A sequence of such local struggles occurred in the Blossburg district of Pennsylvania in the '60's and '70's. The Civil War created an abnormal demand for coal, and sent up the price as well as the cost of living generally. In 1863 the miners of the district organized and succeeded in raising their wage rate from thirty-five cents to a dollar and ten cents a ton. At the end of the war, the market broke and the coal fields were flooded with returning soldiers. To protect the standard of living to which during the war they had attained, the miners decided upon a defensive offensive and demanded a further increase of fifteen cents a ton. The operators insisted upon the liquidation of labor. A strike followed. The owners ordered the miners to vacate their company houses. They refused. The local courts issued writs of eviction. To avoid a clash with the sheriff and his deputies, the miners made a holiday in the hills, leaving their hearthstones to their wives. By passive resistance and otherwise, the women held their castles. Then the operators appealed to the governor who sent in the famous Bucktail regiment just victoriously back from the war. They put the miners, their families, and their household goods on the street. The strike was broken. Such miners as were not deported or blacklisted were compelled to accept the terms that were offered, including a pledge to abandon and keep out of their union. So the pendulum swung in 1865. In 1873 the swing was reversed. Most of the mine owners of Blossburg were also either bankers or retail merchants through their company stores. They were hard hit by the panic of 1873. Without consultation or warning they announced an arbitrary reduction in wages and deferred payment of wages already due. In November they posted notices that the miners might get such goods as they absolutely needed at the company stores, but that no wages would be paid until the following April. Then the miners again drew together in a union. The operators organized in opposition. A lockout strike followed. Strike breakers were brought in, principally a group of recent Swedish immigrants, and marched to a barracks especially prepared for them. "The strikers gathered on the public highway in front of the barracks," says Andrew Roy, "and insisted on the right to talk with the strikebreakers through one of their interpreters. The managers declined to allow this to be done. But finally a Swedish miner got in among them, and within an hour, the whole of the imported men marched out upon the highway and joined the strikers. The strangers were formed into line, with a Scotch piper at their head, who marched them out of town to the stirring tune of the McGregors' Gathering."