Things Fall Apart, the Center Cannot Hold [Read Only]

[Mareyland]

OOC: This is set-up for the Mareyland Civil War. To take part in that conflict, see this thread

1875

On May 31, the Commonwealth of Mareyland celebrated one hundred years since its Declaration of Independence. In cities and towns across the nation, from the great metropolis of Amityville to the village of Fletcher's Crossing, people gathered to celebrate the Centennial with speeches, parades, fireworks, and parties. In Eureka, the national capital, President Martin Winslow presided over a lavish ball at the Presidential Mansion. Yet underneath all the glamor and pageantry, there was a deep unease. The glamor and pageantry of the celebrations could only conceal, for a moment, the tensions that were pulling Mareyland society apart at the seams. The nation’s government was paralyzed by a fierce partisan rivalry between the National Union Party, which clung bitterly to a narrow majority, and the Liberal Republican Party. Both sides cast their political rivals as bent on implementing policies which would destroy the nation. The political divide had been briefly plastered over by the patriotism of a few short victorious wars, but the breach grew wider with every bitter campaign and contentious election.

The new age of industry had created a vast population of incredibly poor people, who worked exhausting hours for little pay and lived in crowded slums. The labor of this proletarian mass enriched the Owners - the wealthy people who controlled the factories, the plantations, the coal mines, and the railroads that tied the nation together. The Owners had allied themselves with the National Union Party, who were more than willing to be purchased as investments, to protected the vast wealth and immense privilege of their patrons. The Owners had become accustomed to treating the national government, and many state governments, as tools they could wield to their exclusive benefit.

The end of the last war had brought about a recession, driven by the sudden end of lucrative military and government contracts. A quarter of the country was now mired in deep poverty. Yet the industrial barons and railroad tycoons demanded the same profits from reduced revenue. Their solution was to cut costs: those workers who weren't fired found their wages decreased. The trade unions were powerless to stop the layoffs and pay cuts before they happened: when they tried to negotiate with the bosses, they were informed in no uncertain terms that there were plenty of starving men who would eagerly take the jobs if those who had them now didn't like the terms. Once one Owner imposed a pay cut, others followed suit. They trusted their wealth, the government they controlled, and the subservience of the filthy ignorant masses to protect them from any consequences of their greed.

Yet in the poor neighborhoods, a red specter was in the air. Mareyland had stood as witness to communist revolutions in other countries, and the idea of a utopia where everyone had bread to eat and a home to live in without needing to suffer the tyranny of bosses was no less alluring to the working people of the Commonwealth. While the political machines of the National Union and Liberal Republican parties block any socialist from achieving elected office, the various trade unions have begun to coalesce into a single, united front: the Combined Workingman’s Association. And outside the law, radical firebrands evade arrest to preach revolution to hungry, angry crowds. The embers of uprising have been fanned and fanned and now glow red-hot, waiting for a suitable piece of kindling to start a conflagration that will consume the Commonwealth. For if the people cannot have bread, they will have blood.

[Mareyland]

The railroad strike began in the State of Vandalia.

Newtonville was a railroad hub, and at its core was the large part of town that locals called "the Shops." This noisy sprawl of roundhouses, machine shops, and other facilities serviced the freight trains which connected the great port cities, the factories, the farms, and the mines of Mareyland. The town was dominated, economically and politically, by the Central Union Railroad Company. It employed most of the people in Newtonville who still had jobs. The depression had hit the railroads hard, and there had already been several rounds of firings and pay cuts. The workers who remained were worked harder than ever, for less money than ever, while the price of bread and heating fuel continued to rise.

The last straw for the the railroad workers of Newtonville was the announcement that their pay would be cut another ten percent, effective immediately. The railroad men, urged on by representatives of the Combined Workingman's Association, gathered in an ad hoc meeting to choose a handful of workers to try and stop or at least soften the blow. The delegation tried to arrange a meeting with the Newtonville bosses and persuade them to call off the cut, or at the very least delay its implementation or reduce its severity. The Central Union managers refused to meet with the workers' delegation, and declared that every member of the group was no longer employed by the company. There were always new workers available from the mass of unemployed men. The pay cut would go into effect and the trains would roll.

The Association's leadership had been looking for a chance to test its strength against the Owners, and the callous disregard of the Central Union Railroad gave them excellent ground for a battle. The next day, crowds of stokers and engineers gathered at the entrances to the Shops, blocking anyone from entering the railroad yards. Within those yards, brakemen disconnected locomotive engines from freight cars. No trains left Newtonville that morning, and the workers declared that no train would run in, out, or through the town until the pay cut was rescinded. But they were not the only ones going on strike. Manufacturing workers declared that they would not work until their own demands for better wages were met as well. Like the railroad workers, they blocked and barricaded the entrances into their factories and shops, so that no scabs could gain entry.

The crowds of striking workers were soon swelled by more townspeople. Some were locals who supported the workers' cause. Others were eager to help disrupt the operations of train and factory, which had filled their once peaceful town with constant noise and pollution. And many in the crowds were unemployed men or idle boys, who had nothing better to do. The Newtonville Police Department was powerless - they had too few men to force the mob from the gates. The mayor sent word of what was happening to the state capital, where the Governor had already begun receiving messages from the Central Union Railroad Company, insisting that the state do something to break up the strike. The Governor of Vandalia was the lone Liberal Republican holding executive power in a state government, and he had no desire to be the lapdog for business that his National Union Party predecessor had been. He sent word to Newtonville, ordering that militia be mustered to keep the peace and get essential traffic - and only essential traffic - moving on the rails.

[Mareyland]

Newtonville and its surrounding environs could muster one company of militia. When the authorization of the governor arrived, the mayor of the town sent word that the men of that company were to gather at the town armory. Each man would receive a uniform, consisting of a set of trousers, a sack coat, and a kepi in cadet gray. Once uniformed, they drew a rifle and a belt which held a scabbard for the bayonet and a pouch for holding ammunition. Each militiaman was issued twenty rounds of ammunition. There was an uneasy air among the militiamen as they put on their uniforms and took up their weapons. Many of these men were railroad workers themselves, or counted some of the strikers among their family and friends.

In a room on the second floor of the armory, Colonel Joshua Barnes was preparing his own uniform and equipment. His clothes were of a higher quality, and both coat and pants sported a gold trim. He had commissioned the uniform himself, as expected of the commander of the entire militia regiment raised from this part of Vandalia. The sword he slid into the scabbard at his waist was likewise purchased with his own funds. Barnes was a lawyer by trade, and he also owned a modest estate on the outskirts of Newtonville. He was nervous about the coming hours: he knew the men under his command, and he did not know if they would obey orders to inflict harm on their fellows.

Just over one hundred militiamen were assembled in the armory yard when Colonel Barnes stepped out to address them. Captain Connor Shannon, the leader of this company, met him just outside the door.

“Sir, I have the muster,” he said in a low voice. “All the men are here, save twenty-three.”

“I suspect we will find them in the Shops,” Barnes said grimly. “Captain, you know these men. The governor and the mayor have given me permission to use force, if necessary. If I give that order, will they obey?” Captain Shannon was very quiet, which was all the answer that Colonel Barnes needed. “Then I pray to God that it does not come to that.”

The militia marched from the armory to the Shops, down the streets of Newtonville past crowds of onlookers. By the time they reached their destination, many of these onlookers were following them like a cloud of dust kicked up by a wagon’s wheels. At the main gate to the Shops, the militia were like a thin gray line, squeezed between the strikers in front of them and the crowd behind. Some of that crowd were expectantly waiting for the strikers to be dislodged, so that they could earn money by working the trains in their stead. Many others simply wanted to see what would happen.

Colonel Barnes stepped to the front of his men, and said in as loud and commanding a tone of voice as he could manage, called upon the strikers to step aside and allow mail trains and other essential business to run. The strikers called back that they would not move until the Pavonia Railroad Company rescinded its pay cut, and the firings of the men who had tried to negotiate on behalf of their coworkers.

“I am authorized to use force to make this railyard function,” Colonel Barnes warned. “Will you make me give that order?”

“Give your orders and be damned,” snarled the man who spoke for his fellow strikers. Around him, other striking workers began to appeal directly to the militiamen who stood in two ranks behind Barnes.

“Are we not brothers?”

“Will you trample our rights?”

Barnes turned to Captain Shannon. “Captain, order the men to fix bayonets.”

There was a clattering as one hundred and seventeen men reached down to draw the long blade from the scabbard at their waist, and affix it to the muzzle of their rifle. The morning sun gleamed off the small forest of polished steel. Some of the crowd behind the militia took steps backwards, in anticipation of imminent violence. But the strikers did not budge.

It was the moment of truth. Colonel Barnes drew his sword and said, in a firm but low voice, “Load weapons.”

“Will you shoot down your fellows?”

“Will you kill for the railroads?”

Captain Shannon bellowed the order, but nothing happened. The men in gray looked around at each other. Any man who seemed to reach towards the ammunition on his belt was fixed with glares from those around him. Captain Shannon shouted the order again, but it had no more effect than the first time.

Captain Shannon called out, “Is this mutiny, men?”

“No sir.” One of the militia replied. “We think the order unlawful, sir. They are not disturbing the peace of the town. We say, let the railroad end this strike, not use us to end it for them.” This was followed by shouts of approval from other militiamen.

“Colonel, I think they will not budge from this,” Captain Shannon said.

