Distinctly Montana Magazine

DISTINCTLY MONTANA MAGAZINE • WINTER 2022-23 30 of the people. Though infamously violent skirmishes between mine owners and laborers would occur in the next twenty-five years, this was the farthest thing from one of them. Copper bar- ons William Clark and Marcus Daley, not historically known for their pro-labor views, were on the side of Hogan's branch of Coxey's Army; they, too, supported the reinstatement of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the continued coinage of sil- ver at 16-to-1. They owned mines, after all. And Butte was a min- ing town; those who lived there lived to mine. So Hogan didn't exactly hijack the train with his band of pi- rates. He did the next best thing, meeting with the mayor and county commissioners and asking them to help him enlist the support of the Northern Pacific, which was itself bankrupt and in receivership. N.P. executives might have winked at or even condoned Hogan's mission, but the company's new stewards, tasked with keeping the business on track, decided against the request. Instead, they leaned on a judge to issue an injunction against Hogan and his followers so that anyone commandeering the train would be in contempt of court. The town of Butte, meanwhile, materially supported Hogan and his hundreds of followers through donations of food and clothing. On April 19, Hogan and his men marched from their camp on the so-called Flats into the Northern Pacific trainyard. But there weren't enough cars in the shop to carry the army to D.C. The mob retreated to their camp and resumed waiting. Then, in the early morning of the 24th, some of Hogan's men snuck into the railyard and attached six coal cars and a box car to Engine #542. They start- ed the train and moved it adjacent to the camp, where the rest of Hogan's men boarded. As they set off, stations to the east got word: make way for an unscheduled "wild train" coming through. Engine #542 arrived in Bozeman at around 5:30, just as dawn was streaking the sky. It must have been chilly, but that didn't stop a crowd of supporters from assembling to receive Hogan's Coxeyites. In Bozeman, coal cars were dropped in favor of ad- ditional box cars, including one full of food and drink donated by sympathetic Bozeman folk. As the train pulled out, hundreds cheered them on. An incidental tunnel cave-in later arrested their progress, but they arrived at Livingston by the late afternoon to find another ebullient crowd who pressed more blankets, food, and clothes on the men. Someone gave a speech, and the train continued eastward. They found more trouble east of the track—a Northern Pa- cific superintendent named Charles Finn had received word they were coming and dynamited a rock slide onto the track to slow them down. Hogan and his men removed the rock pile, moved just past, and then put the rock pile back to slow their own pursuers. When they ran out of water for the steam engine, men with buckets walked down the Yellowstone River and filled them, hand over hand, until they had enough to go on. Meanwhile, U.S. Marshall William McDermott was assembling a posse out of those few able-bodied Butte men who didn't sup- port Hogan. The result was a party of eighty men. By the time they got to the edge of town, fifteen of them had turned around and gone home. Those who remained to chase after Hogan were, according to one local paper, "the scum of Butte." All that scum, along with Deputy Marshall M. J. Haley, board- ed another train and bore east with the idea of catching up to Hogan and stopping him. PHOTOS COURTESY OF MONTANA HISTORICAL MUSEUM Hogan's Army in Forsythe

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