Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 267, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1913 — PRYOR’S ONE AWFUL MISTAKE [ARTICLE]

PRYOR’S ONE AWFUL MISTAKE

Helped Himself to What He Thought Was Brandy, But Which Proved to Be lodide of Potassium. 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 Maj. Anderson. He was 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. Inside the fort he seemed to think himself master, and, in keeping with this pretension, upon seeing what appeared to be a glass of brandy, drank it without ceremony. Surgeon (afterward General) Crawford, who had witnessed the act, approached him and said: "Sir, what you have drunk is poison—it was iodide of potassium.” . The representative of chivalry Instantly collapsed; bowie knives, revolvers and all. Surgeon Crawford immediately took him in hand, and after several hours’ hard work brought him around all right Pryor left Fort Sumter a “wiser if not a better man.”