Andrew Jackson, Strikebreaker

Abstract

LABOR authorities generally cite the railroad strikes of I877 as the instance in American history of the calling out of federal troops to intervene in a labor dispute.' But the dubious distinction of being the first executive to dispatch federal troops to a strike area has erroneously been conferred upon President Hayes. Some forty-three years before he took such action, Old Hickory, labor's true friend according to the portrait limned by twentieth century historians, sent federal troops into Maryland to restrain discontented workmen. The circumstances which called forth President Jackson's hitherto unpublished military order written in his own hand stemmed from difficulties with the Irish laborers recruited for the construction projects on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The belligerent activities of this immigrant labor group in the canal and railroad fields foreshadowed by almost a generation the lawless practices of the Molly Maguires. Normally, strikes and threats of strikes by Irish construction workers could be brought under control by a sheriff's posse or state troops, ringleaders were summarily jailed when identified, and the animosity of Yankee and German laborers to their competitors from the Emerald Isle was capitalized to keep construction projects moving. On occasion Maryland residents even took vigilante action and cleared their communities of all Irish labor, going so far as to tear down the workers' shanties. The specific labor incident on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal project which provoked the unprecedented intervention of the federal government originated near Williamsport, Maryland, around January i6, I834. Although contemporary newspaper accounts failed to establish the cause of the disturbance, it is now perfectly clear that the conflict was not the result of irresponsible gang warfare or senseless feuding between North of Ireland