Page updated 08/12/2004.
The following occurred during the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861. Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia, ex-member of Congress, was one of the second deputation that waited upon Major Anderson. He was the very embodiment of Southern chivalry. Literally dressed to kill, bristling with bowie-knives and revolvers, like a walking arsenal, he appeared to think himself individually capable of capturing the fort, without any extraneous assistance. Inside of the fort he seemed to think himself master of every thing—monarch of all he surveyed—and, in keeping with this pretension, seeing upon the table what appeared to be a glass of brandy, drank it without ceremony. Surgeon (afterward General) Crawford, who had witnessed the feat, approached him and said: "Sir, what you have drank is poison—it was the iodide of potassium—you are a dead man!" The representative of chivalry instantly collapsed, bowie-knives, revolvers and all, and passed into the hands of Surgeon Crawford, who, by purgings, pumpings, and pukings, defeated his own prophecy in regard to his fate. Mr. Pryor left Fort Sumter a "wiser if not a better man."
____________
visitors since 04/04/2004
Page updated 08/12/2004.