Robert Pitcairn, the general agent and superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania railroad, had leave of absence for a short time, to commence on the 19th of July, and that morning he left for the east with his family, over the Pennsylvania railroad, no complaint, as he says, having been made to the officers of the company by the men, on account of the order to run "double-headers," and he having no knowledge or suspicion that any trouble was brewing or expected. The early morning freight trains left Pittsburgh as "double-headers," but when the time (8.40 A.M.) came for the next train to leave, the men (two brakemen and one flagman) refused to go out on a "double-header," and the train did not go. The conductor notified the dispatcher that the men had struck, and the dispatcher undertook to find men who would go, but all the train men refused. He then made up two crews from the yard men, and gave orders for the engine to back down and couple on the train, when the striking men, led by one Andrew Hice, threw coupling pins and other missiles at the brakeman who was attempting to couple on the engine, one of which hit him, and, in the words of one witness, he had to run for his life. There was some twenty or twenty-five men in the crowd at this time; all men in the employ of the railroad company. The strikers took possession of the switches over which the trains would have to move, and refused to let any train pass out, and their number was from this time gradually increased by the addition of the men who came in on freight trains, who were induced to join the strikers as fast as they came in. Between ten and eleven o'clock, A.M., David M. Watt, chief clerk of the Pittsburgh division, who was acting in place of Mr. Pitcairn in his absence, went to the mayor's office and asked for ten policemen to be sent up to the yard of the company, to protect the men who were willing to go out on the trains, and arrest any one who should commit a breach of the peace, telling the mayor that, in his opinion, ten good men, with his (the mayor's) presence, would be sufficient for the purpose.