Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1893 — TROUBLE IN TENNESSEE. [ARTICLE]

TROUBLE IN TENNESSEE.

Free Miners Attack the Prison Stockade at Tracy Cltv. Free miners attacked the prison stockade of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Rail-' road Company at Tracy City, Wednesday night, and attempted to release the 500 convicts confined there. The attack was due to the strong hostility on the part of the miners to the convict leaso system, under which convict labor is brought Into competition with free labor. The guards at the stockade resisted tho attack, and after several hundred shots had been exchanged the miners fell back. It was then found that one of the miners named Robert Irwin had been killed and that four or five of his companions, whose names have not yet been learned, had been severely wounded, one fatally. Deputy Warden Shryer, who was in charge of the stock- 1 ade, was shot in the head, and tho wound is considered a serious one. One of the guards, S. A. Walden, was shot, and it is believed tho wound will result in his death. He was in a critical condition at last accounts. The guards made a gallant defense. The attacking party was composed of between seventy-five and one hundred miners. The comparatively small number of men in the party leads to the belief that tho other miners were opposed to the attack being made, as they had agreed to preserve peaco and order and were apparently satisfied with the action of the Legislature, which recently took practical steps for the abolition of the lease system and instituted measures for tho establishment of a penitentiary system on State account. State troops were sent from Nashville to Tracy City by special train, Thursday.