When Grover Cleveland sent in Federal troops to break up the Chicago, Pullman strike in 1894, he probably wasnât anticipating the destruction that followed. The reaction of the strikers to the appearance of the federal troops was simple outrage. What had been a basically peaceful strike turned into complete mayhem, with mobs of people setting off fireworks and tipping over rail cars. The rioting grew and spread and on July 7, a large fire consumed seven buildings at the World's Colombian Exposition in Jackson Park. Rioters destroyed 700 railcars and caused $340,000 of damages in the South Chicago Panhandle yards. National guardsmen fired into the crowd killing at least four (possibly up to thirty) and wounding at least twenty.