Nottoway River at the Cypress Bridge, three miles below Jerusalem, and attack that place in the rear, as I expected they would look for me on the other road, and I had a great desire to get there to procure arms and ammunition."
Reënforcements came to the whites, and the blacks were overpowerd and defeated by the superior numbers of their enemy. In this battle many were slain on both sides. Will, the bloodthirsty and revengeful slave, fell with his broad-axe uplifted, after having laid three of the whites dead at his feet with his own strong arm and his terrible weapon. His last words were, "Bury my axe with me;" for he religiously believed that in the next world the blacks would have a contest with the whites, and that he would need his axe. Nat Turner, after fighting to the last with his short-sword, escaped with some others to the woods near by, and was not captured for nearly two months. He had aroused the entire country by his deeds, and for sixty days had eluded a thousand armed men on his track. When taken, although half starved, and exhausted by fatigue, like a fox after a weary chase, he stood erect and dignified, proud and haughty, amid his captors, his sturdy, compact form, marked features, and flashing eye, declaring him to be every inch a man.
When brought to trial, he pleaded "not guilty;" feeling, as he said, that it was always right for one to strike for his own liberty. After going through a mere form of trial, he was convicted and executed at Jerusalem, the county seat for Southampton County, Virginia. Not a limb trembled nor a muscle was observed to move. Thus died Nat Turner, at the early