“I think you are right,” Colonel Barnes replied. “Take them back to the armory. Plainly we can do nothing of use here.”

The militia of Newtonville marched away. The strikers and sympathetic onlookers cheered, while those who had come to watch blood and violence jeered and called the men cowards for not firing. Colonel Barnes rode to the telegraph office to inform the Governor. The militia of Newtonville would not break the strike.

[Mareyland]

From Newtonville, the strike spread both ways along the Central Union Railroad. The Combined Workingman's Association had a victory in its hand: the militia had refused to fire on striking workers. Railroad towns in Vandalia and Delmarva were suddenly paralyzed as workers walked off the job and blocked replacement labor from taking their place. Railroad switches were opened and locked, or broken, so that trains trying to use the tracks would be thrown from the rails. Hundreds of cars full of freight sat stalled. Every moment the trains did not move cost the Owners thousands of dollars. The spirit of uprising was inflaming other industries as well. Coal miners and factory workers began to unite in ad hoc committees. The police were too few in number to force the strikes to end through intimidation, and that same numerical weakness made them uninterested in provoking the crowds to violence. The local militia was unwilling to fire on neighbors, coworkers, friends and family.

In the capital, the Presidential Mansion was being flooded with telegrams and messages. They talked of a communistic scheme among the wretched people, aiming to overturn the whole social and political order. They begged for aid, for federal troops who could be trusted to obey orders, and for a call for volunteers that would give them the power to form vigilante companies under federal sanction. President Martin Winslow was struck with indecision. He had been selected as the National Union Party as its presidential candidate because he was a dependably unimaginative man, who could be trusted to keep the ship of state steady. He hesitated to give in to the demands for open and bloody repression, fearful of public disapproval of naked violence. Yet neither did he press the Owners to negotiate, compromise, or even listen to the demands of their workers.

The ship of state drifted, rudder locked in an aimless course, while the lower decks began to catch fire.

[Mareyland]

The Governor of Delmarva was Andrew Madigan, and he had held the position for many years. He was a National Union Party man, who owed his electoral success to the party machine and its corporate backers. They had managed to keep him in the governor's office even as the Liberal Republicans made greater and greater gains in the State Assembly. Among the most generous of the Party’s donors in Delmarva was Titus Cornwood, President of the Central Union Railroad Company. So when the strikes began along the Central Union lines in Vandalia, then spread into Delmarva, Cornwood had immediately arranged a meeting with Governor Madigan to discuss how the state would respond. Governor Madigan, by fortunate coincidence, was already meeting with Peter Campbell, the Mayor of the state capital Jonesborough.

“These communist saboteurs have halted all freight traffic all the way from here to Newtonville,” Cornwood complained. “I have thousands of train cars sitting idle.”

“I have here a list of grievances, printed and circulated by the strikers in Jonesborough,” Mayor Campbell said. He offered a single sheet of paper to the other men, who took only a passing look at its contents. The mayor summarized it for them. “They say that they would have submitted to a moderate reduction in wages, but the severity of the cut combined with the increase in hours and labor demanded from them was intolerable.”

“Intolerable?!” Cornwood looked to Governor Madigan, who had so far been largely silent. “They should be thankful that they still have jobs at all! This depression has driven me near to ruin, Andy. If I don’t cut costs somewhere, then I have to charge higher prices.”

Mayor Campbell sighed quietly. “Don’t bother with the public line, mister Cornwood. I’ve seen the figures. You could have kept wages where they were and still made some profit.” Before Cornwood could protest or object, Campbell continued. “Nevertheless, the strikers say they will starve either way, so they will fight for their wages. They say it is a question of bread with them.”

“Let them taste a rifle diet for a few days,” Cornwood spat, “And see how they like that kind of bread.”

Governor Madigan asked, “Who will feed it to them? The militia of Annesburg refused to even march from its barracks to confront the strikers.”

“Then send the militia from Jonesborough,” Cornwood replied.

“And deprive me of my garrison?” Campbell addressed his question to Madigan, not Cornwood. “Governor, things are on a knife’s edge here. The strike is peaceful, but if we send troops through the streets…”

It was a losing argument. Titus Cornwood had far more persuasive power over the governor than the mayor, who was a Liberal Republican and therefore barely accepted in the first place. Governor Madigan ordered the two regiments of militia mustered from Jonesborough to be dispatched to Annesburg to restore order. The alarm bells were rung throughout the city, summoning the militiamen to their armories to receive their uniforms and equipment. Around the same time, many workers were stopping in local bars and saloons to drink after finishing their shifts. The commotion also called these men, frustrated from a long day of work and with beer in their hungry bellies, to investigate.

As the first regiment of militia marched out of its armory and towards the train station, the crowds filled the sidewalks and hurled abuse, calling the men lickspittles and jackboots. Soon the abuse turned to stones and bricks. At first the projectiles did little to disrupt the march, but soon the crowd’s aim improved. Men stumbled and cried out as the stones and bricks found their mark. The regiment’s commander ordered his men to fix their bayonets and extend their lines, stretching from curb to curb. Confronted by this solid line of gleaming steel, the crowd retreated. The regiment reached the train station with some injuries but without serious incident.

The second regiment had a longer route to march between arsenal and station. This gave the crowd time to grouse, and drink, and muster its courage. Rumors spread that the first regiment of militia hadn’t opened fire because they only had blank cartridges in their pouches. That emboldened the crowd which confronted the second regiment on its march. Police had been sent to try and clear the road, but they were unable to dislodge the crowd. They had to retreat under a hail of stones, bricks, and even gunshots from the mob, which was beginning to loot the shops along the road while it waited for the militia to arrive.

Colonel Caleb Heathcote, commander of the regiment, ordered his men to fix their bayonets but the crowd was fortified against this trick and would not be intimidated. Nor did they frighten when the men began loading their rifles. The militia were showered in bricks, stones, and other debris. A pistol was fired, whether into the air or at the soldiers no one knew.

In the front rank of the militia was a young man, a worker in a tailor’s shop who had been seduced by the confidence that was granted to a young man by a martial uniform. He had enjoyed its advantages, especially with the young ladies of his social circle, but now he was frightened and angry. He was already bleeding – a glass bottle had shattered on the ground and a shard had sliced open a thin cut on the side of his temple. He saw a man in the crowd raise a brick, or maybe it was a chunk of paving stone, and point directly at him while he drew back his arm to throw. The tailor shop clerk brought his rifle up to his shoulder, aimed at the man, and fired.

Colonel Heathcote shouted in horror and surprise, “Which man fired? No man fires without my command!” But the cacophony of the mob drowned out his words and made it sound as if he had given the command. The entire front rank of the regiment brought up its rifles and fired a volley into the mob. The shouting and cursing turned into screams and cries as the crowd discovered that the militia were not firing blank rounds after all. Bullets cut down a dozen people and countless more were trampled as the crowd fled in a terrified panic.

Colonel Heathcote had hoped that his regiment could make it to the station before the crowd found their courage again, but he was not so lucky. The mob blocked their way just a few blocks from the station, and this time there was no accident. Colonel Heathcote muttered a quiet prayer, then gave the order to fire two volleys. The second regiment of the militia entered the train station, only to find that their struggle had been for naught. Rioters had disabled the train which was intended to carry them to Annesburg and driven off the crew that would have operated it. And besides, there was now more pressing need for the militia here in Jonesborough: all around them, the militia watched as rioters began to fill the streets. In the distance, the first tendrils of smoke from fires began to waft into the sky.

[Mareyland]

Nielson Station was the passenger terminal and the headquarters of the Central Union Railroad Company in the city of Jonesborough, which was one of the largest ports in the Commonwealth of Mareyland. Its central structure was a three-story brick building, built in a popular Neo-Serkonan style that included tall windows, pediments, and three towers: one rising from the central section and one at the end of the wings that extended from each side. Around the station were a collection of buildings like the dispatcher’s office and a roundhouse for passenger trains. These buildings were collectively called “the Yards.”

The rioting mobs had largely overrun the Yards, setting fire to the roundhouse and several passenger train cars, including the ones that were supposed to be carrying two regiments of the Delmarva state militia to break the strike in Annesburg. Instead, those regiments were besieged in Nielson Station and surrounded by thousands of angry people, who were baying for the blood of the soldiers who had fired into the crowds on their march to the station. To hold them off, General Thomas Harrison had managed to drive the crowd back long enough to bring in a battery of artillery from the state armories. Now these cannons were pointed down the main streets leading to the Station, loaded with grapeshot and manned by nervous men of the city’s volunteer artillery company.

The mob outside Nielson Station was getting bolder, inching closer and closer to the building while hurling rocks, stones, and even firing pistols through the long windows. Behind the crowd, fires were burning throughout the city. General Harrison had given the orders to “make ready” and “take aim” before the crowd finally understood that his threats had weight, and they dispersed before a terrible massacre could take place. This seemed to be the high tide of the riots, and the wind was out of the mob. General Harrison sent parties of militia into the city to help restore order. They closed bars and saloons to cut off the supply of alcohol to the rioters, protected fire companies as they extinguished the blazes, and guarded the teams of engineers who repaired the broken tracks and switches at the Yards.

