New York and other Eastern papers of yesterday, contain Associated dispatch, dated Baltimore, and sent, I suppose, by Alexander Fulton, American Building, who is their Baltimore Agent.
It stated that all the trains of our road were entered by armed men, and the passengers subjected to scrutiny in search of suspicious persons. I want you to see Mr. Fulton to-night, in person, or send him this dispatch at once, assuring him in my name, that the statement is untrue, and is calculated at the same time to seriously interfere with the through passenger business of our road. Ask him if he will not, in justice to us, send a general dispatch in all directions to-night, to the effect, that no such invasion of our cars or annoyance to passengers, is practised or permitted. Tell him to mention at the same time, that the Company, acting under the advice of the Virginia authorities, has arranged to take no passengers to the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, at the time of the executions, except such as are believed to be traveling for legitimate objects.
Tell Fulton, also, that the report of troops being fired on at points of our road last night, is entirely unauthentic.
W. P. SMITH.
SOURCE: B. H. Richardson, Annapolis, Maryland, Publisher, Correspondence Relating to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, 17th October, 1859, p. 62
