Click on this image of the first page of Inspector John Bonfield's report to Police Superintendent Ebersold to read the text of this report, as well as those addressed to Bonfield by his subordinate officers: Captain William Ward and Lieutenants Martin Quinn, E. .J. Steele, James Bowler, James P. Stanton, Edmund Roche, George A. Hubbard, Francis Penzen, and J. P. Beard. These officers commanded the companies of police on special duty the night of the Haymarket rally. The handwritten documents (approximately 6,100 words) are viewable in the Haymarket Affair Digital Collection.

Each of the reports lists the men under command, with descriptions of their injuries. By Bonfield's count the force consisted of 185 men, including himself. Bonfield and his fellow officers have nothing but praise for the bravery and professionalism of the police under fire, with the exception of one man who Steele says fled the scene and who was fired soon after. Bonfield makes it clear at the outset that the police were acting within the legal statutes as "conservators of the peace."

The report also includes a diagram of the Haymarket area, plus a summary of Bonfield's findings based on experiments with pipe bombs (the Haymarket bomb was not of this type) conducted on May 25, three weeks after the Haymarket meeting. These are not included here.