[2] About four o'clock in the afternoon, while Thomas A. Hendricks was addressing the 10,000 participants at the Democrat state convention, some eight or ten Union soldiers with bayonets fixed and rifles cocked entered the crowd and advanced slowly toward the stand, causing a great uproar.

The soldiers, who were moving towards the stand, were ordered to halt by Colonel Coburn, who had been guarding the quartermaster's stores north of the Statehouse, but came out when he heard the disturbance.

The Republicans in the most recent General Assembly, who had broken the quorum, were denounced, and the convention declared that the Governor could not clear himself from complicity, except by taking steps to prevent repudiation.

[3][4] Toward the close of the day, some young soldiers walked through the crowd, and, when they heard any one speak against the war, seized the individual and marched him up the street with a great rabble following.

The intention to create an armed disturbance, although unaccomplished, now seemed clear, and the soldiers determined to teach the remaining "butternuts" a lesson.

The train to Cincinnati, Ohio, was also stopped and many revolvers were confiscated while a large number were thrown by their owners into Pogue's Run at the side of the track.

[9] The term "Battle of Pogue's Run" was derisively given to the event by the Republican Party, who praised the soldiers involved as "halt(ing) a meeting of traitors to the Union cause".

The Democrats, on the other hand, called the event "still more assaults upon constitutional rights" by those supporting Abraham Lincoln and Governor Morton.