Record Data
Source citation
"The Virginia Panic," Chicago (IL) Press and Tribune, November 19, 1859, p. 1: 1.
Newspaper: Publication
Chicago Press and Tribune
Newspaper: Headline
The Virginia Panic
Newspaper: Page(s)
1
Newspaper: Column
1
Type
Newspaper
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Blake Dickinson, Dickinson College
Transcription date
Transcription
The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
THE VIRGINIA PANIC
Virginia is still in an uproar. The fright has become a panic. The tumult was continued throughout Thursday night, and in the headlong terror, which each man was busy propagating, the authorities fell to arresting each other. A messenger dispatched by the citizens of Harper’s Ferry to Charlestown, to get reliable information, was actually taken in custody both going and returning! A Munchausen story was started to the effect that 280 abolitionists were on the march to release Brown. The clavalry [cavalry], remembering how seventeen men took Harper’s Ferry a month ago, were frightened almost to death. The 280 men have not reached Charlestown, but a company of federal troops have gone up from Washington to protect the State. The moral of the ridiculous panic is, that the pro-slavery orators and presses, North and South, have lied so vehemently for the purpose of driving New York and New Jersey into the support of the Democratic party, that they have thrown Virginia into a perfect riot of fear. We shall not be surprised to hear of a deadly collision between the different patrols around Charlestown before Brown is under the sod – that is, if there be any fighting material in that region except Old Brown.