Although the people in the
Rebel encampment surrendered without a blow, the incident was
attended with considerable bloodshed. A mob of Rebel sympathizers,
consisting largely of half-grown boys--I was in the midst of the
throng at the time--with their pistols opened fire on a German Union
regiment and killed several of its men. The troops, in return, poured
a volley into the crowd of spectators from which the shots had come,
killing or wounding over forty persons, the most of them, as is usual
in such cases, being inoffensive onlookers. A man standing beside me
and, like myself, a spectator, had the top of one ear clipped off by a
Minie ball as cleanly as if it had been done with a knife. I found
when, soon afterwards, I reached the business center of the city,
where the Rebel element then largely predominated, that the story of
the tragedy had swelled the number of the victims to one thousand.
Intense excitement and the most furious indignation prevailed.
Hundreds of men, with flaming faces, were swearing the most dreadful
oaths that they would shoot Frank Blair, whom they seemed to regard as
wholly responsible, on sight.
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