The 19th of April was a fateful day in the history of the Republic. On the 19th of April, 1775, was fought the battle of Lexington, from which the nation dated its birth as an independent Power. On the 19th of April, 1861, the Massachusetts Volunteers, hurrying to Washington to protect the national capital from the threatened attacks of Southern rebels, were fired upon in the streets of Baltimore by a mob of rebel sympathizers. On the 19th of April, 1887, began in bloody earnest the revolution which was fated to end in the utter extinction of the Republic and the erasure of its once proud name from the list of nations.

The socialist leaders took to heart and profited by the lesson which the Cincinnati riots of 1884 had taught. Those disturbances began in the indignation of an outraged public, angered beyond endurance by the shameful, repeated, and demoralizing defeats to which justice had been subjected in the local courts of law. But they soon took on a different cast. What had at first been the protest of good citizenship was transformed into a saturnalia of crime and ruffianism. Yet the very fact that good citizens had been concerned in the first day’s imprudences made the task of putting down the outlaws and criminals who continued the riots on the second and third days so much the more difficult. The suggestion contained in this was not to lie fallow in the secret councils where anarchy was plotted. Long after the conspirators were ready to strike, they delayed the blow, till an occasion should arise in which they might seem, for a time at least, to be the allies of good and patriotic citizens. Had a leader with a purpose been behind the Cincinnati riots, they saw that the work of suppressing them, after their initial success, would have taxed the resources of the country as well as the State. They waited for an opportunity.

Composed of men whose grievance was against all law and order, and whose dream was of untrammelled personal liberty and license, the socialistic organizations had yet been gathered together, at this time, into a certain union. They aspired after anarchy, but had reason enough left to see that if they would destroy an organized government, they must themselves organize. They had a head, a mysterious centre known among outsiders and to the most of the socialists themselves as “The Council of Seven,” but whom the few fully initiated knew to be a single individual.

Even to this day the name of this person is unrevealed. Like “The Man in the Iron Mask,” his identity promises to become one of the mysteries of the ages. Those who were permitted to share his counsels were few in number, and bound to him and to each other by terrible oaths requiring them to preserve eternal silence. Among themselves his name was never uttered or written. He was referred to sometimes as “Number One,” sometimes as “Ben Hassan,” sometimes, with an approach to familiarity, as “The Old Man.” Whoever he was, it is certain that he must have been a man of vast executive ability, of iron will, of amazingly fertile resources, and of a hatred of civilization and of the amenities of humanity which would have done credit to the prime minister of hell. He received the advice of his “cabinet” of confidential associates; he was in constant correspondence with socialistic societies all over the Union and in Europe: but it is the testimony of all the correspondence of this period so far unearthed that his rule was autocratic, and that even those who protested most fiercely against all distinction of rank and position yielded him for the time being a slavish obedience, holding in complete abeyance their dearest theories until such time as their schemes of disorganization and anarchy should have become successful. His headquarters were never mentioned, and his orders emanated from widely separated parts of the Union; but it was commonly believed that his principal abiding place was in Chicago.

For years Chicago had been noted for the inefficiency and corruption of its courts, which were so manifest as to call down censure even from men who saw nothing serious in the decadence of courts elsewhere. Frequent miscarriages of justice had made the people of the city angry beyond measure; and the prophecy had been in many mouths that a repetition there of the Cincinnati riots, starting from a similar cause, was only a question of time.

On the morning of the 19th of April, 1887, the jury which had been sitting in the case of Alfred McKenna, a young man charged with the murder of John P. Quillinan, returned a verdict finding McKenna guilty of assault and recommending him to mercy. The murder had been a peculiarly atrocious one. Quillinan and McKenna had been rivals for some minor local office, and had quarrelled. McKenna had followed Quillinan to his home and shot him in the presence of his wife and daughter, seriously wounding the little girl, who endeavored to protect her father’s life. There was no denial of these facts by the defence. But McKenna was a man of some social position, of considerable wealth, of handsome person and winning address. Moreover, he and his friends wielded a powerful political influence. The case had required three trials. Twice the jury had disagreed. The third trial lasted nearly a month, and the jury took five days to agree upon their scandalous verdict. It was handed to the clerk of the court in writing during a temporary adjournment, and the jury separated, first allowing it to be known that they had originally stood seven for acquittal to five for murder in the first degree, and that the seven had refused to accept any compromise more severe upon the prisoner than the one finally adopted.

