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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 21, 1899
Burke Miner Describes Suffering in the Wardner Bullpen of Idaho
From The Salt Lake Herald of May 17, 1899:
SUFFERINGS OF MINERS
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Imprisoned Miner Describes Experience In Bullpen
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President Edward Boyce of the Western Federation of Miners has received a letter from a friend who was among the miners rounded up after the Wardner (Ida.) riots and penned up for several days on suspicion of participation in those riots. The letter gives a graphic description of the treatment received by the miners at the hands of the Twenty-fourth infantry during the days of their imprisonment and is perhaps the first authentic description by one of the miners themselves.
It describes the arrival of the regulars at Burke and how the miners were made prisoners as they came up out of the mines off shift. Without being given the privilege of changing their clothes or of getting anything to eat they were herded into box cars and taken down the canyon to Wardner Junction. There they were kept standing in their wet clothes until midnight and then driven to a big barn called the bull pen.Between 350 and 400 men were here confined in a space about 40 by 50 feet all without food and some with wet clothes. Not until noon did the prisoners get anything to eat. Then they were divided into squads of twenty-five, and each squad was given a pail of what the author of the letter describes as “swill,” and told to eat it. Some had not had anything to eat for nearly thirty-six hours, and even then could hardly down the food.
[The letter goes on:]
We asked for soap and towels to clean ourselves a little, but the authorities did not seem to think the Canyon creek people needed such luxuries, for they would not give them to us, so, with grease and dirt sticking to us, we were driven back to our sty.
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