human being and returning always to his hole before daybreak.  Early on October 15 a dog smelt his provisions and led thither two Negroes.  Nat appealed to these men for protection, but they at once began to run and excitedly spread the news.  Turner fled in another direction and for ten days more hid among the wheat-stacks on the Francis plantation.  All the while not less than five hundred men were on the watch for him, and they found the stick that he had notched from day to day.  Once he thought of surrendering, and walked within two miles of Jerusalem.  Three times he tried to get away, and failed.  On October 25 he was discovered by Francis, who discharged at him a load of buckshot, twelve of which passed through his hat, and he was at large for five days more.  On October 30 Benjamin Phipps, a member of the patrol, passing a clearing in the woods noticed a motion among the boughs.  He paused, and gradually he saw Nat’s head emerging from a hole beneath.  The fugitive now gave up as he knew that the woods were full of men.  He was taken to the nearest house, and the crowd was so great and the excitement so intense that it was with difficulty that he was taken to Jerusalem.  For more than two months, from August 25 to October 30, he had eluded his pursuers, remaining all the while in the vicinity of his insurrection.

While Nat Turner was in prison, Thomas C. Gray, his counsel, received from him what are known as his “Confessions.”  This pamphlet is now almost inaccessible,[1] but it was in great demand at the time it was printed and it is now the chief source for information about the progress of the insurrection.  Turner was tried November 5 and sentenced to be hanged six days later.  Asked in court by Gray if he still believed in the providential nature of his mission, he asked, “Was not Christ crucified?” Of his execution itself we read:  “Nat Turner was executed according to sentence, on Friday, the 11th of November, 1831, at Jerusalem, between the hours of 10 A.M. and 2 P.M.  He exhibited the utmost composure throughout the whole ceremony; and, although assured that he might, if he thought proper, address the immense crowd assembled on the occasion, declined availing himself of the privilege; and, being asked if he had any further confessions to make, replied that he had nothing more than he had communicated; and told the sheriff in a firm voice that he was ready.  Not a limb or muscle was observed to move.  His body, after death, was given over to the surgeons for dissection.”

[Footnote 1:  The only copy that the author has seen is that in the library of Harvard University.]