Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1868-07-28
Shirt nf ye6ers0lr.
LOCAL MISCELLANY.
The Riot of the 18th.

..;o, chat its inheritance demands, until 1t
sboll be investigated at the October term of
,be c;rcuit court but the efforts OF the Free
1,.,ss 70 Mace our notice of the riot in false
loht before the public, compel US to notice
its article of last week. The editors profess
to be governed by twofold motive, which
they state to be: First, to put our citizens
on their guard against the designs of some of
the colored population under the teaching of
Northern emissaries, now operating for po-
htical effect and second, to do justice to the
young men who fought SO well, and against
such great odds, to prevent the negroes from
doing more serious damage.
Now it might be readily inferredi trom the
first of these propositions, that there is dan
ger to be apprehendcd from portion of the
colored population, and that there are those
in our midst, from the Northern States, who
are perverting the minds of the Ignorant
blacks, for political effect; and FIVE had any
positive evidence of anything Of the kind,
we should as heartily condemn it as the edit
ors of the Free Press. as we did year ago
when we discovered that Ames, Bracket and
others were organizing the negroes of this
community into Union Leagues. But the
general conduct of the negroes here, which
has been commended in the columns OF the
Free Prcss-as they will find by reference to
their fles-refutes the statement that they
have heretofore. or now contemplate any COL
Esion with the whites. In the main, they
have been respectful in their intercourse, and
have shown no disposition TO be turbulent or
offensive. IF there has been any departure
from this course, it has been when liquor was
producing its natural effect upon the parties
offending. This being true, we see no neces-
sity of making the affair of the llth the oc-
cas- lou of producing slarm, by representing 1t
as a premeditatcd thing on the part OF the
negroes The second motive that influences
the Free Press, to use its own language is ''to
do justice to the young men who fought SO
well, and against such great odds Now we
would like to know who has done them any
Injustice? What sentence in our notice Of
the riot, conveys the slightest injustice To
show that re did not, is easily demonstrated
by single quot .tion from our notice. which
we append. it refers to the scene in front
of the store of Trussell 4 Co. =
sFor several minutes the nrgrcca, who sccmcdto
bc greatly cnragcd stood in the street curslnS alte
men generally, rowing oil their coats, and daring
aCoufict AT this time the number OF whites I'M
InediateIy present was not more than hvc or sl%,
', hi st the negroes, moderate estimate, must
have numbered thirty; each one vchcmcntly swear
ing and gcstcuatin% III the most arrogant and de-
tn1t Iua1ncr Mr.. James ". Galahcr and others
finally negro named John jackson struck Mr.. q
Lii rake fcIu.. him to the ground. Then COM
1ncnccd an indsC TIminaIc hyhI maintained at trst
nv the White men ut great odds--at least hive to one,
until the citizens of the town gathered at the scene
A complete rock battle ragged Tor the time, and fu-
riousIy IN" assaIed each other"
If there is any injustice here, we shall feel
ourselves under obligations to the editors OF
the Free Press to point it out. Again, the
Free Press says in effect that we have accused
these young men of participation IN a "dl unken
row." We have done no such thing, and
none other than distorted imagination could
give such an Interpretation to our notice. We
stated. and still maintain, that the riot was the
result of indulgence in liquor, and our article
on the subject distinctly placed the charge OF
drunkenness at the door OF the negroes. We
never alleged or implied that single white
man engaged was intoxicated whilst tie
Free Press in two separate issues OF its paper
charges that there was one white man drunk
on the occasion. So that if the whites have
suffered any injustice it has been from the
notice of the Free Press, and not from those
which appeared in these columns. BESIDES:
the Free Press in its first issue after the riot,
took no exceptions to our notice, which
appeared two days before-except that 1t re-
terrcd to the fact that VIC had inadvertently
left Mr.. Jas. N GalIahcr on the ground when
knocked down by John jackson, negro. The
truth is, comparison of our first article with
that of the Free Press will show no material
difference in the statements made by the two
papers and yet, in its last issue the editors
claim that their notice was written lin an en-
deavor to correct the false impressions made
on the minds of the readers of the SPIRIT by
its account Of the riot" In our notice, we
said
"Harvcst having just ended, the negroes locked
to town on Saturday morning to divest themselves
ton of VIII: oh they spent in the dr mixing houses OF
the town. Al a matter of course they were cTaZed
by the influence oil the ardent, anu uThS 'L-c ""o'|
morning they were moving about the streets with
fame language This was naturally calculated to
provoke conflict
The Free Ircss, two days after, in its
account used the following language -
"l.ast Saturday seemed unusually hrisk-harvcst
having just ended and harvcsters flush with green
backs. were spending their earnings according to
their inclinations. IL what Our business men
expected and by tempting wares had prepared for
The day, until meridian, passed in the ordinary
way with occasional noisy and disaSrccablc eJacu-
Iations from hilarious spir:ts.'
., Aud so throughout the two articles there is
singular correspondence of statement, which
would lead to the conclusion that the occur
renccs of that Saturday were accurately
detailed hy both the only difference being,