<P> The steelworkers resolved to meet the militia with open arms, hoping to establish good relations with the troops . But the militia managed to keep its arrival in the town a secret almost to the last moment . At 9: 00 a.m. on July 12, the Pennsylvania state militia arrived at the small Munhall train station near the Homestead mill (rather than the downtown train station as expected). Their commander, Major General George R. Snowden, made it clear to local officials that he sided with the owners . When Hugh O'Donnell, the head of the union's strike committee attempted to welcome Snowden and pledge the cooperation of the strikers, Snowden told him that the strikers had not been law abiding, and that "I want you to distinctly understand that I am the master of this situation ." More than 4,000 soldiers surrounded the plant . Within 20 minutes they had displaced the picketers; by 10: 00 a.m., company officials were back in their offices . Another 2,000 troops camped on the high ground overlooking the city . </P> <P> The company quickly brought in strikebreakers and restarted production under the protection of the militia . Despite the presence of AFL pickets in front of several recruitment offices across the nation, Frick easily found employees to work the mill . The company quickly built bunk houses, dining halls and kitchens on the mill grounds to accommodate the strikebreakers . New employees, many of them black, arrived on July 13, and the mill furnaces relit on July 15 . When a few workers attempted to storm into the plant to stop the relighting of the furnaces, militiamen fought them off and wounded six with bayonets . But all was not well inside the plant . A race war between nonunion black and white workers in the Homestead plant broke out on July 22, 1892 . </P> <P> Desperate to find a way to continue the strike, the AA appealed to Whitelaw Reid, the Republican candidate for vice president, on July 16 . The AA offered to make no demands or set any preconditions; the union merely asked that Carnegie Steel reopen the negotiations . Reid wrote to Frick, warning him that the strike was hurting the Republican ticket and pleading with him to reopen talks . Frick refused . </P> <P> Frick, too, needed a way out of the strike . The company could not operate for long with strikebreakers living on the mill grounds, and permanent replacements had to be found . </P>

What did the government do about the homestead strike