Saturday, August 11th, 1860

To day I arrived at the wharf of Galveston at 6 a.m. and stoped at the Tremont Hotel, and left Galveston at 3 P.M. on the Steamer ?. expenses of the day $6.50. weather clear & warm.



YAZOO DEMOCRAT [Yazoo City, MS], August 11, 1860, p. 2, c. 5. The Incendiary Outrages in Texas. -- The Houston True Southern, of the 28th ult., has the following paragraph on this subject: Just as we are going to press, news has arrived here from a reliable source that 22 negroes have been arrested and are to be hung in Waxahatchie to-day.

Our fellow-citizen, Mr. H. L. Cotton, informs us that a letter was received by Thursday's mail, by his niece in this place, from Mrs. Bennett, of Austin, giving an account of a fearful attempt made about the 22d inst., to reduce our capitol to a heap of ashes. The daring experiment was made to set fire to some twenty-five of the principal edifices of the city; fortunately, however, the flames were discovered and extinguished before any serious damage had been sustained. On the night previous, the Austin correspondent to whom we are indebted for the intelligence we are recording, had been keeping vigils over the sick bed of a friend, when she observed a sheet of flame bursting from a neighboring house, which, in consequence of timely warning, the citizens were enable to arrest and save the building from impending ruin.

At present, says Mrs. Bennett, the whole population of the metropolis are under arms, and laboring under the most intense excitement. A police force, consisting of from sixty to ninety men, maintaining the strictest system of vigilance, by night and by day.

In all the counties visited lately by fires, committees to investigate the subject have been appointed, and the most efficient citizen patrols have been established. In Grimes county a meeting of citizens resolved: That there is among the negroes in the county a disposition to revolt and be insubordinate; that this feeling is produced by the influence of certain white persons in the county; that it is time steps be taken to rid the community of these men; that preaching to the negroes in the county be stopped, at least for one year; that Northerners coming into the county under pretence of being ministers, teachers, drummers, &c., are to be regarded with suspicion and received with caution; that a vigilance committee be appointed, patrols organized, and other measures for safety be taken.

A couple of suspicious strangers from Kansas are recollected as having been seen in Dallas two days before the fire, and a day or two afterward. They are thought to have had some agency in the work of destruction.