Today I purchased a through ticket to New Orleans for which I paid $48-- and left Baltimore at 10 O'clock A.M. and arrived at Washington City at 11½ O'Clock & put up at the U.S. Hotel. expenses at Baltimore $16.50. weather clear & warm.
On this date . . . the 4th day of August . . . in the year 1860 . . . while J.M. Hall and his father, Joshua James Hall, are en route back home to Houston County, Texas from New York City . . . W.E. Moore, Asst. Marshal in Houston County, Texas enumerated the following Hall household at their Elkhart residence . . .
YAZOO DEMOCRAT [Yazoo City, MS], August 4, 1860, p. 1, c. 3. The Crocket (Texas) Argus says: that "during the last term of the District Court of Grimes County, eighteen free negroes went into voluntary servitude to different persons in the vicinity of Anderson. Two families to Wm. Berryman, two men to Angus Passmore, and one man to Robert McIntyre, two families to James W. Barnes, and one woman to John R. Kenard.
BELLVILLE [TX] COUNTRYMAN, August 4, 1860, p. 2, c. 6. The Abolition Plot in Texas. We extract the following from a letter to the Houston Telegraph, from Dallas, giving further particulars of the extensive Abolition plot discovered there a few days ago:
The outhouses, granaries, oats and grain of Mr. Crill Miller, were destroyed a few days after the destruction of Dallas. This led to the arrest of some white men, whose innocence, however, was proved beyond a doubt. Several negroes belonging to Mr. Miller, were taken up and examined, and developments of the most startling character elicited. A plot to destroy the country was revealed, and every circumstance even to the minutiae, detailed. Nearly or quite a hundred negroes have been arrested, and upon a close examination, separate and apart from each other, they deposed to the existence of a plot or conspiracy to lay waste the country by fire and assassination — to impoverish the land by the destruction of the provisions, arms and ammunition, and then when in a state of helplessness, a general revolt of the negroes was to begin on the first Monday in August, the day of election for the State officers. This conspiracy is aided and abetted by abolition emissaries from the North, and by those in our midst.
The details of the plot and its modus operandi, are these: each county in Northern Texas has a supervisor in the person of a white man, whose name is not given; each county is laid off into districts under the sub-agents of this villain, who control the action of the negroes in the districts, by whom the firing was to be done. Many of our most prominent citizens were singled out for assassination whenever they made their escape from their burning homes. Negroes never before suspected, are implicated, and the insurrectionary movement is widespread to an extent truly alarming. In some places the plan was conceived in every form shocking to the mind, and frightful in its results. Poisoning was to be added, the old females to be slaughtered along with the men, and the young and handsome women to be parceled out amongst these infamous scoundrels. They had even gone so far as to designate their choice, and certain ladies had already been selected as the victims of those misguided monsters.
Fortunately, the country has been saved from the accomplishment of these horrors; but then, a fearful duty remains for us. The negroes have been incited to these infernal proceedings by abolitionists, and the emissaries of certain preachers who were expelled from this county last year. Their agents have been busy amongst us, and many of them have been in our midst. Some of them have been identified, but have fled from the country; others still remain, to receive a fearful accountability from an outraged and infuriated people. Nearly a hundred negroes have testified that a large reinforcement of abolitionists are expected on the first of August, and these to be aided by recruits from the Indian tribes, while the Rangers are several hundred miles to the North of us. It was desired to destroy Dallas, in order that the arms and ammunition of the artillery company might share the same fate.
Our jail is filled with the villains, many of whom will be hung and that very soon. A man was found hung at our neighboring city of Fort Worth, two days ago, believed to be one of those scoundrels who are engaged in this work. We learn that he had stored away a number of rifles, and the day after he was hung a load of six-shooters passed on to him, but were intercepted. He was betrayed by one of the gang, and hence his plans were thwarted. Many others will share his fate.
I have never witnessed such times. We are most profoundly excited. We go armed day and night, and know not what we shall be called upon to do.
YAZOO DEMOCRAT [Yazoo City, MS], August 4, 1860, p. 2, c. 3. The Abolition Plot in Texas. . . . The Galveston News of the 28th furnishes further particulars, as follows: We learn from a gentleman, a resident of Ellis county, who left Waxahatchie on Monday last, and arrived this morning, some further details of the results of the discovery of the diabolical abolition plot, that was to sweep over Northern Texas with the incendiary's torch and murderer's weapon.
In Dallas and Ellis counties, committees, composed of the coolest, steadiest and most respectable citizens, were appointed, and were at work all last week investigating the whole affair. No one but those immediately interested knows who compose the committees, nor where or when they meet, or what they are doing. Their chief object is to ascertain what whites are at the bottom of the plot. No one else interferes in the investigation.
In Ellis, the County Court has organized patrols on an extensive and well managed system.
The negroes' confessions — made apart and at great distances — concur in the leading points; and all ever [sic] white men originated the plot and directed their movements.
They promised the negroes their liberty and their masters' goods, etc., and to lead them to Kansas; the negroes were told also that the next President would be a Northern man, who would free them all.
The negroes concerned in Ellis county were principally of mature age and those allowed by their owners a good deal of liberty. The young ones were not allowed to participate in the plot, and many were not trusted with the secret at all. Their idea was to burn all the stores where arms and ammunition were kept; and on election day—the 6th August, when the citizens were away from their farms and houses—the negroes were to rise, seize on all arms, and, headed by their white leaders, to attack the houses here and there, murder defenseless women, burn and destroy, and finally, it is presumed, march off in a body towards Kansas.
Waxahatchie was to have been set fire to on the 8th — the same day Dallas and so many other places were fired; but an accidental fire in the town, that day, aroused the citizens, and the negro appointed to the deed became alarmed, and left. He was to have returned and repeated the attempt last Sunday, had not the plot been discovered.
Note from Keeper of the Blog . . . I currently live in Ellis County, Texas . . . 10 miles from Waxahachie . . . both of which are mentioned in these news reports . . .
