Chicago (IL) Tribune, "Novel Negro Stampede," September 18, 1856

     Novel Negro Stampede.

   The Memphis Evening News gives the following:

   We learn from Mr. Hope, conductor on the accommodation train that our friend Bumpass, the conductor of the Sommerville Branch, was astonished this morning to find that his locomotive had disappeared, and accordingly instead of riding his "iron horse," as usual, to make connection with the mail train at Moscow, he had to mount one of flesh and blood. It appears that during the night a negro who had been employed as fireman for some months took it into his head to run away, and fired up the machine for the purpose. He took aboard seven or eight other negroes, some of them belonging to Mr. Williamson Powell, near Somerville, and run down within twelve miles of the city, where they all left the engine with the exception of a negro girl, and are now probably in the wood. This is the statement of the girl, who was found at the engine this morning where the other negroes left it. The police have been advised of these facts so as to intercept the escape of the negroes by the river, as is doubtless their aim.