The first federal troops to arrive in Jonesborough were Marines from a nearby naval base. In their dark blue uniform coats and armed with rolling-block rifles, they backed up the militia and helped suppress the last of the rioting. They were followed by soldiers of the National Guard, drawn from the garrisons of the coastal forts that defended Jonesborough’s harbor. These men wore coats of rifle green, and they also brought with them additional artillery which they set up around City Hall and other train yards owned by the Central Union Railroad. The prisons were filled with hundreds of rioters arrested and awaiting arraignment. Mayor Campbell informed Governor Madigan that order had been restored in the city. Unfortunately, as the fires were extinguished in one city they were roaring into life in another.

[Mareyland]

The city of Millstown was the largest city in the state of Cressia. What had once, more than a century ago, been nothing more than a small village surrounding a fort on the frontiers of Mareyland had grown into one of the industrial centers of the Commonwealth. It sat at the point where two rivers came together to form the mighty Pelisipi, which flowed out to the west through the state of Vandalia. The rivers carried steamboats full of people and goods into, out of, and through the city. It was a dirty, noisy city, full of industrial furnaces and boilers fed by the rich deposits of coal dug out of the hills and valleys that surrounded the city. The city produced steel, iron, brass, tin, and glass, which was loaded onto the railcars of the Pavonia Railroad Company for transport.

The Pavonia Railroad had announced a ten percent wage cut the day after the Central Union. In addition, company President Lawrence Hammond instituted other cost-saving measures that would mean the discharge of nearly half their workforce. Those lucky to still be employed would face longer hours and more work, under demanding conditions that were sure to mean more accidents. Hammond and his fellow Owners were confident in their ability to break whatever resistance the workers mustered against these new measures. They dismissed the complaints of Robert Tobiah, leader of the Combined Workingman's Association, who had been fired from his job as a conductor on the Pavonia Railroad for this exact kind of insubordinate behavior.

But Hammond and his coterie had miscalculated. The Pavonia Railroad Company was not popular among the citizens of Millstown. Its Owners had collaborated to cripple the city’s oil refining industry, favoring other centers of refining with lower prices. The result had been the collapse of the kerosene industry, which put many people out of work. These unemployed refinery workers, eager to get some measure of revenge against the corporation that had destroyed their livelihoods, swelled the ranks of the striking trainmen who swarmed the railyards of the city. They de-coupled trains from engines, blocked the tracks, and seized control of switches. They issued a list of grievances and demands and pledged that no freight would move in Millstown until the company settled with them.

William Swann, the superintendent of the Pavonia Railroad in Millstown, requested help from the city to get the trains moving. The mayor sent him the sheriff, William Clay, and some policemen. If the situation had not been so dire, it would have been laughable. As it was, the sheriff and his small posse could do little but stand in front of the mob at the railroad yard and order the strikers to disperse. It was like trying to shift a mountain with a single shovel. The crowd shouted, “Make yourself useful and bring us a loaf of bread!”

“Do your damned job and disperse them,” Swann commanded.

The Sheriff fixed him with a stare that dripped with disbelief and contempt. “You’re a man of business. Count up those numbers and then count up mine.” He gestured to the dozen policemen behind him, watching the crowd of hundreds nervously with hands on holstered revolvers. Instead, Swann looked past the thin ranks of police to see a column of militia marching up the street towards them. The gray-clad men had their bayonets already fixed as they approached, with a colonel at their head.

“Sir, I insist that you take your men and remove these men at once,” Swann said, pointing from the militiamen to the mob. Colonel Edward Monroe walked past William Swann and conferred with Sheriff Clay instead.

“Can they be moved peacefully, do you think?”

The sheriff regarded the crowd, now taunting and jeering at the militiamen forming up in front of them. “I don’t think so. It will take force. But I don’t know if my men will follow the order. I was supposed to have thirty men, and…” He swept a hand towards the dozen uniformed police assembled on the street.

“I’m supposed to have two regiments,” Colonel Monroe confided. “Barely enough obeyed the muster to form a battalion. And they won’t fire on these people – they told me so before we marched. Said they were workmen too, and first and foremost. They have no love for the railroad.”

William Swann barged into the conversation, fixing Colonel Monroe with a glare. “Colonel, every moment you dither here emboldens these troublemakers. Order your men to clear the yard!”

“Even if I could give that order with confidence it would be obeyed,” Monroe retorted, “We are vastly outnumbered.”

“You have the guns!” Swann shouted in disbelief.

“A few hundred guns against a few thousand angry men,” Monroe explained. “With bricks, tools, and their bare hands. We would be cut to pieces, sir.”

That seemed to stagger the railroad man. The color drained from his face as he began to realize the severity of the situation. “What…what can we do?”

“I have already sent word to the governor,” Monroe said. “And there are reinforcements coming from elsewhere in the state. Hopefully they will be less infected by sympathy. Until then, I will post my men around the yards, and ensure the disturbance does not spread any further into the city.”

[Mareyland]

The Governor of Cressia, Joseph Dudley, was on vacation when the strikes began. He had taken his private train with his family down to the beaches of Garland. That meant that there were three states between Dudley and the state he was responsible for governing when the first frantic telegrams from the lieutenant governor reached him. Dudley hurried to get his train moving back towards Cressia, and along the way he stopped and picked up a passenger: Lawrence Hammond, the President of the Pavonia Railroad.

“We must have the National Guard,” Hammond said as he nursed a glass of bourbon whiskey. Beside him, the landscape of northern Parthenia flew by. The train was moving at its top speed and flying down the tracks. But traveling back to Cressia from Garland meant going north through Parthenia and Delmarva before cutting west through Pavonia. The Allegheny Mountains blocked the laying of any more direct route.

“Federal troops will break the strike,” Hammond continued. “The militia is useless, and I don’t have enough men of my own to beat these upstarts down.”

“What about their demands?”

Hammond scoffed. “I’ve seen a copy of their demands, and it’s ludicrous. If I gave in, I’d be bankrupt in months. I told the superintendent in Millstown to break off any further negotiation. They’re asking for things I can’t grant, at all. My people have men waiting to work the trains, but they can’t get into the yards.”

“President Winslow hasn’t said anything about sending National Guard yet,” Dudley said. “But I’ve ordered militia sent from Reedsborough. They should be less sympathetic than the local troops.”

---

Meanwhile, a dramatic new development was taking place in the city of Marion. Marion sat further down on the Pelisipi River, in the state of Vandalia. The city was a gateway to the west, and like so many others it was dominated by corporations like the Central Union Railroad. It was here that the Combined Workingman's Association prepared to unleash its greatest stroke of organizing. With diligence, patience, and hours of negotiation, they had gotten workers from disparate industries across the city to agree to a general strike, something that hadn’t happened in a major city in Mareyland for forty years.

The same day that the strike began in Millstown, representatives from the Combined Workingman’s Association held a meeting to issue their demands. If all pay cuts were not immediately revoked, and binding guarantees made against future reductions; if the working day was not reduced to eight hours; if the practice of child labor was not ended; then the majority of workers in the city would go on strike and remain on strike until their demands were met. There was little faith that the threat alone would convince the Owners to change, and that evening the Association issued the order to begin the strike.

The next morning the city of Marion woke up to discover that it had been almost completely paralyzed. Railroad workers would not permit any freight trains to pass through the city. Dockworkers refused to offload cargo or untie ships from the docks. Nearly all manufacturing workers went on strike. Those who did not join the strike found themselves intimidated into stopping work by crowds of men, often armed. In some cases, factory machinery was literally taken apart by crowds to prevent work from resuming. Things remained quiet and generally orderly – the few instances of violence, usually between strikers and workers trying to keep working, was broken up by organizers before it escalated.

The police force of Marion numbered a few hundred men, facing thousands of strikers. Militia informed their officers that they would protect public property and prevent disorder but they would not break the strike, or provide protection for scabs. Some units had begun to hand over weapons and ammunition to the strikers. A few companies of militia openly joined the strike, electing new officers and announcing that they would defend the strikers against efforts to disperse them by force. Overwhelmed, and unable to provide police power to quell the strike, the mayor instead deputized the strikers to patrol the city and keep it calm on condition that property be protected. The Combined Workingman’s Association readily agreed. One of Mareyland’s transportation hubs was essentially controlled by its workers.

[Mareyland]

In Eureka, the national capital of Mareyland, the news of the railroad strikes had landed in the lap of the Senate just as it was beginning to wrap up its business and adjourn. The late summers were terribly hot and humid, and often brought on disease, and most Senators fled the city for the comfort of their home states. But that recess was scuttled when the telegraph wires brought news of what was happening to the north. Strikes were nothing new, and had been happening with some regularity for years now, but they were usually local affairs that were quickly ended through force or, rarely, negotiation. Strikes on this scale across the nation were unheard of. More troubling was the news of the general strike in Marion, which seemed to have taken the whole city in its grip, and the violence that had briefly engulfed Jonesborough before the arrival of federal troops.

The Senate’s members were split between two political parties. The National Union Party held a majority, though it was slimmer now than it had been in decades. Their national political dominance had been challenged by the ascent of the Liberal Republican Party, which was built on a sometimes uncomfortable coalition between the social reformers of the northern cities and the pro-labor agitators of the west. The National Union Party had shown no compunction about using every rule of the chamber to try and neuter their rising power. Senators had been censured and even ejected for supposed breaches of protocol. The pro-worker politicians had to choose their words carefully, to make their point in ways that could not be construed as inciting or supporting disobedience of the government. None was more skilled at this game than Senator James Prescott of Vandalia. Even his opponents begrudgingly recognized his oratory skill.

