the slaves. An express to Petersburg further
fixed the number of militia at three hundred, and of blacks at eight
hundred, and invented a convenient shower of rain to explain the
dampened ardor of the whites. Later reports described the slaves as
making three desperate attempts to cross the bridge over the Nottoway
between Cross Keys and Jerusalem, and stated that the leader had been
shot in the attempt. Other accounts put the number of negroes at three
hundred, all well mounted and armed, with two or three white men as
leaders. Their intention was supposed to be to reach the Dismal Swamp,
and they must be hemmed in from that side.

Indeed, the most formidable weapon in the hands of slave-insurgents is
always this blind panic they create, and the wild exaggerations which
follow. The worst being possible, every one takes the worst for granted.
Undoubtedly a dozen armed men could have stifled this insurrection, even
after it had commenced operations; but it is the fatal weakness of a
slaveholding community, that it can never furnish men promptly for such
a purpose, "My first intention was," says one of the most intelligent
newspaper narrators of the affair, "to have attacked them with thirty or
forty men; but those who had families here were strongly opposed to it."

As usual, each man was pinioned to his own hearth-stone. As usual, aid
had to be summoned from a distance, and, as usual, the United States
troops were the chief reliance. Colonel House, commanding at
Fort Monroe, sent at once three companies of artillery under
Lieutenant-Colonel Worth, and embarked them on board the steamer Hampton
for Suffolk. These were joined by detachments from the United States
ships Warren and Natchez, the whole amounting to nearly eight hundred
men. Two volunteer companies went from Richmond, four from Petersburg,
one from Norfolk, one from Portsmouth, and several from North Carolina.
The militia of Norfolk, Nansemond, and Princess Anne Counties, and the
United States troops at Old Point Comfort, were ordered to scour the
Dismal Swamp, where it was believed that two or three thousand fugitives
were preparing to join the insurgents. It was even proposed to send two
companies from New York and one from New London to the same point.

When these various forces reached Southampton County, they found
all labor paralyzed and whole plantations abandoned. A letter from
Jerusalem, dated August 24th, says, "The oldest inhabitant of our county