The First War Achievement in Cincinnati

Here is another interesting article from The Covington Journal of April 20, 1861,

It takes this from a Cincinnati newspaper.

The First War Achievement in Cincinnati
The following is from the Cincinnati Times of Wednesday evening. The article furnishes its own comment:
"Soon after a great excitement was produced by a rumor that eight tons of holster pistols and guns were aboard of a steamer at the levee, having been shipped at Wheeling for the South.   An investigation was at once made by the proper authorities. It seems that the Ohio No. 8 has on board 23 boxes of guns and pistols. They were received at Parkersburg, Va., having come over the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. 


The boxes were directed to G.P.W., Little Rock, Arkansas, care of Johnson & Pen, (owners of the wharf boat,) Napoleon, Ark., and it was further discovered that seven boxes of a similar nature had been brought down on the Fannie McBurnie, and shipped on the steamer Glendale, marked G.R., Memphis, Tennessee.


The Chief of Police and the Committee of the Home Guard will see that none of the boxes are forwarded. Legal means will be taken to retain them so there is no necessity for popular excitement relative to them. It is stated that a great many boxes of similar style have lately passed through the city by the same route. All discovered hereafter will be stopped. They will server to arm our Home Guard."


It will be noticed that the goods were consigned to citizens of the United States. The infamous suggestion at the close of the article is altogether characteristic.

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Note: the article itself does not make it clear, but that last paragraph seems to be a comment from the editor of the Journal though he had previously stated the story "furnished its own comment."

He was correct in that neither Arkansas nor Tennessee had announced their secession from the Union yet, so those individuals were still "citizens of the United States" at the moment of these seizures.