5) Mrs. Perry (excerpt of her account of Wednesday night and then the following day)

Men and women passed with all sorts of valuables taken from plundered houses... Later in the day a crowd of boys arrived with stout sticks, threw stones at our house...and then rushed on. This added to my alarm, I having heard that a rush of street arabs always preceded an attack by the mob. Parties of Irishmen passed and pointed to our house, and a boy ran by shouting, 'we'll have fun up here tonight.'....

...The police had been already plundered of most of their firearms, and needed all their force to defend themselves. They could do literally nothing for us, but recommended barricading the front entrances to the house as well as we could...

...My brothers were calling at every house in the ward to induce the occupants to meet at the police station, armed with whatever weapon each could find, in order to organize and patrol the streets through the night. Meantime our servants were instructed to remain downstairs, and not to run until the house was actually attacked, then to rush to the ladder in the back yard; and I was to cover their retreat by hiding the ladder... 

...During the night my brothers returned, and told us that just as the officers at the police station had agreed to combine with the citizens and patrol that vicinity, a man rushed in crying that the mob was murdering someone in our street. The whole force formed and charged up the avenue, but met only scattered bands of rioters, and these slunk away as the files of organized men appeared, stretching in solid lines from sidewalk to sidewalk, as the rioters supposed, fully armed. We heard afterward that this steadfast army, looking so formidable, while so feeble in reality, was all that saved us; that our house and the one opposite, as well as the police station, were distinctly marked by the mob for that night's work.

The ensuing day was still an anxious one, but it passed safely, with nothing happening to the Perrys, and we began to feel at ease again. By this time the city was full of troops, and finally the riot was quelled by firing canister into the mob. As we heard the heavy reports and responding yells, it seemed to me that I knew something of the horrors of war.

 

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