previous next


Riot at Harrisburg.

--A fierce riot occurred among the returned volunteers at Harrisburg, Pa., on the 27th ult., in consequence of the neglect of the Federal Government to pay them off. The Harrisburg Patriot says:

‘ A large number of the volunteers congregated in the Market Square, who had expected to spend the Sabbath at home, became clamorous, some of them exceedingly infuriated. An effigy labeled "Pay-master," was hung on the lamp-post in front of the Jones House, which was set on fire and consumed amid the huzzis of the soldiers. While the conflagration was going on, the Twelfth Regiment of reserves marched in from Camp Curtin and charged down Second street.

The returned volunteers being without arms gave way. The cry was then raised, "To the arsenal for your arms!." and the crowd commenced rushing in that direction. The Twelfth went up Third street at double-quick time, and succeeded in surrounding the arsenal before the volunteers could get any arms out of it.

Some of the volunteers got an old dismounted cannon and drew it down to the square on a dray, with the avowed intention of "blowing up the Paymaster." It was subsequently taken back.

The threats to hang the paymaster were very fierce, and the Jones House, in which he was stopping, was guarded by soldiers of the Twelfth Regiment.

Order was finally restored on a promise to pay.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Harrisburg, Pa. (Pennsylvania, United States) (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
27th (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: