A Cairo correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, writing under
date of the 26th instant, says:
“It seems that there is in Cairo an organized band of
unprincipled scoundrels who had for some time before the inauguration of the
war been engaged in the nefarious business of kidnapping negroes whom chance or
business brought to Cairo, and running them off to Kentucky and Tennessee and
selling them into Slavery. At the head
of this gang are sons of persons of high social position, resident in this city
and elsewhere in Egypt. When Capt.
Turnley of the Quartermaster’s Department, came to Cairo, he found half a dozen
intelligent contrabands, whom he fed, clothed, and employed as laborers in his
Department. – Some time yesterday a man representing himself as a resident of
Chicago, endeavored to induce them to go with him, telling them that they were
free, and offered $30 a month for their services. They refused the flattering offer, and an
attempt was made by a mob, evidently controlled by the parties of standing
above alluded to, to take possession of them.
This plan failed, and the negroes were placed in jail for safe
keeping. To-morrow the matter will be
inquired into by the Provost-Marshal, and the guilty punished.”
– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 12, 1862, p. 4
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