It is reported by some of the contemporary newspapers, that a portion of this abstinence was the result of deliberate consultation among the insurrectionists; that some of them were resolved on taking the white women for wives, but were overruled by Nat Turner.  If so, he is the only American slave-leader of whom we know certainly that he rose above the ordinary level of slave vengeance, and Mrs. Stowe’s picture of Dred’s purposes is then precisely typical of his.  “Whom the Lord saith unto us, ‘Smite,’ them will we smite.  We will not torment them with the scourge and fire, nor defile their women as they have done with ours.  But we will slay them utterly, and consume them from off the face of the earth.”

When the number of adherents had increased to fifty or sixty, Nat Turner judged it time to strike at the county-seat, Jerusalem.  Thither a few white fugitives had already fled, and couriers might thence be despatched for aid to Richmond and Petersburg, unless promptly intercepted.  Besides, he could there find arms, ammunition, and money; though they had already obtained, it is dubiously reported, from eight hundred to one thousand dollars.  On the way it was necessary to pass the plantation of Mr. Parker, three miles from Jerusalem.  Some of the men wished to stop here and enlist some of their friends.  Nat Turner objected, as the delay might prove dangerous; he yielded at last, and it proved fatal.

He remained at the gate with six or eight men; thirty or forty went to the house, half a mile distant.  They remained too long, and he went alone to hasten them.  During his absence a party of eighteen white men came up suddenly, dispersing the small guard left at the gate; and when the main body of slaves emerged from the house, they encountered, for the first time, their armed masters.  The blacks halted, the whites advanced cautiously within a hundred yards and fired a volley; on its being returned, they broke into disorder, and hurriedly retreated, leaving some wounded on the ground.  The retreating whites were pursued, and were saved only by falling in with another band of fresh men from Jerusalem, with whose aid they turned upon the slaves, who in their turn fell into confusion.  Turner, Hark, and about twenty men on horseback retreated in some order; the rest were scattered.  The leader still planned to reach Jerusalem by a private way, thus evading pursuit; but at last decided to stop for the night, in the hope of enlisting additional recruits.

During the night the number increased again to forty, and they encamped on Major Ridley’s plantation.  An alarm took place during the darkness,—­whether real or imaginary does not appear,—­and the men became scattered again.  Proceeding to make fresh enlistments with the daylight, they were resisted at Dr. Blunt’s house, where his slaves, under his orders, fired upon them, and this, with a later attack from a party of white men near Captain Harris’s, so broke up the whole force that they never reunited.  The few who remained together agreed to separate for a few hours to see if anything could be done to revive the insurrection, and meet again that evening at their original rendezvous.  But they never reached it.