“I see no reason why the government of this Commonwealth must answer the beck and call of the railroads, and potentially stain our hands with the blood of our citizens! If the Owners wish to end this strike, let them negotiate with their employees and find a solution. But rather than lower themselves to speak with men they drive like slaves, they demand that we act as their enforcers. Is this body to be nothing more than errand boys for the rich?”

The Liberal Republicans were split. Many were less than enthusiastic about the strikes themselves, which threatened to push the depressed economy into a greater dive. But they were eager to hang this political albatross around the necks of their opponents. They made sure to keep their criticisms focused on the National Union Party, and its policies, and avoided saying outright whether they thought the strikes were justified or not. Their two brightest stars were Senator Daniel Weaver of Delmarva and Senator Leland Newton of Pavonia. They made an effective team: Weaver at the podium, delivering eloquent speeches, while Newton worked behind the scenes to keep the party unified.

“When administration after administration fails to act, and leaves the poor to wallow in squalor and vice, is it any wonder that they lash out? We seem to have no issue with giving great sums of money to the railroads, though now they protest that they have nothing to give to their workers. But apparently we cannot find the money to clean up our cities and lift our most wretched citizens out of their misery?”

The National Union Party had few skilled orators. Speechifying had not been a strictly necessary qualification for electoral victories, especially in the regions where the party’s machine still dominated. Voters in Parthenia and Garland still voted the ways that their betters directed, sending men to the Senate on what might as well be lifetime appointments. The hold was weakening in the north, where actual campaigning had become required, and it had never been as firmly cemented in the unruly western states, but they still held a majority in the Senate, plus the Presidency. They were hearing the cries for help, but not from the workers. They heard the demands for action from the presidents of the Pavonia and Central Union railroads, the coal barons of Vandalia, and the factory owners of Cressia.

“A bill is in the works that will kill several of these noisy birds with one stone,” Senator Charles Dade of Parthenia explained to a gather of his colleagues in a private room off the Senate chamber. “Myself and Senator Stein will have its language finalized soon. It will not only render these strikes illegal, and fully authorize federal intervention, but it will also target those who inflame these uprisings. And once it is passed, even some of the more outspoken Liberals will be caught in its net.”

“But why hasn’t President Winslow acted yet?” Senator Peter Fairchild of Pavonia demanded to know. “He sent troops into Jonesborough quickly enough. But not a finger lifted to act in Cressia or Vandalia. And if the strike keeps spreading back to Pavonia…”

“Governor Dudley will break the strike in Millstown,” Senator Matthew Stein of Delmarva explained. “As for Marion, when the Security Bill passes, that will be the first place we send troops. We’ll take back control soon enough.”

[Mareyland]

News from the northern and western states was a litany of shocking updates. Strikes were shutting down railroads, mines, factories. The police and militia were proving incapable of maintaining order. There was fevered talk of a communist revolution in the works, directed by foreign subversives who had whipped up the wretched poor into a state of frenzied rage. In conversations, people asked each other when, or if, President Winslow would call in federal troops and send the National Guard into the cities. But in the southern states, things remained relatively calm. The states of Parthenia and Garland were more agrarian, and its working class more divided along lines of race. Rather than unite with their fellow workers of color, poor whites allied themselves with the rich white oligarchs who owned the land, the shops, and everything else.

A few miles from the bustling city of Henryville, at the Woodlawn plantation of Edward Arlington, the mood was festive. Instead of worrying about the end, the large crowd was celebrating a new beginning: Colonel Arlington was getting married. It was a promising match. He had risen up in the ranks of Pathenia's planter elite. He had a colonel's rank in the state militia, and in the last war he had earned glory as the commander of a regiment of volunteers. He'd displayed great physical courage and generally sound leadership. Upon his return from the war, he’d formalized an engagement with Sarah Ceely, a young, beautiful, and wealthy heiress. The match had been arranged by their fathers, who had served together in a previous conflict. The marriage united not only two people but also two estates. Edward Arlington owned several thousand acres in northern Parthenia, while Sarah and her siblings had each received a portion of their father’s vast landholdings in the state.

“To the newly wedded couple,” George Ceely toasted, his glass raised. “While Anna and I were a bit uncertain about our dear Sally marrying a soldier…” The eldest of William Ceely’s children paused here to allow polite laughter from the seated guests. “…Colonel Arlington is a fine man. A fine match for my dear sister. May they have many long, happy years together!”

The guests raised their own glasses and cheered. George sat down and accepted a kiss on the cheek from his younger sister, who was radiant in a dress of fine purple fabric. Her new husband, who could command any room with his impressive height, looked even more commanding in his volunteer uniform. Around them, the household servants brought in plates of food for the wedding guests. These servants were all people of color, and a living legacy of the slave economy which had been abolished only thirty years ago. Some of the older men and women had been born as human property of the Arlington family, while the younger ones were the first generation to be born as free citizens of Mareyland. As they hurried around the room to tend to the needs and desires of the assembled guests, those guests discussed the developments taking place up north.

“Those northern money-men are getting what’s coming to them,” a plantation oligarch explained to his table. “They built their fortunes on those greasy mechanics, and now look what’s gotten into them! No social stability, no sense of responsibility either way.”

“We won’t be seeing it here,” another landowner told a circle of his fellows. “We take care of our people, and they know it.”

“It’s those Liberal Republicans,” a matronly woman opined. “Nonsense ideas about ‘social welfare.’ They’re hopped up on these wild religions. I mean, you hear some of the things these Methodists are preaching and you wonder, what happened to the respect for tradition?”

Colonel Arlington, who often towered above the guests and well-wishers who surrounded him and his new wife, stayed above talk of the strikes and the situation up north – he kept his conversations to the subject of crops and planting. Things were going well on that front. Parthenia tobacco was still bringing in a decent price, and he had started to switch some of his fields over to wheat and rye. But he was listening closely. The county seat in the State Assembly would be opening up in the next election. Perhaps he might get involved in politics…

[Mareyland]

The trains from Reedsborough, an industrial city on the coast of Lake Talbot at the other end of Cressia, arrived outside Millstown before dawn. They could not enter the city itself – the tracks had been obstructed by striking workers to prevent trains from passing through the city. The switches had been jammed or destroyed as well. So the division of militiamen had to dismount on the outskirts of the city and march in on foot. The long column of grey-coated men was punctuated by a few pieces of field artillery, and led by General William Bayard. His age had diminished his physical energy but not the electricity of his mind. In addition to his experience leading men in battle, he was also a prominent Owner of industry in the city. His personal wealth was reflected in the fine uniform worn by himself and his aide-de-camp and son Samuel. His men were in high spirits, thanks in part to the food and drinks that General Bayard had purchased for their trip.

They had little sympathy for the strikers of Millstown. They were mostly employed by the maritime industries of Reedsborough that relied on Lake Talbot. They were fishermen, shipbuilders, and dockworkers. Many of them were on hard times, just like the workers of Millstown, but they blamed that city for diverting commerce away from the lakeside region of the state. They had no issue with cracking the heads of people from their rival city. Cocky eagerness radiated off the militiamen as they marched into the city like a conquering army. They paid little heed to the indifference or anger of the people watching from the sidewalks or windows.

General Bayard met with the lieutenant governor, the mayor, the sheriff, the railroad superintendent, and the colonel of the Millstown militia. They informed him of the present situation: the strikers controlled the rail yard and much of the surrounding industrial district. The police were too few in number to do anything and refused to act unless protected from the mob by militia. The militia were infected with sympathy for the strikers and refused to take any actions beyond protecting public property. The railroad superintendent, William Swann, had recovered from his momentary panic and doubled down on his demands that the strikers be removed from the train yards. The mayor and the lieutenant governor were eager to resolve the situation with a minimum of damage, and ideally before the governor arrived to take credit for any success.

Bayard marched his men to the yards, where they encountered the outmatched police and the MIllstown militia, who Bayard disdained as little more than armed bystanders. Colonel Monroe, their commander, urged him to exercise caution.

“This is dangerous,” he warned the general as the Reedsborough troops passed through the line of Millstown militia sentries and formed up at the main entrance to the train yards. “If the crowd gets out of control…”

“I fail to see how they have been under control,” Bayard replied scornfully.

“If they get out of control,” Monroe repeated, “Then the whole city will join them. At least let me try to reason with them once more.”

Bayard shrugged his shoulders, a gesture of apathy that Colonel Monroe took as tacit approval. He brought forward Sheriff William Clay and the pair of them went forward to the crowd, to try and serve writs of arrest on the leaders of the strike. The crowd met them with mocking laughter and jeering boos. Bayard, his patience exhausted, ordered his men to advance. A row of gray-clad men, bayonets fixed on the ends of their rifles, advanced in a line of gleaming metal. The crowd did not shrink back. Leaders in the crowd began to shout, “Don't fall back! Stick to it!” Some of the men in the vanguard of the crowd began to grab for the militiamen’s rifles. The militia shoved them off, pushing them back into their fellow strikers.

A brick sailed through the air, flying over the heads of the Reedsborough men and smashing into pieces on the street behind them. It was soon followed by more bricks, and bottles, and whatever other projectiles the crowd had at hand. Not every missile missed its mark. Several men fell out of the line, clutching at fresh bruises and bleeding cuts.