In less than an hour after the verdict had been announced, its character was known over the entire city. McKenna’s political friends rejoiced; but the vast majority of better citizens felt outraged beyond endurance. Angry knots of men gathered at every street corner. A fierce wave of indignation swept over the city. Into the midst of this public excitement came the news that McKenna had paid the fine of fifty dollars and costs which the court had imposed, and had left the court-house a free man, while Quillinan’s widow had been removed in a fainting-fit, her wounded daughter clinging to her dress, to the county poor-house. This news was like a shaft of lightning falling upon an oil-tank. In an instant the city blazed up with inextinguishable fury.

A crowd of maddened men, including in their number many of the best and most respected citizens of Chicago, hurried with frenzied yells to the court-house. They filled its lobbies and surged into the room in which the judge who had fined McKenna was presiding over another case. He saw mischief in the faces of the very first who burst unceremoniously upon the speech of the drawling advocate before him. He heard something worse than mere mischief in the roar of passion and vengeance which swelled in the courtyard and the street. Hastily adjourning the court, he fled, barely in time to save his own life.

Finding the jurymen who had returned the verdict in McKenna’s case already separated, the mob divided. A portion hurried in search of McKenna; others set out for the residences or places of business of the obnoxious jurymen; others remained to dismantle the court-room and hustle the officers who were unlucky enough to fall into their hands. McKenna heard of the mob and fled the city. Four of the seven jurymen who had voted “not guilty” also received warning, and escaped. Three were caught by the mob. Two were hanged to lamp-posts without a minute’s delay or the opportunity being given them to say a word. The third, who was reported to have said, before going on the jury, that “hanging was played out in Chicago as well as New York,” was compelled to watch the execution of the other two, and taunted with his remark. His terror and abject pleas for mercy finally prevailed with his captors, who spared his life and set him free, with a few sharp cuts from a heavy whip which a dealer in saddlery had seized as he ran out of his store to join the crowd. But a second party coming up, enraged because so many of the unjust jurors had escaped, seized him and hung him beside the bodies of the others.

A young man, afterwards found to be the brother of the widow Quillinan, sprang on a dry-goods box and made an impassioned harangue to the mob, telling of the misery of the bereaved family, then huddling together at the poor-house, while McKenna and his family were rolling in luxury. Instantly the cry arose, “Burn their houses!” With incredible speed the mob, already beginning to gather reinforcements from the vilest human scum of the vile city, rushed to the McKenna mansion. Its inmates fled from the rear as the mob poured in at the front. Petroleum was brought, and the house fired in twenty places.

The verdict of the jury had been announced at five minutes after ten o’clock in the morning. Before three o’clock the judge, the defendant, and nine of the jurors were fleeing from the city; three jurors had been hanged by the mob; a round dozen of the most palatial residences along Michigan Avenue, taking fire from the McKenna mansion, had burned to the ground. The police had made a feeble effort at the beginning of the riot to restore order; but the force was a partisan one, it was largely made up of the party to which Quillinan had belonged, and its sympathies were really with the mob. When the officers in command saw leading the rioters the very men to whose influence they largely owed their positions, they made but a show of resistance. The vengeance of the mob was allowed to burn itself out.

Suddenly, near the close of the afternoon, as if by magic, every dead wall and hoarding of the city took on a sinister aspect. From top to bottom, and from end to end, they glowed with huge red posters, bearing in white letters in the centre these words:—

NOW!
By Command of the Council of Seven.

