The Fall of the Great Republic (1886-88) — John Shaqi
The Fall of the Great Republic (1886-88)Coverdale, Henry Standish
History
The Fall of the Great Republic (1886-88)
Coverdale, Henry Standish
Imaginary wars and battles
General Brook did not disdain to learn a lesson in tactics from the
action of the mob itself during the fight with the militia. He halted
out of range of the barricade till detachments could be sent so as
to surround it on all sides. Gatling and Hotchkiss guns were brought
to bear upon it from three directions. Neither the general nor his
men had been predisposed by the sights they had witnessed on their
march through the city to show consideration to the rioters. It was
nearly six o’clock when everything was ready. The Gatling guns opened
with a fierce fire upon the barricade, which threw the crowd behind
it into utter confusion. When their fire ceased, the troops with a
ringing cheer sprang forward and attacked the flimsy defences. The
contest was soon over. The revolutionists broke into uncontrollable
disorder. Some one among them raised a handkerchief on the end of a
stick, and the troops were ordered to stop firing. About five hundred
of those who seemed most active in the mob’s ranks were arrested; the
remainder of the crowd was allowed to slink away. The riot was ended;
and the soldiers, after first scouring the city to make sure that no
more resistance was likely to be offered them, turned to the task of
extinguishing with such means as were at their hands the smouldering
fires, which still threatened danger.
It was found that about twenty-five hundred buildings had been burned.
As the insurance companies did not insure against destruction by riot,
the loss was complete and irremediable. How much property was stolen
or destroyed in buildings which were not burned was never known; but
there were few stores or houses giving promise of containing anything
valuable which had not been looted. Nor was the loss of life ever
accurately learned. Weeks after the restoration of order, dead bodies
were discovered in cisterns and sewers or floating in the lake. It is
not probable that all were recovered; but over seven thousand four
hundred deaths are known to have occurred.
A few trials followed the arrests which were made by the army between
the 23d and the 30th of April. But the socialistic poison had invaded
the jury-box; and despite the horror which all the better class of
citizens felt at the barbarians who had sacked the city, it was found
next to impossible to secure a jury which would convict upon anything
but the most overwhelming proof of actual complicity in some specified
crime. This was of course difficult to obtain. Two men who had been
recognized by several firemen as the murderers of a policeman who
attempted to drive them from an engine which they were destroying on
the morning of the 20th, were hanged; a few were sentenced to long
terms of imprisonment; a few others were fined: but against the greater
number all proceedings were dropped, and they were set free.
VI.
ANXIOUS FOREBODINGS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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