“By God, that’s enough,” General Bayard muttered. Then, in a louder voice, he ordered his men to load their rifles. This raised an outcry from the Millstown militia who were watching the scene. They had enjoyed the struggles of the interlopers from their rival city. Now it seemed that the Reedsborough militia meant to open fire.

“Sir, I must protest this-”

“Damn your protests, man!” General Bayard cut off Colonel Monroe before he could finish his sentence. “If your men had done their jobs we would not be needed.” The General turned back to his men. “Make ready!”

Someone in the crowd fired a revolver into the air. What was likely meant to scare the militia had the intended effect but not the intended consequence. A militiaman, just finished with the loading of his rifle, snapped it up to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. One shot was soon followed by many more. The volley rippled up and down the line from its initiator, and a great cloud of powder smoke blossomed between the militia and the strikers. There were cries of surprise and alarm, and pain. And it was not just a single shot volley. The militiamen reloaded and fired again, keeping up a nearly continuous fire for nearly ten minutes.

Colonel Monroe pleaded, “General, restrain your men!” But the general was out of patience for the rabble. He drew his sword from its scabbard and pointed it towards the train yards.

“Forward with the bayonet!”

The crowd of strikers tried to fight at first, but the Reedsborough men moved forward inexorably. Men were stabbed in the arm, leg, and belly. Some of those wounded by the gunfire were bayoneted as they lay on the ground. In a few minutes the crowd had been dispersed. General Bayard led his men in three cheers of “huzzah!” and then set them to guard the entrances.

“Inform the superintendent that his trains are free to move again,” Bayard told his son William. “And where’s that colonel and his layabouts?”

Colonel Edward Monroe was still there, staring at the bodies laying in pools of blood with shock and dismay on his face. Most of his militia were gone. “They said they wouldn’t be party to murder,” he explained. General Bayard scoffed and dismissed the colonel, saying that if he had no men to command, he had no need to remain. Meanwhile, the first of the replacement workers began to file past the bodies of the dead and wounded strikers and into the train yards.

[Mareyland]

The slaughter at the gates of the Millstown trainyards purchased five minutes of quiet. Then the mobs reformed, and now they were not merely angry about wages and hours. They were boiling with fury at the murder of their fellow citizens. Wild rumors began to circulate among the people in the streets. With each retelling of the events at the trainyard, the body count rose and the brutality increased. For now, the mobs had purpose. They sought vengeance against the murderers, and weapons with which to exact it.

The Millstown militia, disgusted by the actions of the militia from Reedsborough, had begun to side with the mobs. They joined the crowds, bringing their own weapons and distributing rifles and ammunition to others. The next target was the Summerlake Gun-Works, a massive small-arms factory located in the heart of the city’s industrial district. A tidal wave of infuriated humanity rolled over the handful of private guards at the gates and captured hundreds of rifles, pistols, and ammunition. Other crowds ransacked gun shops and places where weapons were displayed for sale. The armed mobs then marched for the train yards.

General William Bayard had dismounted from his horse and sent his son Samuel and a few militiamen in search of some food to eat while his troops stood guard over the replacement railroad workers. Colonel Edward Monroe of the Millstown militia had remained, sulking by himself while the general and his son enjoyed an early lunch of steaks - overcooked, Bayard declared - and bread washed down with bottles of root beer. Then the first reports arrived from sentries, talking of mobs that filled the streets and brandished arms heading their way. The general and his son mounted their horses in a hurry.

“Colonel, where are your men?” Bayard demanded of Monroe. “We’re liable to be outnumbered. Sounds like half the damned city is coming for our throats.”

“Sir, my men are probably in those mobs,” Monroe reported grimly. “I warned you-”

General Bayard grunted and waved his hand, as if batting Monroe away like he was a pesky fly. “Sound the assembly. I want all the men in ranks here. We’ll give them a show of force.”

Bugle calls rang out and the militiamen hurried to answer them. Soon Bayard had his force of several hundred men, arranged in a long line of two ranks. The mobs could be seen at a distance with a naked eye, and it was obvious that there were a great many people in them. General Bayard’s confidence quickly began to wane.

“Prepare the men to march,” he ordered the officers.

“General, what are you doing?” The railroad superintendent, William Swann, rushed over to the general in an angry panic. “You can’t leave!”

“I won’t keep my men here,” Bayard said dismissively. “Look at that mob, superintendent. If we stay here we’ll be torn to shreds. I suggest you get your workers somewhere safe. I doubt the rioters will feel very kindly towards them.”

“The workers? Damn it general, what about the yards?!”

“They will be rebuilt, I assume, when all this calms down,” Bayard replied. Then he gave the order to march. The Reedsborough militia began to file away down the street, leaving Swann standing in shock and dismay at the front gate. His paralysis lasted only until he heard the shouts of the mob, which was calling for his head by name. He fled, and many of the replacement workers - who had been left completely to their own devices - followed suit. Colonel Monroe remained, to try and plead for restraint.

“Please, good people!” He shouted as they approached. “Please do not do anything rash!” He was standing in the middle of the open gates, facing a howling mob. A few militiamen emerged from the mob. These were men that Monroe had been commanding only a day before.

“Sir, we don’t want you to get hurt,” one of them said. “We know you tried to stop those killers from Reedsborough. You best go home.”

“I am a sworn officer of the state,” Monroe protested. “I cannot stand aside and let this riot proceed.”

“Colonel, if you do not move, you will be moved,” the other militiaman snapped. “And we cannot guarantee your safety. Is this railroad worth it?”

Monroe’s shoulders sagged in defeat, and he stepped aside. The mob let out a cry of triumph and surged into the trainyard. The few scab workers who hadn’t escaped were savagely beaten. Some of them were left lying totally motionless on the ground. Men and women who had been living hand-to-mouth for months broke into the hundreds of freight cars that were sitting in the yards. Some of the cars were full of useless cargo, but some were filled with preserved foods, new clothes, and other necessities. These were distributed among the crowd in a frenzy of looting. Empty cars and those with nothing worth looting were set aflame, as were locomotives and the buildings of the train yard. Dozens of fires sent columns of black smoke into the afternoon sky. The city had volunteer fire brigades, and a few of these arrived to try and extinguish the blazes before they spread to other parts of the city. But the mob refused to allow them entry, brandished weapons, and sometimes cut the water hoses. The railroads had exacted blood and sweat from the people of Millstown for years and years. Now it was their time to suffer.

[Mareyland]

The trainyard was going up in flames as General William Bayard and his men marched back towards the passenger train station on the other side of the city. The plan, to the extent that it existed in Bayard’s mind, was to secure their means of transport out of the city. He had no desire to remain in this city while its own inhabitants put it to the torch. He could wait out the mob’s anger outside the city, then return with additional militia and, hopefully, federal troops.

The plan soon began to encounter obstacles. There was not a single mob in the city, but several. They were roaming the streets, looting shops and attacking buildings owned by the railroads. They were also looking for a fight, especially with the murderers from Reedsborough. Bayard and his men found the most direct route from the freight yards to the passenger station blocked, and his idea to divert soon had them lost in the streets of the unfamiliar city. Soon there was gunfire. People were shooting at the militia from behind street corners and from the second-floor windows of the buildings on either side of the road. Their ambushers were not skilled marksmen, and most of the shots missed. But some did not. Men were wounded. One man was killed by a bullet through the heart - very lucky for the gunman, very unlucky for him.

The mobs were being drawn by the sounds of the gunfire, and their avenues of march were becoming constricted. General Bayard sent his son and aide William to find a way to the passenger station. The militia were firing back at their attackers, firing uncoordinated volleys into windows or down streets. They broke lots of windows and pockmarked the walls with bullet holes, but did little to suppress the constant attacks. And there was no sign of his son and his scouting party. The general was beginning to despair, when the young man appeared at the end of the avenue with his men.

“We’re not far,” William Bayard reported. “Just a few blocks more.”

The militia continued its retreat, emboldened by the promise of imminent safety. The mobs seemed to sense their newfound haste and surged forward. Near the end of the last street, a group of turncoat soldiers from the Millstown militia actually brought an artillery piece from one of their arsenals out onto the center of the road and aimed it towards the Reedsborough militia. General Bayard watched, with a mixture of pride and horror, as William Bayard rallied the front ranks of the militia to charge the cannon before it could be loaded and fired. His heart soared as William and his men crashed into the rioting militia and citizens, sending them running from the cannon. Then it crashed into the depths of his stomach when his son pitched backward in the saddle. He turned to look at his father, and when he opened his mouth blood dripped from the corners. Then he slowly crumpled and fell off the horse.

General Bayard cried out, spurring his own mount forward heedless of the bullets flying all around him. He leapt from the saddle and rushed to his son, cradling the young man in his arms. William Bayard coughed once, twice, and grasped weakly for his father’s arm. Then he went limp, and silent.

“Sir!” An officer, one of the captains, clasped General Bayard on the shoulder. “Sir, we need to keep moving. The station is just down the road!” The general said nothing, seemingly frozen in place. Only after a few more minutes of shouting and jostling, which seemed to the captain like an eternity, did Bayard snap out of his mournful trance and rise to his feet.

The militia fought their way down the last stretch of street and into the passenger station - which was soon surrounded by a massive mob of armed rioters. The Reedsborough men did their best to keep their assailants at bay. This included keeping up a brisk fire to prevent the rioters from using the cannons - stolen or simply handed over from militia armories, no doubt - that they began to roll up to the station. Soon the pair of guns were surrounded by a cluster of bodies. But focusing on keeping the cannons from firing meant that a few attackers did get through, long enough to set fires that began to crawl up the walls.

