Meanwhile the panic of the whites continued; for, though all others might be disposed of, Nat Turner was still at large.  We have positive evidence of the extent of the alarm, although great efforts were afterwards made to represent it as a trifling affair.  A distinguished citizen of Virginia wrote three months later to the Hon. W.B.  Seabrook of South Carolina,—­“From all that has come to my knowledge during and since that affair, I am convinced most fully that every black preacher in the country east of the Blue Ridge was in the secret.”  “There is much reason to believe,” says the Governor’s message on December 6th, “that the spirit of insurrection was not confined to Southampton.  Many convictions have taken place elsewhere, and some few in distant counties.”  The withdrawal of the United States troops, after some ten days’ service, was a signal for fresh excitement, and an address, numerously signed, was presented to the United States Government, imploring their continued stay.  More than three weeks after the first alarm, the Governor sent a supply of arms into Prince William, Fauquier, and Orange Counties.  “From examinations which have taken place in other counties,” says one of the best newspaper historians of the affair, (in the “Richmond Enquirer” of September 6th,) “I fear that the scheme embraced a wider sphere than I at first supposed.”  Nat Turner himself, intentionally or otherwise, increased the confusion by denying all knowledge of the North Carolina outbreak, and declaring that he had communicated his plans to his four confederates within six months; while, on the other hand, a slave-girl, sixteen or seventeen years old, belonging to Solomon Parker, notified that she had heard the subject discussed for eighteen months, and that at a meeting held during the previous May some eight or ten had joined the plot.

It is astonishing to discover, by laborious comparison of newspaper files, how vast was the immediate range of these insurrectionary alarms.  Every Southern State seems to have borne its harvest of terror.  On the Eastern shore of Maryland great alarm was at once manifested, especially in the neighborhood of Easton and Snowhill; and the houses of colored men were searched for arms even in Baltimore.  In Delaware, there were similar rumors through Sussex and Dover Counties; there were arrests and executions; and in Somerset County great public meetings were held, to demand additional safeguards.  On election-day, in Seaford, Del., some young men, going out to hunt rabbits, discharged their guns in sport; the men being absent, all the women in the vicinity took to flight; the alarm spread like the “Ipswich Fright”; soon Seaford was thronged with armed men; and when the boys returned from hunting, they found cannon drawn out to receive them.