Rumors by telegraph last night: a negro insurrection at Harper's Ferry, the arsenal seized. These rumors may be exaggerated in some particulars. We think it probable, however, that a rebellion among the white operatives at the Armory has been mistaken for slave insurrection.
Next post: Charleston Mercury, Oct 19, 1859 →
The post above is condensed. From the original, word for word
"Rumors reached this place last night, about 8 o clock, by telegraph, of a negro insurrection at Harper's Ferry. The dispatch was from the operator at Richmond, and stated that the negroes, under the lead of white men, had taken possession of the arsenal, and sent wagon loads of muskets and rifles to slaves in the surrounding country, and that large numbers had been killed.--They had cut and destroyed the telegraph wires. [...] These rumors may be exaggerated in some particulars, but there seems to be no doubt, from what we learn of Mr. Baskin, the operator at this place, of the fact of the insurrection. We think it probable, however, that a rebellion among the white operatives at the Armory has been mistaken for slave insurrection; though it is probable that some negroes may have been induced to join them."
Between the posts · the narrator, not the paper
October 17. The telegraph wires out of Harpers Ferry are cut. The first dispatches moving tonight count the raiders in the hundreds and cannot name one of them. Nearly every detail is wrong. One is right: the United States armory is in someone else's hands.
First-night telegraph report in an Augusta County Whig paper, written before the raiders' identity was known — relaying the rumored slave rising while doubting it: the same report thinks it probable that a rising of white workers at the Armory has been mistaken for a slave insurrection. Fragments joined with [...]. '8 o clock' preserved as transcribed.
Read it in the original — Staunton Spectator, Oct 18, 1859 (Valley of the Shadow) ↗