Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/874

 From Col. Washington's residence, the party proceeded with him as a prisoner in his own carriage, and twelve of his [sic]negraes in the wagon, to the house of Mr. Allstadt, another large farmer on the same road. Mr. Allstadt and his son, a lad of sixteen years of age, were taken prisoners, and all the negroes of the plantation within reach compelled to join the company. They returned to the Armory at the Ferry before morning.

All their movements seem to have been made without exciting the slightest alarm in the town, nor did the detention of the morning train at the upper end of the town attract attention. It was not till the town was thoroughly waked up, and found the bridges guarded by armed men, and guards stationed at all the avenues, that the people found that they were prisoners. So soon as the facts became known, a panic immediately ensued, and the number of the insurrectionists at once, in the imagination of the frightened people, increased from fifty, which was probably their greatest force, including the slaves that had been forced to join them, to from four to six hundred.

In the meantime, a number of workmen, knowing nothing of what had occurred, entered the Armory and were successively taken prisoners, till they had at one time not less than sixty men confined in the Armory. Among the number there entrapped were Mr. Armisted, Benjamin Mills, master of the Armory, and J. L. P. Dangerfield, paymaster's clerk. These three gentlemen were imprisoned in the engine house, which afterward became the chief fortress of the insurgents, and were not released till after the final assault.

This was the condition of affairs at daylight on Monday morning, about which time Cook, with two white men and about thirty slaves, and taking with them Col. Washington's large wagon, went over the bridge and struck up the mountain on the road toward Pennsylvania.

Information of the insurrection, magnifying more than ten-fold the number of the insurgents, flew on the [sic]talegraph and railroad trains to Charleston, Martinsburgh, Shepardstown, Frederick, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, &c., and the utmost excitement prevailed. During the day armed bodies poured in, and the surrounding country was soon transformed into a state of war. A company of railroad [sic]embloyees at Martinsburgh, and commanded by Captain Alburtis, were among the first to arrive. They made a bold dash at a building where the workmen were mostly confined, and released them. Capt. Alburtis also, at three o'clock Monday afternoon, captured the bridge. In the fight three of his men were wounded. Their names were Dorsey, Bowman and Holbert, all freight conductors. One man named Richardson was killed.

Monday night the military from Baltimore and Washington arrived. They found the insurgent confined to the Armory buildings. Several conferences were had with Captain Brown. Not finding the slaves rising in revolt as he expected, and seeing himself and his little handfull of men surrounded by [sic]rapaidly increasing forces, he proposed to abandon the enterprise and the