ing, there were
even greater ones in the way of supplying the recruits with proper arms,
or with any arms at all for that matter. But vast as were the
difficulties, the leaders fronted them with buoyant and unquailing
spirit, and rose, where other men of less faith and courage would have
given up in despair, to the level of seeming impossibilities, and to the
top of a truly appalling situation. Where were they, indeed, to procure
arms? There was a blacksmith among them, who was set to manufacturing
pike-heads and bayonets, and to turning long knives into daggers and
dirks. Arms in the houses of the white folks they designed to borrow
after the manner of the Jews from the Egyptians. But for their main
supply they counted confidently upon the successful seizure, by means of
preconcerted movements, of the principal places of deposit of arms
within the limits of the city, of which there were several. The capture
of these magazines and storehouses was quite within the range of
probability, for every one of them was at the time in a comparatively
unprotected state. Two large gun and powder stores, situated about three
and a half miles beyond the Lines, and containing nearly eight hundred
muskets and bayonets, were, by arrangement with Negro employees
connected with them, at the mercy of the insurgents whenever they were
ready to move upon them. The large building in the city, where was
deposited the greater portion of the arms of the State, was strangely
neglected in the same regard. Its main entrance, opening on the street,
consisted of ordinary wooden doors, without the interposition between
them and the public of even a brick wall.

In the general plan of attack, the capture of this building, which held
tactically the key to the defense of Charleston, in the event of a slave
uprising, was assigned to Peter Poyas, the ablest of Vesey's lieutenants.
Peter, probably disguised by means of false hair and whiskers, was at a
given signal at midnight of the appointed day, to move suddenly with his
band upon this important post. The difficulty of the undertaking lay in
the vigilance of the sentinels doing a duty before this building, and
its success depended upon Peter's ability to surprise and slay this man
before he could sound the alarm. Peter was confident of his ability to
kill the sentinel and capture the building, and I think that he had good
ground for his confidence. In conversation with an anxious follower, who
feared les