, Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Frick's intent was to open the works with nonunion men on July 6. Knox devised a plan to get the Pinkertons onto the mill property. With the mill ringed by striking workers, agents from the
Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which Frick had contracted to provide security at the plant in April 1892, planned to access the plant grounds from the river. Three hundred Pinkerton agents assembled on the Davis Island Dam on the Ohio River about five miles below Pittsburgh at 10:30 p.m. on the night of July 5, 1892. They were given
Winchester rifles, placed on two specially-equipped
barges and towed upriver. They were also given badges which read "Watchman, Carnegie Company, Limited". Many had been hired out of lodging houses at $2.50 per day and were unaware of what their assignment was in Homestead. The strikers were prepared for the Pinkerton agents; the AA had learned of the Pinkertons as soon as they had left Boston for the embarkation point. The small flotilla of union boats went downriver to meet the barges. Strikers on the steam launch fired a few random shots at the barges, then withdrew—blowing the launch whistle to alert the plant. The strikers blew the plant whistle at 2:30 a.m., drawing thousands of men, women and children to the plant.
Pinkertons attempt to land The Pinkertons attempted to land under cover of darkness about 4 a.m. A large crowd of families had kept pace with the boats as they were towed by a tug into the town. A few shots were fired at the tug and barges, but no one was injured. The crowd tore down the barbed-wire fence and strikers and their families surged onto the Homestead plant grounds. Some in the crowd threw stones at the barges, but strike leaders shouted for restraint. The Pinkerton agents attempted to disembark, and more shots were fired. Conflicting testimony exists as to which side fired the first shot in this encounter. (Shooting having begun earlier when the barges were being towed up the river) John T. McCurry, a boatman on the steamboat
Little Bill (which had been hired by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to ferry its agents to the steel mill) and one of the men wounded by the strikers, said: "The armed Pinkerton men commenced to climb up the banks. Then the workmen opened fire on the detectives. The men shot first, and not until three of the Pinkerton men had fallen did they respond to the fire. I am willing to take an oath that the workmen fired first, and that the Pinkerton men did not shoot until some of their number had been wounded." But according to
The New York Times, the Pinkertons shot first. The newspaper reported that the Pinkertons opened fire and wounded William Foy, a worker. and Foy. The Pinkerton agents aboard the barges then fired into the crowd, killing two and wounding eleven. The crowd responded in kind, killing two and wounding twelve. The firefight continued for about 10 minutes. The strikers then huddled behind the pig and scrap iron in the mill yard, while the Pinkertons cut holes in the side of the barges so they could fire on any who approached. The Pinkerton tug departed with the wounded agents, leaving the barges stranded. The strikers soon set to work building a rampart of steel beams further up the riverbank from which they could fire down on the barges. Hundreds of women continued to crowd on the riverbank between the strikers and the agents, calling on the strikers to 'kill the Pinkertons'. The strikers continued to sporadically fire on the barges. Union members took potshots at the ships from their rowboats and the steam-powered launch. The
burgess of Homestead, John McLuckie, issued a proclamation at 6:00 a.m. asking for townspeople to help defend the peace; more than 5,000 people congregated on the hills overlooking the steelworks. A 20-pounder brass cannon was set up on the shore opposite the steel mill, and an attempt was made to sink the barges. Six miles away in Pittsburgh, thousands of steelworkers gathered in the streets, listening to accounts of the attacks at Homestead; hundreds, many of them armed, began to move toward the town to assist the strikers. The Pinkertons attempted to disembark again at 8:00 a.m. A striker high up the riverbank fired a shot. The Pinkertons returned fire, and four more strikers were killed (one by shrapnel sent flying when cannon fire hit one of the barges). Many of the Pinkerton agents refused to participate in the firefight any longer; the agents crowded onto the barge farthest from the shore. More experienced agents were barely able to stop the new recruits from abandoning the ships and swimming away. Intermittent gunfire from both sides continued throughout the morning. When the tug attempted to retrieve the barges at 10:50 a.m., gunfire drove it off. More than 300 riflemen positioned themselves on the high ground and kept a steady stream of fire on the barges. Just before noon, a sniper shot and killed another Pinkerton agent. A Pinkerton agent on one of the barges was A.L. Wells, a Bennett Medical College student, who had joined the "expedition" to earn enough money during the summer months. During the fighting, he played a vital role and attended to the injured on the barge. After a few more hours, the strikers attempted to burn the barges. They seized a raft, loaded it with oil-soaked timber and floated it toward the barges. The Pinkertons nearly panicked, and a Pinkerton captain had to threaten to shoot anyone who fled. But the fire burned itself out before it reached the barges. The strikers then loaded a railroad flatcar with drums of oil and set it afire. The flatcar hurtled down the rails toward the mill's wharf where the barges were docked. But the car stopped at the water's edge and burned itself out.
