On the night of Sunday, August 21, Nat opened the insurrection. A misunderstanding in regard to the date deprived him of a few of his followers, but, at the head of a small party which increased in numbers as it proceeded, he went from house to house murdering every white person that could be found. It is characterized as a massacre “barbarous beyond degree.” Depredations, murders, and the most revolting crimes were committed in cold blood. Before the insurrection was put down about sixty whites,—men, women and children,—were slaughtered. The condition of affairs in Southampton for about ten days after the massacre is best described by a committee of citizens in a letter to President Jackson, on the 29th of August, of which the following is an extract: “Most of the havoc has been confined to a limited section of our county, but so inhuman has been the butchery, so indiscriminate the carnage, that the tomahawk and scalping knife have now no horrors. Along the road traveled by our rebellious blacks, comprising a distance of something like twenty-seven miles, no white soul now lives to tell how fiendlike was their purpose. In the bosom of almost every family this enemy still exists. Our homes, those near the scenes of havoc, as well as others more remote, have all been deserted and our families gathered together and guarded at public places in the county; and, still further, the excitement is so great that were the justices to pronounce a slave innocent, we fear a mob would be the consequence.”[140] Many of the rebellious slaves were shot on sight and some innocent negroes suffered. Some prisoners taken near Cross Keys were shot by the Murfreesboro troops and their heads were left for weeks stuck up on poles as a warning to all who should undertake a similar plot. The captain of the marines, as they marched through Vicksville on their way home, bore upon his sword the head of a rebel. A negress who attempted to kill a Mrs. Francis was dragged out, after she had been taken prisoner, tied to an oak tree, and her body riddled with bullets. It is said that some of the slaves suffered fearful torture, being burnt with red-hot irons and their bodies being horribly mutilated, before death came to their relief. Nat was persecuted with pin-pricks and soundly whipped before he was put in jail to await his trial.