The insurgents procured here four guns, several old muskets with a few rounds of ammunition. At the barn, under the command of Nat Turner the party was drilled and maneuvered. Nat Turner himself assumed the title of General Cargill with a stipend of ten dollars a day. Henry Porter, the paymaster, was to receive five dollars a day, and each private one dollar. Thence they marched from plantation to plantation until by Monday morning the party numbered fifteen with nine mounted. Before nine o'clock the force had increased to forty and the insurgents had covered an extent of territory two or three miles distant from the first point of attack, sweeping everything before them. Nat Turner generally took his station in the rear, with fifteen or twenty of the best armed and reliable men at the front, who generally approached the houses as fast as their horses could run for the double purpose of preventing escapes and striking terror. His force continued to increase until they numbered sixty, all armed with guns, axes, swords, and clubs, and mounted. This line of attack was kept up until late Monday afternoon, when they reached a point, about three miles distant from Jerusalem, the county seat, where Nat Turner reluctantly yielded to a halt while some of his forces went in search of reenforcements. He was eager to push on to the county seat as speedily as possible and capture it. This delay proved the turning point in the enterprise.
Impatient at the delay of his men who had turned aside, Turner started to the mansion house whither they had gone and on their return to the wood found a party of white men who had pursued the bloody path of the insurrectionists and disposed of the guard of eight men whom Turner had left at the roadside. The white men numbered eighteen and were under the command of Captain Alexander P. Peete. They had been directed to reserve their fire until within thirty paces, but one of their number fired on the insurgents when within about one hundred yards. Half of the whites beat a precipitate retreat when Nat Turner ordered his men to fire and rush on them. The few remaining white men stood their ground until Turner approached within fifty yards, when they too followed the example of their comrades, fired and retreated with several wounded. Turner pursued and overtook some of them and their complete slaughter was only prevented by the timely arrival of a party of whites approaching in another direction from Jerusalem.