Just as I was getting out of the crowd somebody from behind struck at me and knocked my hat off; I just felt the blow on my head, but I could not tell who it was, for when I turned around his hands were dropped, whoever it was. I guess it was pretty lucky I did not know, for the blow aroused me a great deal, and I am afraid I should have lost my self-possession. I turned around to pick up my hat, when another man kicked it; then another kicked it; and then the whole crowd, one after another, played football with it and kicked it across the yard. I started back to get it, when a man by the name of Dunlap, a Democrat, who seemed to be in accord with the party there, walked up to me and took me by the arm in a friendly sort of way, and said, 'General, you had better get away from here or you will get hurt!'" The senator's hat furnished diversion at a critical moment, and in all probability was the means of saving his life and the lives of his friends. There had been firing from the clerk's office, and Mr. Cowan (one of the actors in the Greensboro tragedy mentioned in an earlier chapter), was slightly grazed on the left thigh. He was brandishing a pistol and calling to the white men to rally about him, and standing near a window of the clerk's office. He believed that he was made a target by a prominent Republican who was in the office. Two other white men, near Mr. Cowan, were struck by missiles from the negro ranks just before they fled from the yard. Some of the party with or about Senator Warner had, a moment before the scene described by him, emerged from the office and were retreating to the Cleveland hotel, and a determined group of men, including Reynolds, with a shotgun, were pursuing them when the fun with the hat commenced. While it was yet in progress, the soldiers wheeled around the nearest corner and rescued the imperilled Republican leaders.