When it became clearly a matter of keeping civil order, Captain Thomas James left barracks. He joined the main body of the Wilmington Light Infantry as they were preparing to advance on the Manhattan Dance Hall, a two-story frame building surrounded by a high wooden fence. A lone sniper was firing from a second-floor window. James’s men took cover across the street in an alley.

“Get some sappers out there and knock down that fence,” he commanded.

Three men disappeared and came back fifteen minutes later with axes looted from a hardware store. While their comrades covered them with volley fire, they hunkered low to give a scarce target and dodged across the street. The sniper fired once over their heads, kicking up sand in the street. Then, as volleys raked the second story, he quit firing. Windows burst. Clapboards sprang loose.

In half a minute, the sappers hacked down the rickety fence, and the infantry charged into the building. They arrested three unarmed men and caught a fourth, Josh Halsey, clambering over the back fence. They found a rifle upstairs.

James said to the prisoner, “As you were caught fleeing the scene, I can only assume you are the culprit.” He ordered Halsey to stand against the back fence and formed his men into a firing squad.

One of infantrymen, Bill Robbins, said, “This ain’t right.”

The man beside him said, “You shoot him, Bill, or I’ll shoot you.”

On James’s order, they fired. The high-powered rounds flung Halsey into the fence, and one of them tore the top of his head off. Robbins shut his eyes and fired into the fence.

David Jacobs, the coroner, later reported that he removed a pint of bullets from Halsey’s body.

Sam Jenks couldn’t believe the scene he had just witnessed outside Dan Wright’s house. Not even Cuba had been like that. He had seen it coming. He had done nothing to stop it. His ears rang from the incredible noise of the guns. He could hardly catch his breath.

He could hear firing all over the city now. And another sound: the constant pealing of fire bells. The town was coming apart. He must find Gray Ellen and get her out of here. Was she at school? He couldn’t remember. He was lost in a strange neighborhood. All around him moved armed men.

He would go to the house first. If she wasn’t there, he’d search for her. This was no town for a woman alone. Or a man. He broke off from the infantry and ran back the other way, passing vigilantes and Red Shirts and men wearing half a dozen different uniforms. Half of them seemed to be giving orders. The other half seemed to be running in all directions regardless of the orders.

Still a dozen blocks from home, he encountered a squad of infantry detaining a young black woman—Saffron King James.