found on a stake and his pistol lying by him; another was found drowned;
others were traced to the Dismal Swamp; others returned to their homes,
and tried to conceal their share in the insurrection, assuring their
masters that they had been forced, against their will, to join,--the
usual defence in such cases. The number shot down at random must, by all
accounts, have amounted to many hundreds, but it is past all human
registration now. The number who had a formal trial, such as it was, is
officially stated at fifty-five; of these, seventeen were convicted and
hanged, twelve convicted and transported, twenty acquitted, and four free
colored men sent on for further trial and finally acquitted. "Not one of
those known to be concerned escaped." Of those executed, one only was a
woman, "Lucy, slave of John T. Barrow."

There is one touching story, in connection with these terrible
retaliations, which rests on good authority, that of the Rev. M. B. Cox,
a Liberian missionary, then in Virginia. In the hunt which followed the
massacre, a slaveholder went into the woods, accompanied by a faithful
slave, who had been the means of saving his life during the insurrection.
When they had reached a retired place in the forest, the man handed his
gun to his master, informing him that he could not live a slave any
longer, and requesting him either to free him or shoot him on the spot.
The master took the gun, in some trepidation, levelled it at the faithful
negro, and shot him through the heart. It is probable that this
slaveholder was a Dr. Blunt,--his being the only plantation where the
slaves were reported as thus defending their masters. "If this be true,"
said the Richmond _Enquirer_, when it first narrated this instance of
loyalty, "great will be the desert of these noble-minded Africans."

Meanwhile the panic of the whites continued; for, though all others might
be disposed of, Nat Turner was still at large. We have positive evidence