Its a sad blow to us. Father was
the head of a family of nine of us.
I don’t know what we will do now.
It will break their hearts at home.
-Young Son of Abe Breneman
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 13, 1898
Virden, Illinois – Striking Miners Shot Down by Company Guards
From Springfield’s Illinois State Journal of October 13, 1898:
(By J. E. Vaughn, Staff Correspondent.)
Virden. Oct. 12.-(Special.)-Mid-night.-Ten dead, one fatally wounded and twenty-five carrying gunshot injuries of a more or less serous character, is the result of Manager Fred Lukins’ determination to run the Chicago-Virden coal mine in his own way and the counter determination of the striking miners not to permit non-union men to operate the plant.
In battle, fierce and sharp and attended by an unusual number of casualties, the striking miners today came into contact with the men who are supporting the operator and drove them from the town, but at a cost which makes the victory a bitter one. Six of the strikers were killed by the superior weapons of the armed guards, while three of the guards, two on the train that conveyed them to the town, and one within the stockade, lost their lives…..
[…..]
SCENES AFTER THE BATTLE.
—–
Virden, Oct. 12-(Special.)-The scenes that attended the removal of the dead miners from the field east of the stockade were pathetic in the extreme as soon as the firing had ceased and while there was still the greatest danger of a resumption of the fire from the stockade, shrieking, bare-headed women, their hair flying in the air, ran from the houses in the vicinity and rushed for the place where the miners had fallen, looking for their husbands and fathers. As they run they shouted curses at the men in the stockade and shook defiant fists at the grim tower from which had come the shower of lead.
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Company Guards Open Fire on Miners at Virden, Illinois; Scene of Carnage Follows Fierce Battle” →