The workmen had
been warned of their coming and, when the boat reached the landing back
of the steel works, nearly the whole town was there to meet them and to
prevent their landing. Passion ran high. The men armed themselves with
guns and gave the Pinkertons a pitched battle. When the day was over, at
least half a dozen men on both sides had been killed and a number were
seriously wounded. The Pinkertons were defeated and driven away and,
although there was no more disorder of any sort, the State militia
appeared in Homestead on July 12 and remained for several months.
The strike which began in Homestead soon spread to other mills. The
Carnegie mills at 29th and 33d Streets, Pittsburgh, went on strike. The
strike at Homestead was finally declared off on November 20, and most
of the men went back to their old positions as non-union men. The
treasury of the union was depleted, winter was coming, and it was
finally decided to consider the battle lost.
The defeat meant not only the loss by the union of the Homestead plant
but the elimination of unionism in most of the mills in the Pittsburgh
region.
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