It was the preconcerted signal for the socialist uprising, though of course nothing of the sort was suspected at the time. In the midst of the rioting of the day the work of a thousand hands, fastening these posters to the walls, had not been noticed. Nor was the effect of the proclamation immediately apparent. The mob slowly dissolved. Night came on. A few detached bands of marauders wandered about the streets. They were summarily dispersed by the police, who had recovered their activity and energy as the character of the rioters changed. The city newspaper offices were filled with busy scribes preparing sensational accounts of the outbreak for the morning issues. The proprietors congratulated themselves in advance upon the enormous editions which would be sold the next day. Long accounts were telegraphed to newspapers in other parts of the country. In scarcely one of these was the appearance of the mysterious placards mentioned. The riot was believed to be over. The very citizens who had taken part in the scenes of the morning could be relied upon for aid in suppressing any unpleasant attempts to renew them. And so the night wore on.

The city bells began to strike the hour of midnight. Suddenly into their measured and musical strokes clashed the discord of a fire-alarm. Before the trained ears of the professional firemen could count the number of the box whence it was sent, another followed. A third and fourth came almost simultaneously. It was impossible to tell how many different alarms were being sounded, or what was the number of a single one. The firemen were confused and uncertain. Messengers arrived at the engine-houses, in hot haste, begging for help in half a hundred different directions. The night skies were reddening with the light of conflagrations which seemed to be raging in every quarter of the city at once. Above all continued the unmeaning clangor of the bells. The engines were sent to the nearest fires of which the firemen could obtain information. But they found at every burning building a foe more terrible than the flames.

Obedient to the orders of their chiefs and pursuant to a carefully arranged plan, the socialists, the anarchists, the communists, the nihilists,—all the combined lawless hordes of the great city had gathered to strike their first real blow at society. They met with open opposition the firemen’s efforts to extinguish the flames. Hose was cut as fast as it could be laid. Engines were attacked and rendered useless. The entire police force was ordered out; but the fires, which by this time were raging in a hundred different streets, compelled their division into small parties. The firemen had been fought only by destroying their apparatus and by driving them from the buildings they were trying to save. The police, however, found that the mob was armed for them with deadlier weapons. Revolvers and rifles were more numerous among the rioters than clubs among the police. Divided as they were, and without hope of aid from reserves, the police were speedily overcome, one detachment after another falling back in defeat. The mayor was besought to order out the militia. But it was evident at once that he either sympathized with the mob or was afraid to take any earnest steps which might anger it. He had been elected as the representative of the worst political element in the city and nation. He professed to have scruples lest it should be found beyond his legal powers to summon the militia. Some of the merchants, disgusted and dismayed by his conduct, sent hasty despatches to the State capital, telling what was going on and begging for instant help. From Springfield orders were issued directing the entire militia of the State to rendezvous at Chicago.

Morning dawned at last. It found every piece of fire-extinguishing apparatus in Chicago a useless wreck; it found the firemen scattered and unable to perform their duties; it found over seven hundred buildings in ashes, and a still greater number on fire and doomed to certain destruction; it found ninety-one of the police force dead on the pavements, and twice as many more suffering from disabling wounds in hospitals hurriedly extemporized in the parks and among the suburbs; it found the city in the complete possession of a maddened mob, a mob numbering over eighteen thousand fully armed men; it found gathering to oppose them a force of ill-armed, half-drilled, utterly inexperienced militia, numbering about one third as many. No one at Springfield had a correct appreciation of the magnitude or character of the Émeute. Even the officers commanding the militia failed to comprehend the difficulty of the task before them.

