In 1877, Hayes called out the U.S. Army to deal with a strike by Baltimore & Ohio Railroad workers. The strike began in West Virginia, quickly spread to neighboring states, and turned pretty violent.

With state militias and local police unable to control the situation, Hayes issued a cease and desist order: "I do hereby warn all persons engaged in or connected with said domestic violence and obstruction of the laws to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes" (source). When the strike continued, he sent federal troops to the scene.

In 1878 Hayes wrote about a new law limiting the use of federal troops. He made it clear that federal troops could still be called out "if the sheriffs or other state officers resist the laws, and by the aid of state militia do it successfully."

That is rebellion, said Hayes, and it's a matter for the president to handle:

This involves proclamations, the movement of United States land and naval forces, and possibly the calling out of volunteers, and this looks like war. It is like the Whiskey Rebellion in the time of Washington. […] Good citizens who wish to avoid such a result must see to it that neither their State Governments nor mobs undertake to prevent United States officers from enforcing the laws" (source).

Eisenhower took his cue on Little Rock from Hayes, the former Civil War general with the bodacious beard.