Publication information |
Source: Wilmington Daily Republican Source type: newspaper Document type: article Document title: “Witnessed the Shooting” Author(s): anonymous City of publication: Wilmington, Delaware Date of publication: 7 September 1901 Volume number: none Issue number: none Pagination: 1 |
Citation |
“Witnessed the Shooting.” Wilmington Daily Republican 7 Sept. 1901: p. 1. |
Transcription |
full text |
Keywords |
C. Walter Calloway; McKinley assassination (eyewitnesses); McKinley assassination (eyewitness accounts: C. Walter Calloway); McKinley assassination (personal response); Samuel R. Ireland. |
Named persons |
C. Walter Calloway; Leon Czolgosz [identified as Nieman below]; Samuel R. Ireland; William McKinley. |
Notes |
The identity of C. Walter Calloway (below) cannot be confirmed. The news story, as it appears in at least two other newspapers, gives the last name as Galloway. |
Document |
Witnessed the Shooting
Rochester, N. J. [sic], Sept. 6.—C.
Walter Calloway, of Boston, was one of the party that left Rochester to attend
the Pan-American to-day, and reached here late last night. He says he was a
personal witness of the shooting of President McKinley. He was the second man
from Nieman, in the crowd waiting to greet the President. In the excitement
that followed Mr. Calloway had a foot crushed and his injury was treated on
the grounds.
“I thought Nieman had a lame hand,” said Mr. Calloway.
“There was something about the fellow’s actions that struck me as peculiar.
He carried his right hand at his side and slightly behind, until he came up
to where the President was standing, and then he extended his left one, holding
up the other hand in a peculiar way.
“His right arm trembled and he seemed to be laboring
under some emotion. If I had been of any authority I would have cried out for
them to arrest the man that instant. I was not greatly surprised when the handkerchief
in the right hand spouted fire and the President fell back. I didn’t even start
for an instant.”
Mr. Calloway says the excitement ensuing was indescribable.
People wrung their hands and hundreds wept[.] A woman who was standing beside
him fainted, but so great was the crush that she was not allowed to fall, but
was jostled back and forth until somebody seized her and dragged her to a place
of safety.
Although suffering the most excruciating pain
from his foot, Mr. Calloway said that he was the one who raised a cry to lynch
the would-be-assassin [sic].
The cry was taken up by several, but one of the
Exposition guards rushed in and shouted that the first one who made a move towards
the prisoner would be shot. As the man seemed determined, Mr. Calloway and the
others who favored a lynching party quickly forgot their resolve.
Secret Service Officer Samuel R. Ireland lives
in Rochester, and Mr[.] Calloway knows him well. Ireland, Mr. Calloway said,
was only two feet away when the President was shot. He immediately jumped upon
the assassin, struck him a crushing blow and forced him to the ground. Instantly
a score of people, one or two women in the number, jumped upon the man.
Ireland is 30 years of age, and he s [sic] an
athlete, tall and well built. He was abundantly able to cope single handed [sic]
with the man. Mr. Calloway says Ireland was quite the hero of the hour after
the arrest of Nieman.