"Arms and ammunition were dispatched in wagons to the county of Southampton. The four volunteer companies of Petersburgh, the dragoons and Lafayette artillery company of Richmond, one volunteer company from Norfolk and one from Portsmouth, and the regiments of Southampton and Sussex, were at once ordered out. The cavalry and infantry took up their line of march on Tuesday evening, while the artillery embarked on the steamer 'Norfolk,' and landed at Smithfield.... A member of the Richmond dragoons, writing from Petersburgh, under date of the 23d, after careful examination, thought that 'about two hundred and fifty negroes from a camp-meeting about the Dismal Swamp had murdered about sixty, persons, none of them families much known.'"[33] Will., the revengeful slave, proved himself the most destructive and cruel of Nat.'s followers. A hand to hand battle came. The whites were well armed, and by the force of their superior numbers overcame the army of the "Prophet,"--five men. Will. would not surrender. He laid three white men dead at his feet, when he fell mortally wounded. His last words were: "Bury my axe with me," believing that in the next world he would need it for a similar purpose. Nat. fought with great valor and skill with a short sword, and finding it useless to continue the struggle, escaped with some of his followers to the swamps, where he defied the vigilance of the military and the patient watching of the citizens for more than two months. He was finally compelled to surrender. When the Court asked: "Guilty or not guilty?" he pleaded: "Not guilty." He was sustained during his trial by his unfaltering faith in God. Like Joan of Arc, he "heard the spirits," the "voices," and believed that God had "sent him to free His people." In the impression of the "Enquirer" of the 30th of August, 1831, the first editorial, or leader, is under the caption of THE BANDITTE. The editor says: "They remind one of a parcel of blood-thirsty wolves rushing down from the Alps; or, rather like a former incursion of the Indians upon the white settlements. Nothing is spared: neither age nor sex respected--the helplessness of women and children pleads in vain for mercy.... The case of Nat. Turner warns us. No black-man ought to be permitted to turn a Preacher through the country. The law must be enforced--or the tragedy of Southampton appeals to us in vain."[34]