Wednesday, May 12, 2021

William Prescott Smith to A. J. Phelps, October 17, 1859, 9 a.m.

Baltimore, October 17th, 1859.
9 A. M.        
A. J. Phelps,

Conductor of the Express East at Ellicott's Mills. Your despatch is evidently exaggerated and written under excitement. Why should our trains be stopped by Abolitionists, and how do you know they are such and that they number one hundred or more? What is their object? Let me know at once before we proceed to extremities.

W. P. SMITH.

SOURCE: B. H. Richardson, Annapolis, Maryland, Publisher, Correspondence Relating to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, 17th October, 1859, p. 5-6

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