Record Data
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THE U. S. ARSENAL. – A company of the 2d Regiment of Artillery, U. S. Army, arrived here yesterday, from Fort Hamilton, below New York, to take their station at the U. S. Arsenal, on Hay Mount. The company is commanded by Brevet Major Anderson, with Lieutenant DeLagnal, and consists of 56 non-commissioned officers and privates.
They are sent here at the request of a number of citizens of Fayetteville, who applied to the War Department on the ground that there are many thousands of guns, and ammunition in proportion, deposited in the Arsenal with no other protection on the premises than an officer and two or three civilians. It is true that the volunteer companies of citizen soldiery had offered their services in case of need; but there can be no propriety in requiring our local authorities to protect government property at their own expense, or at the expense of the town, when the government itself is fully able to take care of it. We understand that our town treasury some time since paid some hundreds of dollars of charges for refreshments furnished to the volunteer guards.
Another reason which influenced some who made the application was, that it will add to the business and importance of the town to have a military station here, and possibly facilitate the employment of the Arsenal as one of Construction, according to its original design.
But the chief inducement, undoubtedly, was to negative any idea of a John Brown raid here, like that at the Harper’s Ferry Armory.
Other motives for the application from this place having been assigned in some of the Northern papers, we have thought it right thus to state our understanding of the matter.
