From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 7/17/1913, p. 12, c. 2

CUTTING SCRAPE AT THE TREDEGAR
Negro Workman Cut to Pieces by Fellow-Laborer, Who Is Captured.

A condition of uproar bordering on riot was raging in the yards of the Tredegar Iron Works, on Belle Isle, yesterday afternoon about 1:30 o’clock when Mounted Officer Krug and Bicycle Officer Gerring, of the Second Police Station, responded to a hurry call for police assistance. When the officers arrived, they found one colored youth, Eddie Branch, bleeding from a dozen deep knife wounds and in a precarious condition; his assailant, Girtha McPhail, colored, eighteen years old, disarmed, was faring roughly at the hands of an excited throng of negroes; McPhail’s ally, James Autry, colored, was on the point of being mobbed, and the business of the big foundry suspended.

The city ambulance, in charge of Ambulance Surgeon M. F. Torregrosa, reached Belle Isle shortly after the police arrived. Dr. Torregrosa found Branch literally hacked to pieces and bleeding from a dozen slashing cuts. None of the wounds are thought to be fatal, but it is feared that the loss of blood and the aggregate of the cuts may be enough to bring on death. Branch was rushed to the City Hospital.

Workmen Made Capture.

The police officers took into custody Branch’s assailant, Girtha McPhail, who had attempted to escape before the arrival of Krug and Gerring. His bloody knife, a vicious instrument shaped like a dagger, was handed to the officers by one of the throng of workmen. James Autry, colored, twenty years old, who had attempted to interfere in McPhail’s behalf, was placed under arrest by the officers and taken to the Second Police Station in company with McPhail and locked up on the charge of being an accessory to the crime.

According to colored workmen who were in sight when the fight occurred, McPhail and Branch were working side by side at a machine when they became entangled in a hot dispute, which finally terminated in a fight. McPhail suddenly drew an ugly knife and began slashing and hacking at Branch unmercifully. Before he left off his attack, Branch had received ugly wounds in the head, neck, shoulders, arms and back and was bleeding profusely.

McPhail then turned to flee, but the scores of colored workmen in the same shed dropped their tools and swarmed about him. He was disarmed finally by an old colored man, who sprang upon his back and pinioned his armed hand to his side until the other workmen could safely seize him. About that time Autry made an effort to start a fight for McPhail’s release, and was mobbed for his pains.

Work at the foundry was at an absolute standstill for more than an hour, and the disturbance occasioned an excitement that did not die down during the entire afternoon.

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