Washington, DC. If the posse had gone north to Baltimore, another likely escape route, the Pearl might have got away and reached its destination. When the Pearl arrived in Washington, a mob awaited the ship. Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayres, the two white captains, had to be taken into safety as pro-slavery people attacked them for threatening their control of property. The fugitive enslaved people were taken to a local jail. It was later reported that when somebody from the crowd asked the Edmonson girls if they were ashamed for what they had done, Emily replied proudly that they would do exactly the same thing again. Three days of riots and disturbances followed, as pro-slavery agitators attacked anti-slavery offices and presses in the city in an attempt to suppress the abolitionist movement. Most of the masters of the fugitive enslaved people decided to sell them quickly to slave traders, rather than provide another chance to escape. Fifty of the enslaved people were transported by train to Baltimore, from where they were sold and transported to the Deep South. New Orleans Despite Paul Edmonson's desperate efforts to delay the sale of his children so he could raise sufficient money to purchase their freedom, the slave trading partners Bruin & Hill from Alexandria, Virginia, bought the six Edmonson siblings. Under inhumane conditions, the siblings were transported by ship to New Orleans, where they were set at a very high price—$1,200 each. New Orleans was the largest slave market in the nation, and well known for selling "fancy girls" (pretty light-skinned enslaved young women) as sex slaves. Hamilton Edmonson, the eldest of the siblings, had already been living as a freeman for several years. He worked as a cooper. With the help of donations from a Methodist minister arranged by their father, Hamilton arranged for the purchase of his brother Samuel Edmonson by a prosperous New Orleans cotton merchant to work as his butler. When the merchant died in 1853, Samuel moved with that family and its other slaves to what is now the 1850 House in the Pontalba Buildings on Jackson Square. In New Orleans, the other siblings were forced to stay for days in an open porch facing the street waiting for buyers. The sisters were handled brusquely and exposed to obscene comments. Before the family could rescue the remainder of its members, a yellow fever epidemic erupted in New Orleans.