Hastily forming in front of the Chicago and Alton railroad station, two regiments, numbering a little over a thousand men, undertook to clear the street. The rioters met them with a determined front. As usual with citizen soldiery, their muskets were loaded with blank cartridges, and they hesitated to fire upon fellow-citizens. They believed that their appearance would be sufficient to cow the rioters into submission. They marched steadily to within a few yards of the mob. The officer in command stepped out in front of his troops and besought the crowd to disperse quietly, and thus prevent bloodshed. His answer was a laugh of derision, in the midst of which a rifle-shot was heard, and he fell mortally wounded on the pavement. The troops fired a volley from their blank cartridges. The mob responded with a rain of bullets from rifles and revolvers. With a wild yell they charged on the militia. Not a bayonet was fixed. The troops stood the onset but a moment, then broke into disorder. In two minutes they were in full flight, each one seeking a hiding-place to save his own life.

Elated by this success, the rioters—or the revolutionists, as they henceforth called themselves—formed in a cordon around the remaining militia. Among the State troops was one regiment gathered chiefly from Chicago. Seeing familiar faces in their ranks, some of the mob shouted to know if they would murder their friends. The regiment contained many who were themselves affected by socialistic doctrines. The men wavered. A signal for attack was given from the mob; and with a shout which rang over the roar of the burning city like the scream of ten thousand demons, it flung itself upon the little body of militiamen. The Chicago regiment threw down its arms and refused to fight, a considerable portion of its men going over to the revolutionists. The others fought desperately, seeing that it was for their lives. Their struggle was in vain. The enemy was as brave as they, four times more numerous, and better armed. Many of the troops had been summoned in such haste that they had not donned their uniforms, but appeared in the ranks in their ordinary dress. These, by throwing down their guns and mingling with the mob, escaped. Of those in uniform not a corporal’s guard survived.

An officer who contrived to escape unhurt sent the news to Springfield. Even before the arrival of his despatch the Governor had become alarmed and had telegraphed to Washington, asking aid from the National Government. As soon as he learned the disaster which had fallen upon his militia, he sent another appeal for haste. The national authorities responded with promptness and zeal. Before noon of the 20th, orders from Washington had been forwarded to all the available troops east of the Rocky Mountains to proceed to Chicago without delay and by the most expeditious routes. General Brook was ordered to take command of the forces which should meet there, and to suppress the riots.

It was not till the 23d that he felt himself strong enough to move on the city. On that day he had fifteen thousand troops at his command, and knew that other detachments, to the number of nearly five thousand more, were nearing his lines. Shortly before noon his advance entered Chicago.

It would be impossible to exaggerate the gloom of that entry. No city which had suffered the pillage and sack of a horde of Vandals in the early ages of the Christian era ever showed a more terrible picture of ruin and desolation than Chicago presented to the view of the soldiers as they marched slowly across what had once been its business centre toward Michigan Avenue, where it was reported the rioters were preparing to make a stand against them. All but the revolutionists and the Irish inhabitants of the city had fled from it. There was no sign of life in any of the stores or shops which had escaped the flames. Their doors and windows were generally open, but only to disclose the fact that they had been gutted by the mob. By far the greater portion, however, had been burned. The fires which had been kindled on the night of the 19th had raged all the following day and night, but had been partially extinguished by a heavy rain which fell all the night of the 21st. The city was still covered by a dense pall of smoke, and here and there flames showed themselves among the ruins. It was evident that there would be no lack of work for the troops, after the rioters were dispersed, in saving what was left of the city. Not a sign of life was to be seen along the streets, except when a party of pioneers, hurriedly searching some house in which there was the possibility that sharpshooters might be hiding to fire on the troops, now and then stirred up some drunken ruffian from his alcoholic stupor and dragged him into the light. The business portion of the city and that occupied by the residences of the wealthier citizens presented the most complete ruin. As the soldiers debouched on Michigan Avenue they saw that not a single one of the magnificent palaces which had once lined that street was left standing.

As had been expected, the revolutionists were found drawn up here, protected in front by a rude barricade, in which trunks of trees, paving-stones, pianos, and pieces of elegant furniture were inextricably confused. They had seized anything which had bulk, without reference to its character, to build into the barricade. It was open towards the lake, and was so clumsily and unskilfully constructed as to afford almost no protection to the six or eight thousand men who were seen huddled behind it.

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.