Dynamite was thrown at the barges, but it only hit the mark once (causing a little damage to one barge). At 2:00 p.m., the workers poured oil onto the river, hoping the oil slick would burn the barges; attempts to light the slick failed.
Calls for state intervention The AA worked behind the scenes to avoid further bloodshed and defuse the tense situation. At 9:00 a.m., outgoing AA international president William Weihe rushed to the sheriff's office and asked McCleary to convey a request to Frick to meet. McCleary did so, but Frick refused. He knew that the more chaotic the situation became, the more likely it was that Governor
Robert E. Pattison would call out the state militia. Sheriff McCleary resisted attempts to call for state intervention until 10 a.m. on July 6. In a
telegram to Governor Pattison, he described how his deputies and the Carnegie men had been driven off, and noted that the workers and their supporters actively resisting the landing numbered nearly 5,000. Pattison responded by requiring McCleary to exhaust every effort to restore the peace. McCleary asked again for help at noon, and Pattison responded by asking how many deputies the sheriff had. A third telegram, sent at 3:00 p.m., again elicited a response from the governor exhorting McCleary to raise his own troops.
Pinkerton surrender At 4:00 p.m., events at the mill quickly began to wind down. More than 5,000 men—most of them armed mill hands from the nearby South Side, Braddock and Duquesne works—arrived at the Homestead plant. Weihe wanted to prevent further trouble at Homestead, so he pleaded with Frick to confer with representatives of the Amalgamated to return to Homestead and stop the armed conflict. Weihe urged the strikers to let the Pinkertons surrender, but he was shouted down. Weihe tried to speak again, but this time his pleas were drowned out as the strikers bombarded the barges with fireworks left over from the recent Independence Day celebration.
Hugh O'Donnell, a heater in the plant and head of the union's strike committee, then spoke to the crowd. He demanded that each Pinkerton be charged with murder, forced to turn over his arms and then be removed from the town. The crowd shouted their approval. The Pinkertons also wished to surrender. At 5:00 p.m., they raised a white flag and two agents asked to speak with the strikers. O'Donnell guaranteed them safe passage out of town. Upon arrival, their arms were stripped from them. With heads uncovered, to distinguish them from the mill hands, they passed along between two rows of guards armed with Winchesters. As the Pinkertons crossed the grounds of the mill, the crowd formed a gantlet through which the agents passed. Men and women threw sand and stones at the Pinkerton agents, spat on them and beat them. Several Pinkertons were clubbed into unconsciousness. Members of the crowd ransacked the barges, then burned them to the waterline. As the Pinkertons were marched through town to the opera house (which served as a temporary jail), the townspeople continued to assault the agents. The press expressed shock at the treatment of the Pinkerton agents, and the torrent of abuse helped turn media sympathies away from the strikers. The strike committee met with the town council to discuss the handover of the agents to McCleary. But the real talks were taking place between McCleary and Weihe in McCleary's office. At 10:15 p.m., the two sides agreed to a transfer process. A special train arrived at 12:30 a.m. on July 7. McCleary, the international AA's lawyer and several town officials accompanied the Pinkerton agents to Pittsburgh. But when the Pinkerton agents arrived at their final destination in Pittsburgh, state officials declared that they would not be charged with murder (per the agreement with the strikers) but rather simply released. The announcement was made with the full concurrence of the AA attorney. A special train whisked the Pinkerton agents out of the city at 10:00 a.m. on July 7. William Pinkerton in his testimony before Congress stated that three Pinkerton agents died in the strike—two because of injuries and a third injured agent committed suicide. The total number of Pinkertons, according to the agents themselves, who died was seven and who were wounded was eleven. According to one newspaper report, an agent under cannon fire jumped off a barge and drowned. John Shingle, the captain of the steamboat
Little Bill was killed. Between thirty-three to thirty-five agents and one crewman of the
Little Bill were reported in the hospital injured. The total number of captured Pinkertons was 324. A roster of 266 names and 360 Winchester rifles and enough provisions to feed a regiment for a week were also taken from the barges. ==Arrival of the state militia==