Pennsylvania voters went to the polls on Tuesday, October 11, 1864 to elect their Congressional representatives as the Civil War raged and a presidential election loomed just a month later.
Schuylkill County re-elected Democrat Myer Strouse as congressman for the 10th Congressional District. Strouse vehemently opposed the Lincoln administration and its policies surrounding ending slavery. Just a few months after his re-election, Strouse opposed the 13th Amendment ending slavery in the United States. It passed in the House of Representatives anyway, becoming the law of the land in December 1865.
The election passed relatively quietly in the small mining town of Tremont in Schuylkill County’s west end until evening when a band of Irish mineworkers, likely from the neighboring mining town of Donaldson, came into town. The group, numbered at 50 by the Miners’ Journal newspaper, walked into town shouting that they were the “Bloody 69th,” a reference to the 69th New York and 69th Pennsylvania, two famously Irish units in the United States Army.
Among those in the town watching the group warily as they marched the streets for two hours was a 25-year-old Schuylkill County native named George W. Thompson. His unfortunate fate would be sealed just a few hours later.
The Miners’ Journal told the story in its October 15, 1864 edition.
A note about the Miners’ Journal – this pro-Lincoln newspaper often wrote violently anti-Irish screeds and opposed all things “Copperhead.” That name refers to anti-war, anti-Lincoln members of the Democratic party. And a reminder that parties then – Republican and Democrat – bear little resemblance to their modern counterparts after shifting around significantly in the century and a half since the Civil War.
Terrible Murder of a Union Man by a Mob of Irishmen
Mr. George Thompson, an amiable young man, about 25 years of age, formerly a resident of Middleport, but at the time of his death a citizen of Tremont Township, this County, was murdered in a most brutal and unprovoked manner in Tremont on election night by some fifty Irishmen from Frailey Township, calling themselves the “Bloody 69th.”
The particulars of the terrible occurrence are briefly as follows:
About 11 o’clock on last Tuesday night, the mob of Irishmen referred to came into the town of Tremont shouting “we’re the Bloody 69th,” etc. and endeavoring to provoke a collision with the Union men. They did not succeed in this as the Union men were advised not to attempt to check their riotous and outrageous behavior, for fear of a general collision and fight.
Through the moderation and forbearance of the Union men a collision was avoided and about 1 o’clock, after behaving in a terrible manner in the town, alarming the women and children, the ruffians left.
Mr. Thompson, with a few other gentlemen, followed them to the outskirts of town for the purpose of seeing if it was really the intention of the mobites to leave, when the Irishmen suddenly turned upon and pursued them.
All escaped with the exception of Mr. Thompson.
The brutes caught the defenseless man and beat and stamped him until they left him unconscious and dying. He remained unconscious for a few hours and then died. He never spoke after being found.
His remains were interred on Thursday in Middleport, followed to the grave by a large concourse of friends, for he was held in high estimation as a most exemplary young man and good citizen.
This is another life sacrificed in accordance with the teachings of the Copperhead leaders and organs of this County. The murderers will probably go unwhipt of justice, as many here have gone heretofore.
Poor Thompson will be forgotten, and we will bow to the rule of murderers and incendiaries. This is society in Schuylkill County under Democratic rule. And they call that liberty!
George Thompson’s murder on October 11, 1864 was among many politically charged acts of mob violence that occurred in the Coal Region during the Civil War-era. His beating death at the hands of a mob has similarities to that of another victim of violence in the Coal Region: the death of Frank Langdon in June 1862.
The editors of the Miners’ Journal were correct: no one was ever tried or convicted for the young man’s death and “Poor Thompson” has been almost entirely forgotten in the century and half since his murder on the outskirts of Tremont, PA.
Read more of the violent story of the Coal Region during the Civil War era
“Revolutionary Disloyalty” – A coal miners’ rebellion in Schuylkill County during the Civil War
The Murder of Frank Langdon | Audenried, Pennsylvania, 1862
An 1863 assassination attempt on a US Army commander near Pottsville, PA
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