“By this time, my company amounted to fifteen, nine men mounted, who started for Mrs. Whitehead’s, (the other six were to go through a by-way to Mr. Bryant’s, and rejoin us at Mrs. Whitehead’s).
“As we approached the house, we discovered Mr. Richard Whitehead standing in the cotton patch, near the lane fence; we called him over into the lane, and Will, the executioner, was near at hand, with his fatal axe, to send him to an untimely grave. As we pushed on to the house, I discovered some one running around the garden, and thinking it was some of the white family, I pursued; but finding it was a servant girl belonging to the house, I returned to commence the work of death; but they whom I left had not been idle; all the family were already murdered but Mrs. Whitehead and her daughter Margaret. As I came round to the door, I saw Will pulling Mrs. Whitehead out of the house, and at the step he nearly severed her head from her body with his broadaxe. Miss Margaret, when I discovered her, had concealed herself in the corner formed by the projection of the cellar cap from the house; on my approach she fled, but was soon overtaken, and after repeated blows with a sword, I killed her with a blow over the head with a fence rail. By this time the six who had gone by Mr. Bryant’s rejoined us, and informed me they had done the work of death assigned them.
“We again divided, part going to Mr. Richard Porter’s, and from thence to Nathaniel Francis’s, the others to Mr. Howell Harris’s and Mr. T. Doyles’s. On my reaching Mr. Porter’s, he had escaped with his family. I understood there that the alarm had already spread, and I immediately returned to bring up those sent to Mr. Doyles’s and Mr. Howell Harris’s; the party I left going on to Mr. Francis’s, having told them I would join them in that neighborhood. I met those sent to Mr. Doyles’s and Mr. Howell Harris’s returning, having met Mr. Doyles on the road and killed him.
“Learning from some who joined them that Mr. Harris was from home, I immediately pursued the course taken by the party gone on before; but knowing that they would complete the work of death and pillage at Mr. Francis’s before I could get there, I went to Mr. Peter Edwards’s, expecting to find them there; but they had been there already. I then went to Mr. John T. Barrows’s; they had been there and murdered him. I pursued on their track to Captain Newitt Harris’s. I found the greater part mounted and ready to start; the men, now amounting to about forty, shouted and hurrahed as I rode up; some were in the yard loading their guns, others drinking. They said Captain Harris and his family had escaped; the property in the house they destroyed, robbing him of money and other valuables.
“I ordered them to mount and march instantly; this was about nine or ten o’clock, Monday morning. I proceeded to Mr. Levi Waller’s, two or three miles distant. I took my station in the rear, and as it was my object to carry terror and devastation wherever we went, I placed fifteen or twenty of the best mounted and most to be relied on in front, who generally approached the houses as fast as their horses could run. This was for two purposes; to prevent their escape, and strike terror to the inhabitants. On this account I never got to the houses, after leaving Mrs. Whitehead’s, until the murders were committed, except in one case. I sometimes got in sight in time to see the work of death completed, view the mangled bodies as they lay, in silent satisfaction, and immediately start in quest of other victims. Having murdered Mrs. Waller and ten children, we started for Mr. William Williams’s. We killed him and two little boys that were there: while engaged in this, Mrs. Williams fled, and got some distance from the house; but she was pursued, overtaken, and compelled to get up behind one of the company, who brought her back, and after showing her the mangled body of her lifeless husband, she was told to get down and lie by his side, where she was shot dead.
“I then started for Mr. Jacob Williams’s, where the family were murdered. Here we found a young man named Drury, who had come on business with Mr. Williams; he was pursued, overtaken, and shot. Mrs. Vaughan’s was the next place we visited; and after murdering the family here, I determined on starting for Jerusalem. Our number amounted now to fifty or sixty, all mounted and armed with guns, axes, swords, and clubs. On reaching Mr. James W. Parker’s gate, immediately on the road leading to Jerusalem, and about three miles distant, it was proposed to me to call there; but I objected, as I knew he was gone to Jerusalem, and my object was to reach there as soon as possible; but some of the men having relations at Mr. Parker’s, it was agreed that they might call and get his people.
“I remained at the gate on the road, with seven or eight, the others going across the field to the house, about half a mile off. After waiting some time for them, I became impatient, and started to the house for them, and on our return we were met by a party of white men, who had pursued our blood-stained track, and who had fired on those at the gate, and dispersed them, which I knew nothing of, not having been at that time rejoined by any of them. Immediately on discovering the whites, I ordered my men to halt and form, as they appeared to be alarmed. The white men, eighteen in number, approached us within about one hundred yards, when one of them fired, and I discovered about half of them retreating. I then ordered my men to fire and rush on them; the few remaining stood their ground until we approached within fifty yards, when they fired and retreated.
“We pursued and overtook some of them, whom we thought we left dead; after pursuing them about two hundred yards, and rising a little hill, I discovered they were met by another party, and had halted, and were reloading their guns, thinking that those who retreated first, and the party who fired on us at fifty or sixty yards distant, had only fallen back to meet others with ammunition. As I saw them reloading their guns, and more coming up than I saw at first, and several of my bravest men being wounded, the others became panic-stricken, and scattered over the field; the white men pursued and fired on us several times. Hark had his horse shot under him, and I caught another for him that was running by me; five or six of my men were wounded, but none left on the field. Finding myself defeated here, I instantly determined to go through a private way, and cross the Nottoway River at the Cypress Bridge, three miles below Jerusalem, and attack that place in the rear, as I expected they would look for me on the other road, and I had a great desire to get there to procure arms and ammunition.”
Reënforcements came to the whites, and the blacks were overpowered and defeated by the superior numbers of their enemy. In this battle many were slain on both sides. Will, the bloodthirsty and revengeful slave, fell with his broad-axe uplifted, after having laid three of the whites dead at his feet with his own strong arm and his terrible weapon. His last words were, “Bury my axe with me;” for he religiously believed that in the next world the blacks would have a contest with the whites, and that he would need his axe. Nat Turner, after fighting to the last with his short-sword, escaped with some others to the woods near by, and was not captured for nearly two months. He had aroused the entire country by his deeds, and for sixty days had eluded a thousand armed men on his track. When taken, although half starved, and exhausted by fatigue, like a fox after a weary chase, he stood erect and dignified, proud and haughty, amid his captors, his sturdy, compact form, marked features, and flashing eye, declaring him to be every inch a man.
When brought to trial, he pleaded “not guilty;” feeling, as he said, that it was always right for one to strike for his own liberty. After going through a mere form of trial, he was convicted and executed at Jerusalem, the county seat for Southampton County, Virginia. Not a limb trembled nor a muscle was observed to move. Thus died Nat Turner, at the early age of thirty-one years—a martyr to the freedom of his race, and a victim to his own fanaticism. He meditated upon the wrongs of his oppressed and injured people, till the idea of their deliverance excluded all other ideas from his mind, and he devoted his life to its realization. Everything appeared to him a vision, and all favorable omens were signs from God. That he was sincere in all that he professed, there is not the slightest doubt. After being defeated, he might have escaped to the free states, but the hope of raising a new band kept him from doing so.