Daily Constitutionalist
Augusta, Georgia
May 19, 1861
The Galveston Civilian, of the 14th instant, says:
We had a telegraphic dispatch yesterday showing that the people of the Northern counties apprehended some difficulty with the United States troops at Fort Washita. Some very exaggerated reports seem to have grown out of the affair in Eastern Texas. The New Orleans Picayune, of Sunday, was informed by passengers by the steamer J. M. Sharp, From Jefferson, Texas, that news reached that place on Tuesday last, by express, in a letter to J. M. & J. C. Murphy, that Montgomery, of Kansas notoriety, at the head of three thousand men, had taken Fort Washita. Messengers had been sent to Marshall and other places for men, money, guns, powder and lead. The same reports had reached Shreveport, La., and volunteers were turning out there to march against the marauders.
The following is, we presume, about all the foundation for these reports: James E. Harrison, Esq., one of the late commissioners to the Indian nation, has returned to Austin, and the State Gazette says:
“He thinks that there is ground for apprehending an incursion of the Black Republicans by the way of the Indian country.”
“He thinks that there is ground for apprehending an incursion of the Black Republicans by the way of the Indian country.”
The Chickasaw Indians having called on Gen. Young for protection, through Gov. Harris of the Indian Nation, the former crossed over Red River into the Indian country at the head of some six hundred or seven hundred Texans, and would pursue the twelve United States companies who had refused to deliver up their arms at the command of Gov. Harris, and were marching to Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas.
Gen. Young had some time ago been authorised to raise a regiment of one thousand men for the protection of the frontier of Texas.
The State Gazette says, of the Texans who were going to reinforce Gen. Young, that they were “taking up their line of march for the Indian country, with the view of capturing the U. S. forts, and interposing an obstacle to the anticipated descent of a horde of Kansas freedom shriekers upon our Northern frontier.”
We suspect that Maj. Montgomery, of the U. S. Army, lately in command at Fort Smith, has been confounded with the Kansas brigand of the same name. The U. S. troops from Fort Smith had retired by way of Fort Washita, we believe.
Some thousands of Texans are doubtless on the frontier by this, and have taken all the necessary steps to defend the State against any incursion that may have been contemplated, if any has.