“We cannot stay here,” Bayard said, his words heavy with grief. “We must break out. Better to be shot down than burn to death. We go north, and get across the river.”

The Clarion River was one of the two rivers which came together to form the Pelisipi River. The city of Millstown was largely built up on its southern bank, in the land between the Clarion and the other river which flowed into the forks. The only major bridges across the Clarion were railroad bridges, like the one that had brought General Bayard and his son - his poor son - into the city from Reedsborough. And it was once the militia was over that bridge that the armed and angry citizens of Millstown finally stopped their pursuit. The narrow bridge funneled their numbers into teeth of concentrated volleys. Once the immediate threat had ended, General Bayard kept his men marching until they reached Beaver Point, the next station along the railroad to Reedsborough. Behind them, the city of Millstown burned.

The mayor was powerless to stop the rioting, the looting, or the arson - a good portion of the city’s industrial district was now aflame, and it was beginning to spread to more crowded residential neighborhoods. The fire departments refused to go out unless they could be assured of their safety from the mobs. A citizen’s meeting tried to find someone to negotiate with, to get some sort of order - or at least peace - returned to their streets. They found Robert Tobiah, leader of the Combined Workingman's Association. He was holding court at Ammon Hall, the railroad guild hall.

“Your hounds have fled,” Tobiah told the delegation when they came to him. “I can tell you that there is only one force left that can establish order in the city - mine.” The union leader could command the loyalty and respect of his fellow workers. The city, with its police force cowering in fear and its militia joining in the riots, quickly authorized a new force made up of trainmen to patrol the streets. They got the looting and the burning under control, and reigned in their fellow workers. But the power in Millstown had obviously shifted. City Hall was powerless, the great industrial halls of the train yards and factories were smoldering ruins. Now, Ammon Hall stood above the rest.

[Mareyland]

It was becoming increasingly clear, to most of the National Union Party and their corporate allies, that only brute force would save the Commonwealth as they knew it. The oligarchs and their paid-for politicians saw the red hand of communism, the specter which had reared its bloody head in neighboring Idumea only a few years earlier, at work behind the events of the past week. Law and order were disintegrating in the streets, and the various organs of repression that had kept the working class underfoot were suddenly failing to keep the pot from boiling over. The worst was that no one knew what would happen next. Mareyland had seen strikes before, but nothing like the general strike that now, for all intents and purposes, controlled the city of Marion. Nor had they ever seen anything like what was happening in Millstown.

“It's an insurrection, plain and simple,” Attorney General Wesley Mouch declared to the cabinet. “The longer we let them play at governing, the harder it will be to knock them down. We need to act now.”

They were assembled in the Presidential Mansion, trying to chart a path through these foreign waters that kept the status quo intact. President Martin Winslow hoped to find a way to do that which didn’t involve drowning the workers in their own blood, but the mood of his department secretaries was turning grim. Mouch and Secretary of the Interior James Taggart were pushing, and pushing hard, for severe measures. Only brute force, they argued, could save the Commonwealth now. Secretary of War George Santeen and Secretary of the Treasury Peter Stein were less enthusiastic, but not from any sympathy for the common man. Stein balked at the damage that a lengthy crackdown might inflict on the already tottering Mareyland economy. Santeen was less than confident about the ability of the National Guard to put out the many fires burning across the nation.

Only John Vallette, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and Vice-President David Shelley seemed to be even remotely considering a response other than the mailed fist. Vallette was worried about the country’s reputation abroad, and how a crackdown, especially one that resulted in more botched affairs like Millstown, might affect the interest rates or even availability of foreign loans. Shelley was a consummate politician and rarely showed any sort of personal opinion or preference until he knew exactly which way the current was flowing.

In the end, the hardliners won out, though not as wholly as they wanted. President Winslow gave his assent to the introduction of the Security Bill, which would authorize a host of actions to crush the strikes and uprisings. Chancellor Philip Shay left the President Mansion and sent out the word that a special session of the Senate would convene the next day. Word of the meeting’s purpose had soon leaked across the elite bars and gathering places across Eureka.

“It’s outrageous,” Senator Daniel Weaver complained bitterly in a smoking lounge full of Liberal Republican politicians. “They’re going to use this to try and break us. Never mind that a third of the country is going up in flames.”

“If this language is accurate, it’s practically a writ of impeachment for every Liberal in the Senate,” Senator Leland Newton said. “They’ll be able to expel members for ‘inciting speech,’ and guess who gets to determine what counts?”

“They wouldn’t dare,” Senator Henry Heywood spoke up from across the lounge. “Sure, they’ve always been scrappy, but they’ve got some respect for the normal order.”

“Not anymore,” Newton snapped back. “Shay has always wanted to crush us. I’ll bet him and Shelley are behind this.” The Vice-President and Chancellor were well-known opportunists and longtime players of Eureka’s political game. “With Dade and Stein the Elder swinging the hatchet. They’ll go for United Labor first but it won’t be long before they’re coming for us.”

“Well we can’t stop it,” Weaver said, dispirited. “We don’t have the votes to stop passage. Not even with Labor joining us.”

“I’ll work some of the moderates,” Newton promised. “Not everyone is like Dade or Stein. Some of them won’t know what they’re planning, and won’t like it. If we can split a few of them off, maybe we can kill this thing.”

---

Meanwhile, in the city at large, police began to notice more people in the streets. Some were simply inhabitants of the capital, which had its share of slums just like any other, but many were not. There were plenty of people filtering in from surrounding cities, especially Jonesborough. Some were simply fleeing the violence that had engulfed the city, others were looking to avoid being swept up in the dragnet that the federal troops had imposed after they restored order. Others had been in the city for weeks or months, looking for work like so many others across the nation. But Eureka was not a railroad hub, industrial town, or bustling port. It had few jobs to offer.

As unemployed men milled around in public parks, or begging for cash from passers-by on the streets, they passed around bottles of moonshine and listened to speakers deliver passionate orations from soapboxes. Why shouldn’t they have the chance to seek redress of grievances? Wasn’t the government supposed to make things better for everyone? Occasionally a speaker that someone deemed particularly disruptive, inciting, or obnoxious was hauled off by a police officer, or sometimes just given a truncheon beating in the street. The hypocrisy of the wealthy, of the ruling class who seemed to hoard everything for themselves, was on open display.

Rumors and news mingled and became indistinguishable. One moment the National Guard was mobilizing to slaughter the strikers, the next it had supposedly been routed by an army of working men that was now marching on the capital. It was said that open communist revolutions had taken control of Marion and Millstown, and they were promising every man food, shelter, and honest work. The people were hungry, angry, and unemployed, which meant that they had plenty of time to stew on their condition and who was responsible for it. People began to trickle towards the great marble and limestone hall of the Senate...

[Mareyland]

The Senate Chamber was a cavernous room. Desks for the individual Senators were arranged in a semi-circle in front of a raised dais, where the Chancellor, Chief Clerk, and the Vice-President sat. Above them on the second floor were spaces for journalists and observers to sit and watch the proceedings. The Senate Chamber was a windowless space, and in these hot August days the room was oppressive and stifling. Senators were sweating profusely under their suits and constantly dabbing at moist brows with handkerchiefs. The Chief Clerk of the Senate was reading out the text of the Security Bill.

“Be it enacted by the Senate of the Commonwealth of Mareyland…”

* * *

On the streets of Eureka, the crowds were seeking shelter from the heat. The sky was clear, which meant the sun was beating down unimpeded. In many public parks, men milled about waiting for a sip of water out of a barrel, or for a morsel of food from one of the overtaxed church charities, or took their chances drinking from the fountains. Alcohol was flowing just as freely as water. Some of the parks were within view of the tall dome of the Capitol Building, where the Senate convened. Somewhere, someone suggested that they march to the Senate and make their complaints known.

“We’ve got the right to redress our grievances, right? Let’s see them ignore us when we’re at their front door!”

* * *

The Chancellor gaveled debate on the Security Bill into order, and the room erupted. Senators from the Liberal Republican Party clamored to be recognized. The Chancellor surveyed the newly-sprouted forest of raised arms, turned his head, and calmly called on Charles Dade, Senator from Parthenia. Dade, who looked and acted every inch the plantation aristocrat that he was, strode to the lectern at the center of the semi-circle.

“Thank you, Chancellor. Mister Vice-President, Chancellor Shay, fellow Senators. This is a grave moment for our country. Dangerous times require dangerous solutions. The Security Bill-”

Daniel Weaver leapt to his feet. “The Tyranny Bill, more like!” The cheers from his fellow Liberal Republicans were drowned out by boos from the National Union cohort and repeated banging of the Chancellor’s gavel.

“Order, we will have order!”

* * *

The idea of a march to the Capitol gathered momentum, like a snowball rolling down a hillside gathering more and more material. There were people among the crowds who were not simply unemployed laborers. Just as some in the government thought that naked force was the only thing that would save the Commonwealth and the status quo, these men believed that changing it for the better would require force as well. Some of them had gone beyond the theoretical. They were wanted for wrecking machinery or trying - and sometimes succeeding - to assassinate politicians and businessmen. But they hadn’t been able to accomplish any more than pinpricks. The State had the police, the militia, and the National Guard. The Owners had their private thugs and hired guns. But the teeming mass of angry, hot, hungry people in Eureka could be an army - with the right motivation.

