NP, RD 4/3/1861

From the Richmond Dispatch
 
April 3, 1861
 
Editors of the Dispatch
   A communication regarding Mr. Thos. R. Sharp, which appeared in your yesterday issue, is false in its main facts. True Mr. Sharp was born in Pennsylvania, but his parents were natives of the Southern State of Delaware, and he came to Virginia while an infant, and has been educated and reared in the city of Richmond, among your own citizens, and is truly, in every sense, a Southern man. He is also charged with seceding from a Southern railroad without leave or license; this is false, and can be proved by such testimony as would give the lie to the assertion. He was induced, at the solicitation of his friends, to resign his position at the South and apply for the office of Superintendent of the Richmond & York River Railroad, and the testimonials which he procured from the railroad with which he was connected at the South, of his qualifications as an Engineer and Superintendent, were of so high a character as to secure for him the unanimous vote of the President and Directors of that road. These testimonials can be shown, and the former President and Directors of the York River Railroad will fully substantiate this statement. His leaving that road was a personal matter entirely, for proof of which, the public are referred to the former President of the road. So much for the covert attack of "A Tax-Payer and Gas-Consumer."
   As a practical engineer, and one able to manage and conduct the Gas Works, Mr. Sharp has not his superior, and if elected, will not have to pay for the learning to fulfill the duties of the office. It is a curious fact that he should be so assailed, when a near relative of the present incumbent, if report speaks truly, has not only applied, but has actually been appointed to an office, (against the known wishes of almost every man, woman, and child in Richmond,) by a Black Republican President. Truly, "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones." Mr. Fry may be or may not be a "Southern man;" with this we have nothing to do, but it is natural to suppose that those who would accept at the hands of Abe Lincoln any office in a Southern city, surely have the seeds of Black Republicanism in them.
   Also, a Tax-Payer and Gas Consumer, and a True Out and Out Southern Man.

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