Wednesday, March 22, 2023

S. Bassett French to Major-General William B. Taliaferro, December 1, 1859

HEAD QUARTERS,        
Charlestown, Dec. 1, 1859.
W. P. Smith, Esq.:
        Master of Trans:, B. & O. R. R. Co.

Dear Sir:—I am instructed by Maj. General Taliaferro to say to you that your dispatch of this afternoon was received while he was most busily engaged—and he answered it, having given only a cursory attention to it. Having had an opportunity to examíne it, he thinks it proper to say to you, that the dispatch was received from persons, who are in no wise, so far as he is apprised, connected with the Balt. & O. R. Road, that they were and are entire strangers to him.

The General in command regrets that your company should be subjected to blame on the part of\ the persons who were arrested.

I am, most respectfully,
S. BASSETT FRENCH,                
Mil. Sec. to Wm. B. Taliaferro,        
Maj. Genl. Commanding at Charlestown.

SOURCE: B. H. Richardson, Annapolis, Maryland, Publisher, Correspondence Relating to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, 17th October, 1859, p. 72

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