Soon thousands of people were on the move, walking down the streets of the capital. Shop owners closed and barred their doors, and people hurried to get inside. A few people broke off to throw bricks through windows, but most continued on towards the Capitol. There was a feeling in the air that this was a climactic moment. People wanted to see what would happen. The police began to muster around the government buildings, but just like everywhere else there were far more people in the crowd than there were in the police force. And many people in that crowd nursed memories of poor treatment by those officers of the law. Men with uniforms and without begin to push and shove each other.

* * *

In the Senate Chamber, Senator Leland Newton’s backroom negotiations seemed to have borne fruit. Several National Union Party senators had expressed serious reservations about the Security Bill, and dropped strong hints that they might consider voting against it in its current form. The party leadership had seemed unconcerned about the first few shirkers, but then it became apparent that Senator Dade might not have the votes for passage. That had led to a recess and several tense huddles among the hardliners and their less than eager compatriots. Senator Dade, Chancellor Shay, and Vice-President Shelley were whipping votes as best they could. Senator Newton was holding them at bay for now, and it seemed like the Security Bill might have to languish in legislative limbo for a while longer.

Throughout the session, Senator Henry Heywood had been watching some sort of small drama unfolding in a corner of the chamber. The Sergeant-at-Arms had been coming and going for the past few minutes, and each time he seemed a little more frantic. Heywood wondered whether the National Union planned to eject their opposition from the chamber the moment the Security Bill was passed. Except that each time the Sergeant-at-Arms spoke with the Vice-President, he seemed to become more nervous as well. Heywood leaned over and spoke in a low voice with one of the other Liberal Republicans.

“What’s going on over there, I wonder?”

* * *

The police had formed a line a few blocks from the Capitol, to try and halt the progress of the crowd. The confrontation had turned nasty, quick, and the first line had fallen. The police had retreated, reformed, and met the mob again a bit closer to the Capitol. Once again the numbers and the fury of the people had been too much for the thin line of law enforcement to hold back. The tide was getting closer and closer. Being a federal district, Eureka did not have a state militia to supplement the police. Protection of the city was the responsibility of federal troops: the Marines stationed at the city’s shipyards, and the National Guard troops at Fort Logan. The Marines were closer, but fewer in number. The Guard contingent at the fort was a dozen miles away. Both required authorization from the President to even begin preparing to move.

“Mister President, we need the Marines!”

[Mareyland]

Perhaps, at some point, the crowds marching towards the Capitol building in Eureka had possessed some semblance of a plan for peaceful, nonviolent protest. But that plan, if indeed it had ever existed, had only been in the minds of a few of the early instigators. As the number of people grew, the idea of what it was they were going to do was diluted and altered. There was a general sense that Something Would Change when they reached the Capitol. What that something was and how it would change were questions that two people standing next to each other in the crowd might answer differently. But there was unity, if not in purpose, then in feeling. It was like watching a boisterous parade - the people seemed happy to be a part of a thing that they recognized as important, a critical moment in history.

Then they began to confront the police, and the violence added dangerous new feelings into the mix. There was anger, but now it was sharpened with fury. The sight of the uniformed officers abandoning several successive barricades in the face of the oncoming crowd emboldened them. If these paladins of the law, these agents of oppression, were powerless to stop them, what could a bunch of old corrupt Senators do? The crowd began to become a mob. The retreat of the police engendered a spirit of lawlessness. People began to break into shops, coming out with armfuls of food and clothing and throwing it to the crowd. Some people broke into shops where weapons were sold.

President Martin Winslow had sent word for the Marines and the National Guard to protect the capital from this riot, but the orders had gone out too late to stop what was coming. The mob broke the final police lines, just down the street from the Capitol, and surged towards the great marble and limestone building with its towering dome. The Senate Guards, the mostly-ceremonial body charged with the protection of the Legislative branch, were like pebbles thrown into an oncoming flood tide. The lucky or smart ones beat a hasty retreat in the face of the mob. The brave or foolish ones disappeared beneath the tide, as the crowd took out its rage at the world on the hapless men with fists, and boots, and various items wielded as clubs.

The Senate had begun to evacuate when the Sergeant-at-Arms reported that the police could not hold back the mob. Most of the building was empty. The people surged forward, smashing windows and overturning desks. There was no thought behind the violence, only a shared desire to finally make the sheltered people at the top feel some of the same powerlessness and fear that those at the bottom had been feeling for days, weeks, months, years. A few building staff were caught up in the whirlwind. Most escaped terrified but unharmed - the crowd was not so lost that it would savage a janitor or page.

Some Senators were only just clambering into their carriages when the mob broke into the building. They fled under a hail of projectiles, with rocks and even things torn out of their own offices or desks hurled at their vehicles as drivers urged the horses on. And then, the Capitol was theirs. People roamed the halls aimlessly. Some began to grab paintings off the walls, or tear curtains from windows. Others simply stared at the ornate interiors, the literal halls of power, which had always seemed completely out of reach. Now they were here...and unfulfilled. There had been no great catharsis, no feeling that they had achieved that Change that had been expected.

The activists among the mob, the communists and labor organizers who had fanned the flames then quickly found themselves being pulled along by the blaze they’d kindled, mounted the dais in the Senate Chamber and began to make grandiose declarations. One man seized the Chancellor’s gavel and pounded it on the wooden surface, shouting “The Senate of the Commonwealth is hereby abolished!”

A man with sunken eyes and an unkempt stubble on his face shouted back, “Who cares? Where’s the kitchens?”

That started a rush for the kitchens, and the small bar and dining room attached to the Senate Chamber. A horde of hungry people descended on them, cleaning out their stocks of bread, meat, and other foods. Left behind were the oysters, half-prepared and left out in the kitchens, which were declared inedible.

Someone called out, “The Presidential Mansion! Winslow will have plenty of food there!”

The idea spread like wildfire through the mob, and soon they were off marching towards the Presidential Mansion a few blocks away. The police were nowhere to be seen, and the Presidential Guards proved only slightly more sturdy than their Senate counterparts. They succeeded in keeping the mob at bay with volleys of rifle fire, long enough for the President and his family - and the various members of the Cabinet who had been at the Mansion for meetings - to get away. But the mob was too far gone into bloodlust to be deterred by a few men with rifles. Many of the Guardsmen met bloody and unceremonious ends at the hands and weapons of the crowd. One was left strung by his neck from the tall iron bars of the gate that commanded the entrance to the Mansion.

The discipline of the mob, such as it was, had totally broken down. Simple maids and servants, who had chosen to try and hide until the storm blew over, were dragged out to meet unfortunate fates. People smashed windows and climbed over the jagged glass to get inside dining rooms and offices. The main dining table was still set for the midday meal, and the sight of the glamorous table settings and the dishes that held multiple courses provoked both impish delight, and jealous fury from people who had often been forced to choose between feeding their children and heating their homes.

Someone, somewhere in the Mansion, began to light the curtains of a bedroom on fire. Soon the blaze was consuming whole sections of the building, sometimes with rioters still in them. The actual inferno seemed to suck the fiery energy out of the mob, and people began to disperse with whatever loot they had grabbed. But the end of the single, quasi-united mob only birthed dozens of smaller riots, as people went looking for other places they could steal food, or hurt the wealthy, or simply keep the violent high going. From his carriage, on the road out of the city, President Martin Winslow looked back and saw smoke rising from the capital of Mareyland. The indecision that had been eating at him since the beginning of the crisis melted away.

“By God,” he muttered. “They’ll pay for this. They’ll all pay.”

[Mareyland]

For several hours, there was anarchy on the streets of the nation’s capital. The President had fled and his mansion was aflame. The Capitol building had been sacked, and the supposedly venerable Senators had either fled or found somewhere to hide. The police had melted away like ice in the summer sun. The people of Eureka, both its long-time residents and the influx of new arrivals that had swelled the city in recent days and weeks, roamed the streets like packs of starving dogs. They looted shops and the homes of the wealthy, or homes that simply looked like they might have food or valuables behind their doors. They beat and killed anyone who they suspected of being a member of the parasitic upper class, who had grown fat on the sweat of the workers.

The first troops on the scene were the Marines from the Capital Navy Yard, commanded by Lieutenant Isaac Green. He had just over one hundred men under his command - not nearly enough to restore order to an entire city. But their disciplined presence, and the pair of light artillery pieces they brought with them, was enough to deter attacks from the citizenry as they marched down the streets to the Capitol. They found the area around the building largely deserted, save for a few drunks who were too inebriated to walk.

“Sergeant Stark, take your men and establish a perimeter.” Green gestured towards the dome of the Capitol as he spoke with his second-in-command, Sergeant Robert Stark. “I’m going to the Mansion.” Green left the artillery behind with Stark to defend the building and took a platoon of Marines with him. They quickly traversed the few blocks between the Capitol and the Presidential Mansion, and discovered that the building was completely consumed by the flames. The city’s firefighters had refused to come out and combat the flames with the mobs still on the loose. Green marched his men back to the Capitol, in time to meet with Senator Daniel Weaver.

“Several of us took shelter in the Taylor,” Weaver was telling Sergeant Stark. The Taylor Hotel was a favorite haunt of the Senators and other politicians in Eureka. “The mob ransacked the kitchens, but we barricaded a few of the rooms and they went to look for easier targets. Where is the President?”

