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After their loss to Chapel Hill, the Farmers and Mechanics are not seen again for some time on the gridiron. At least two newspapers made some erroneous reports regarding the team traveling to Oxford, North Carolina, on October 21st, with A&M's team supposedly stopping in Durham en route to a game against Horner Military School. Unfortunately, the team Horner played was actually Morson and Denson (or the Raleigh Male Academy), incidentally the first team A&M had ever played. Though two seperate newspapers reported the match to be initially between the Red and White and the Purple and Gold of Oxford, later reports, especially the account of the game found in the Wilmington Messenger, make clear that it was not A&M's team (Durham Daily Sun, October 21st, 1898, p. 4; The Wilmington Messenger, October 25th, 1898, p 8). Horner's team beat the Raleigh Male Academy 15-0, though some papers allude that the weather was not great, potentially impacting the result of the game. The only other recorded game of Horner's 1898 season was against the William Bingham School of Mebane, NC; Bingham won 24-6, though it should be noted that Bingham's team was described by some as the best prep school team in the state that season.

The earliest noted announcement of the game that I could find was published on November 10th, just two days before the game was played. The Durham Daily Sun ran a large ardvertisement for the game, in addition to a comment about the game, writing "Both of these schools have splendid teams this season, and the game will be a good one." The game, which took place at Durham's Trinity Park, was expected to be heavily attended by the citizens of Durham--Durhamites, as one paper labeled them. Not many people came from Oxford; the Sun wrote that "Some eighteen or twenty persons came over from Oxford last night to attend the foot ball game.... Of course the Horner School foot ball team was included in this number." If a delegation of any size joined the A&M boys, it was not noted in the Durham or Raleigh papers; normally, though, the local papers would say if a large group did enter or leave the city.

Though the game had originally been a front-page news piece, a lot of big news came over North Carolina over the few days between November 10th and the date of the game. In Wilmington, the Wilmington Race Riots had begun, and many newspapers rightfully dedicated large swathes of their pages to covering the events in The Port City; a "victory jubilee" of the Democratic Party of North Carolina was being organized in Raleigh to celebrate the political victories of the Democrats in the state; the Tar Heels had just obliterated the University of Georga 53-0 (or 44-0 according to the Georgian scoring system). In the mean time, the news of A&M's game went largely unpublished. The summary of the game in the Sun ran just one paragraph. The paragraph, in its entirity, read:

"Durhamites witnessed an interesting game of foot ball at Trinity Park, Saturday afternoon, between teams from the A. & M. College, of Raleigh, and Horner's School at Oxford. The result was that Horner's School was victorious by a score of 6 to 0. While the victors were very jubilant over their victory, the A. & M. boys took their defeat with good grace."

Meanwhile, local Raleigh papers failed to even mention the game until November 16th; by then, the report, buried deep in the 6th page of the News and Observer, read simply "The football team of Horner Military school were jubilant over the triumph which they gained Saturday on Trinity college grounds in the contest with the Agricultural and Mechanical boys. On their return they were met at the station by a torchlight procession and escorted to the Barracks amid cheers of victory" (Durham Daily Sun, November 10th, 1898, p. 1; Durham Daily Sun, November 12th, 1898, p. 1; Durham Daily Sun, November 14th, 1898, p. 4; News and Observer, November 16th, 1898, p. 6).