Transcript

   THE New York evening papers, received last night, had a good deal to say about the uprising at Harper's Ferry. A special dispatch to the Express, dated Baltimore, Oct. 18th, 12.15 P.M., says that the insurrection is quelled. The strongly fortified house occupied by the insurgents was stormed by the marines under Col. Lee, and carried. The ringleader, Brown, and his son were both shot down in the assaulting charge. Two marines were killed. Four negroes were found in the house who claimed to have been forced into service. There were not over twenty whites in the plot. Mr. Turner, a cadet from West Point, is among the killed. The hostages held by the insurgents were all rescued unharmed. No damage was done to the railroad or the bridge. The object of the movement is claimed to have been the running off of many thousands of slaves into the Free States. The idea was to hold the town long enough to concentrate the negroes by hundreds and thousands from miles around and then, when retreat became necessary, make a grand stampede across the Maryland line into Pennsylvania, where, it was believed, the aversion to the Fugitive Slave Law would secure the escape of the slaves. It is thought some parties of slaves have already tried that game, and a brisk pursuit in that direction is to be made. A Baltimore paper says the leader of the insurrection at Harper's Ferry called himself S. C. Anderson, was about sixty years of age, with a heavy white beard, cool and collected, with a stern and desperate manner; said he expected a reinforcement of 1500 men, by seven that morning; was fighting for freedom; not another railroad train should pass. The insurgents were disciplined and acted under orders; no one knew them at Harper's Ferry, all being strangers, and where they came from no one could tell. Our suspicion is, that it will turn out in time that all this business has been grossly exaggerated, by the newspapers and telegraph reporters, an passengers on the railroad trains; and that what has been swollen to collossal dimensions in print, is in fact, a tempest in a teapot, wherein our chivalrous of cousins of Virginia and Maryland have been more frightened than hurt. If there were any Abolitionists silly enough to take part in such an affair, we devoutly hope they were most of them killed in the act; with one or two left, to be fairly tried, convicted and hung, as felons and murderers. The great Republican party of this Union has no sympathy with rioters and law-breakers. Violence will only rivet the chains of the slaves still closer. The South was rapidly taking more rational views of its true interests; and this Harper's Ferry movement, will be nuts and all to Jeff. Davis, and the rest of the Southern Fire Eaters.

Citation

Hartford (CT) Courant, October 19, 1859, p. 2

Related Escape / Stampede
Location of Stampede
Virginia
Coverage Type
Original
Location of Coverage- City
Hartford
Location of Coverage- State
Connecticut
Contains Stampede Term
Yes