“We don’t know,” Lieutenant Green answered. “The Presidential Mansion is in flames. Most of the Guard appears to have been killed by the mob.”

“Damn.” Senator Weaver crossed his arms, then reached up to stroke his chin with one hand. “Probably fled the city, and took most of his friends with him.” The Senator took a deep breath and then nodded, having apparently come to some sort of internal decision. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I have to find out how many of us are still left in the city.”

“We’ll remain here to protect the Capitol,” Green told him.

The National Guard arrived from Fort Logan soon afterwards. They had more men, including a few troops of cavalry that were normally used to escort dignitaries or newly elected Presidents in parades through the city. It was mostly a sort of semi-retirement assignment given to men who were too old or injured to be effective in combat. Now they drew their sabers once again to bring order to the streets of the capital. The rioting citizens outnumbered the soldiers, but they were unwilling to face down charging horsemen with sabers raised aloft, or stand firm in the face of volleys from the green-coated Guardsmen. As a stunned quiet settled over the streets, the fire brigades felt safe enough to emerge and begin tackling the fires that raged in several neighborhoods.

In the Senate, there was shock and anger. The halls of government had been violated by the rioters, Senators had been threatened with physical harm, and where was President Winslow? Fleeing to safety across the Carter River, with the Chancellor right beside him! How could the government fail to prepare for the eventuality of disorder spreading to the capital? So many Senators, mostly from the National Union Party, had fled the city entirely. The entire Executive cabinet seemed to have followed suit. The Senators who were left were Liberal Republicans and a collection of National Union Party Senators who were feeling betrayed and abandoned by their leadership. The moment was ripe for decisive action. Senator Daniel Weaver rose to address the half-empty chamber.

“Honorable Senators, it is clear: President Winslow has been negligent in his duties, and failed to protect the very seat of the national government! For that reason, I move to introduce these Articles of Impeachment against President Martin Winslow!”

---

The President, his cabinet, and the upper echelons of the National Union Party’s leadership had retreated across the Carter River into Parthenia. They gathered in New Penzance, which in normal times was a town that mostly catered to the leisure pursuits of the political class in Eureka. The Brownell House, one of the city’s most prominent hotels, became a sort of temporary Capitol and Presidential Mansion. Senators and government officials descended on the hotel and occupied many of its rooms. The mayor of New Penzance mobilized the town’s small complement of militia and posted them as guards at the doors of the Brownell House, as well as along the roads leading towards Eureka.

“Send word to Governor Radcliff, and Governor Martin,” thundered President Winslow. “I want every militiaman in Parthenia and Garland mobilized at once!”

“Governor Radcliff has already sent word from Rougemont,” Secretary of War George Santeen replied. “The militia is drawing arms and preparing to march. Governor Martin reports that his militia is also mobilizing.”

“What we need is a call for volunteers.” Attorney General Wesley Mouch insisted. “Calling up the militias in Cressia and Vandalia didn’t do much more good than pissing in the wind. There are plenty of citizens who will stand up against this red menace - if we lead them.”

“Perhaps,” Vice-President Shelley interjected, “Rather than wait for the Senate to re-convene, which will take who knows how long...what if the provisions of the Security Bill were issued as an Executive Proclamation?”

This seemed to bring even the suddenly gung-ho President to a stop. “Legislating by Proclamation? Is that legal?”

Shelley looked over to the Attorney General, who smirked. “Mister President,” he declared. “Give me four hours and I’ll make it legal.”

A PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION
CONCERNING THE MAINTENANCE OF SAFETY AND PUBLIC ORDER

The events of recent days have shocked all civic-minded and law-abiding Mareylanders. Anarchic chaos, inflamed by communist instigators, has spilled onto the streets of our great cities. Even our nation’s capital has felt the fiery touch of this so-called “labor movement.” It is, plainly, nothing less than an insurrectionist attempt to topple the lawful government of the Commonwealth. Furthermore, it has been coddled, and even abetted, by members of the opposition parties.

Therefore, on this day I, Martin Winslow, President of the Commonwealth of Mareyland, hereby proclaim the following:

A STATE OF INSURRECTION now exists. MARTIAL LAW is hereby to go into effect, across the nation, immediately.

A CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS is hereby issued. I call on all loyal citizens to aid in the suppression of insurrection and the restoration of order. Further details will be communicated to the State Governors through the offices of the Department of War.

Considering the state of affairs in the national capital, and the heinous attack on the halls of government, the Senate of the Commonwealth is hereby prorogued until such time as the safety and good order of the body can be established.

Signed,

Martin Winslow
President

David Shelly
Vice-President

Wesley Mouch
Attorney General

James Taggart
Secretary of the Interior

George Santeen
Secretary of War

[Mareyland]

General Emmanuel Dewey was the highest-ranking military officer in the region around the capital of Eureka. He had responsibility for the defense of the capital and the nearby coastline. It was a job that required much more administrative and political skill than tactical brilliance, and Dewey was a consummate political general. He had skillfully cultivated a reputation for non-partisanship, and had avoided becoming associated too closely with either major party. But suddenly it was as if a riptide had washed in from calm seas and sucked him into uncharted waters. The capital had briefly fallen to the anarchy of the mob, and by the time sufficient National Guard troops had been brought in to fully restore order, the constitutional system was in crisis.

The Senate’s impeachment of President Martin Winslow had just been published when the news arrived of the Presidential Proclamation, proroguing the Senate and declaring martial law. The Senators in the capital were shocked and infuriated. Many began to see signs of a conspiracy - Winslow and his cronies had allowed the mobs to run rampant, in order to give themselves the cover to sweep aside the legislature and establish one-party rule by decree. While some of the National Union Senators in the city supported the proclamation, many saw it as yet another sign that they were not considered significant enough to include in whatever machinations were underway on the other side of the Carter River.

“As far as the Senate is concerned, General,” Senator Jefferson Adams explained, “The so-called Presidential Proclamation is wholly unconstitutional, and antithetical to the democratic foundations of our Commonwealth.”

Senator Adams had invited General Dewey to meet with him at the Taylor Hotel. Dewey had expected to be greeted by a party of Senators, and was surprised to find Adams alone waiting for him in one of the private conference rooms off of the hotel’s bar and restaurant.

“And more paramount, he lacks the office to issue such a missive,” Senator Adams continued. “He has been lawfully impeached by the Senate, and removed from office.”

General Dewey decided not to bring up the point that President Winslow had been impeached by half a Senate. The other half of the Senate had fled the city with the President and the cabinet. But he was sure the politician would have some ready answer to that quibble.

“Now, to try and make good on this illegal seizure of power, he has called up volunteers - to give his coup d’etat the veneer of official sanction. So what we’re asking, General, is whether we can depend on you and your men to defend this capital.”

“What you’re suggesting could be construed as treason,” General Dewey commented. The tone of his voice lacked the weight of the words. “I’m certain that I will soon receive some sort of message from President Winslow -”

“Former President Winslow,” Adams insisted.

“From Martin Winslow, who still believes himself to be President,” Dewey conceded. “And that message will order me to restore order in the city, which will no doubt include suppressing your Senate in miniature. After all, he has declared the body prorogued. And no doubt that message will contain some warnings against treasonous behavior.”

“So then it seems,” Adams said slowly. “That you have two choices before you. There is no safe passage between the rocks in this storm, General. You will be expected to follow the orders of the legitimate government...and yet, the orders you choose to follow will shift the scales of legitimacy.”

Dewey leaned back in his seat and nodded in contemplation. “An accurate summary of my position, Senator.”

“Allow me to add new information to your calculations,” Adams continued. “Firstly, it seems apparent that Winslow intends to mobilize an army from the southern states. If he succeeds in returning himself to the Presidential Mansion, or what's left of it, he will by necessity be leading a government of southerners." The balance between the industrializing north and the agrarian south was not especially fraught, but Dewey was a Pavonia man by birth and known to be suspicious of sectional favoritism. "And, the Senate is preparing to elect a president pro tempore, to fill the executive office until new elections can be held. And if the cabinet supports Winslow’s grasp for tyranny, then obviously their offices will need to be filled by new members.”

There was the carrot: Secretary of War. A cushy political office with plenty of opportunities for personal gain. For all the Liberal Republicans railed against the corruption and patronage of the National Union Party, they understood how the game was played.

“Senator,” General Dewey replied. “You can count on me.”

A PROCLAMATION OF THE SENATE
CONCERNING THE LAWFUL GOVERNMENT OF MAREYLAND

The Senate of the Commonwealth of Mareyland has approved Articles of Impeachment against President Martin Winslow, who has failed to defend the capital of Mareyland from insurrection and riot. The passage of the Articles removes Martin Winslow from the office of President. Therefore, his recent Proclamation has no legal authority behind it, and should be disregarded.

It is obvious that Winslow is attempting to use the current state of civil disorder to seize power as a dictator. His call for volunteers is nothing less than an attempt to muster an unlawful army, with which he plans to march on Eureka and install himself as tyrant. This is made more obvious by his unconstitutional and unprecedented order to prorogue the Senate.

The Senate has elected Senator Quincy Addison as the President pro tempore, to fulfill the executive duties of the federal government until the next presidential election.

Under the authority granted to him by the Senate, President Addison has issued a CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS to defend the capital and the nation against the tyrannical ambitions of the former President Winslow.

Signed,

Quincy Addison
President pro tempore

Henry Heywood
Chancellor pro tempore