that the mob fought desperate but losing battles. Acton, with Napoleonic nerve and skill, had time to plan and organize. General Brown with his brave troops reached him on Monday night, and thereafter the two men, providentially brought and kept together, met and overcame, in cordial co-operation, every danger as it arose. Their names should never be forgotten by the citizens of New York. Acton, as chief of police, was soon feared more than any other man in the city, and he began to receive anonymous letters assuring him that he had "but one more day to live." He tossed them contemptuously aside, and turned to the telegrams imploring assistance. In every blow struck his iron will and heavy hand were felt. For a hundred hours, through the storm, he kept his hand on the helm and never closed his eyes. He inspired confidence in the men who obeyed him, and the humblest of them became heroes. The city was smitten with an awful paralysis. Stages and street cars had very generally ceased running; shops were closed; Broadway and other thoroughfares and centres usually so crowded were at times almost deserted; now and then a hack would whirl by with occupants that could not be classified. They might be leaders of the mob, detectives, or citizens in disguise bent on public or private business. On one occasion a millionnaire whose name is known and honored throughout the land, dressed in the mean habiliments of a laborer, drove a wagon up Broadway in which was concealed a load of arms and ammunition. In hundreds of homes fathers and sons kept watch with rifles and revolvers, while city and State authorities issued proclamations.