Federal and State Authorities in Conflict—“Rough Riding” the Valley—Numerous and Indiscriminate Arrests—Hearings in Lancaster and Committals to Philadelphia.

Whatever anybody was doing in the way of vindicating whatever law or laws had been violated, the perpetrators of the killing were being allowed to escape. There were no daily newspapers in Lancaster then and the Philadelphia journals of Friday, September 12th, had very meagre accounts of the affair. But meantime the Federal officials in Philadelphia and the Commonwealth authorities in Lancaster County “got busy.” Constable William Proudfoot, of Sadsbury, acted under the direction of ’Squire Pownall and District Attorney John L. Thompson. In Philadelphia John M. Ashmead was United States Attorney, and Anthony E. Roberts was Marshal. When District Attorney Thompson made his second visit to the scene on Saturday following the riot, accompanied by a “strong party of armed men,” he found there the United States Marshal, District Attorney and Commissioner “with a strong force of U. S. Marines and a detachment of the Philadelphia police.” A controversy arose between the local District Attorney Thompson and the United States Attorney Ashmead as to whether the prisoners should be held for murder in Lancaster County, or for treason against the United States. Commissioner Ingraham sustained the latter charge. The difficulty was adjusted by an agreement that each party should make its own arrests. Some forty-five United States Marines who went to Christiana were in command of Lieutenants Watson and Jones. United States Marshal A. E. Roberts had a civil posse of[Pg 41] fifty. There were county constables and deputies sheriff on the scene. With these three detachments landed in a little country village and scouring the surrounding farms, of whose inhabitants half the many blacks had fled the State and the other half were in hiding, and the whites mostly suspected of sympathy with the fugitives, a local reign of terror ensued; “the valley” was in a state worse than subjection to martial law. The tendency of a “little brief authority” is toward abuse of it; and the class of persons easily secured for the service then required of temporary officers of the law was not such as to insure delicacy of treatment or tender consideration for the objects against whom their summary processes were directed. Whites and blacks, bond and free, were rather roughly handled; few households in the region searched were safe from rude intrusion; many suffered terrifying scenes and sounds.

CASTNER HANWAY.
TRIED FOR TREASON AND ACQUITTED.

Peter Woods, sole surviving sufferer and prisoner of the occasion, was working for Joseph Scarlet when he and his employer were arrested. He tells his story thus to the author of this history:

“The day the fight happened I was up very early. We were to have ‘a kissing party’ that night for Henry Roberts; and as I wanted to get off early I asked my boss, Joe Scarlet, if he would plough if I got up ahead and spread the manure. I started at it at two o’clock. The morning was foggy and dull. About daylight Elijah Lewis’s son came running to me while I was getting my work done, and said the kidnappers were here. They came to Ellis Irvin’s farm, and then to Milt Cooper’s which is known as the Leaman farm. The morning of the riot I got there about seven or eight o’clock. I met some of them coming out of the lane, and others were on a run from the house. I met Hanway on a bald-faced sorrel horse coming down the long lane, and his party with him. The other party, the marshal and his people, took to the sprouts, licking out for all they could, and then took the[Pg 42] Noble road. There were about sixty of our fellows chasing them. The strange party got away. I got hurt by being kicked by a blind colt on the hip. The shooting was all over. Gorsuch had been killed before I got there. The Gorsuch party was riding away as fast as they could. I guess I am the last man living of our party.

“When Scarlet was arrested they were rough in arresting him. They took him by the throat, and pointed bayonets at him all around him. I said to myself if you arrest a white man like that, I wonder what you will do to a black boy? The arrests were made a day or two after the riot. I was plowing or working the ground, and when I saw the officers come to make the arrests, I quickly got unhitched and went towards Bushong’s, and soon there was six of us together and we went to Dr. Dingee’s graveyard and hid. We heard a racket of horses coming and then we jumped into the graveyard. This was two days after the riot. We hung around Rakestraw’s too; and he said we could have something to eat, but we couldn’t stay around there. Then they got us. They asked George Boone and James Noble who we are. The man with the mace, the marshal I guess, said ‘I got a warrant for Peter Woods.’ They pointed me out and then he struck me and then they tried to throw me. They arrested me and took me up a flight of stairs, and then they tied me. Then they started away with me and tried to get me over a fence. They had me tied around my legs and around my breast, and they put me in a buggy and took me to Christiana. From there they took me to Lanc............