Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

Appendix I

APPENDIX I Nat Turner's Confessions As ANILLUSTRATION of the character and views ascribed to Dred, we make a few extracts from the Confessions of Nat Turner, as published by T. R. Gray, Esq., of Southampton, Virginia, in November , 1831. One of the principal conspirators in this affair was named Dred. We will first give the certificate of the court, and a few sentences from Mr. Gray's introductory remarks, and then proceed with Turner's own narrative. "We, the undersigned, members of the court convened at Jerusalem, on Saturday, the fifth day of November, 1831, for the trial of Nat, alias Nat Turner, a negro slave, late the property of Putnam Moore, deceased, do hereby certify, that the confession of Nat, to Thomas R. Gray, was read to him in our presence, and that Nat acknowledged the same to be full, free, and voluntary; and that furthermore, when called upon by the presiding magistrate of the court to stateif he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, replied he had nothing further than he had communicated to Mr. Gray. Given under our hands and seals at Jerusalem, this fifth day of November, 1831. JEREMIAH COBB, (Seal.} THOMAS PRETLOW, (Seal] JAMES W. PARKER, (Seal) CARR BOWERS, (Seal.) SAMUEL B. HINES, (Seal) ORRIS A. BROWNE, (Seal.)" "State of Virginia, Southampton County, to wit: "I, James Rochelle, Clerk of the County Court of Southampton, in the State of Virginia, do hereby certify, that Jeremiah Cobb, Thomas Pretlow, James W. Parker, Carr Bowers, Samuel B. Hines, and Orris A. Browne, Esqrs., are acting justices of the peace in and for the county aforesaid; and were members of the court which convened at Jerusalem, on Saturday, the fifth day of November, 551 552 APPENDIX I 1831, for the trial of Nat, alias Nat Turner, a negro slave, late the property of Putnam Moore, deceased, who was tried and convicted, as an insurgent in the late insurrection in the County of Southampton aforesaid, and that full faith and credit are due and ought to be given to their acts as justices of the peace aforesaid. (Seal.) In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the court aforesaid to be affixed, this fifth day of November , 1831. JAMES ROCHELLE, C. S. C. C." "Everything connected with this sad affair was wrapt in mystery, until NAT TURNER, the leader of this ferocious band, whose name has resounded throughout our widely-extended empire, was captured . "Since his confinement, by permission of the jailer, I have had ready access to him; and, finding that he was willing to make a full and free confession of the origin, progress, and consummation, of the insurrectory movements of the slaves, of which he was the contriver and head, I determined, for the gratification of public curiosity , to commit his statements to writing, and publish them, with little or no variation, from his own words. "He was not only the contriver of the conspiracy, but gave the first blow towards its execution. "It will thus appear, that whilst everything upon the surface of society wore a calm and peaceful aspect, whilst not one note of preparation was heard to warn the devoted inhabitants of woe and death, a gloomy fanatic was revolving in the recesses of his own dark, bewildered, and overwrought mind, schemes of indiscriminate massacre to the whites. Schemes too fearfully executed, as far as his fiendish band proceeded in their desolating march. No cry for mercy penetrated their flinty bosoms. No acts of remembered kindness made the least impression upon these remorseless murderers. Men, women, and children, from hoary age to helpless infancy, were involved in the same cruel fate. Never did a band of savages do their work of death more unsparingly. "Nat has survived all his followers, and the gallows will speedily close his career. His own account of the conspiracy is submitted to the public, without comment. It reads an awful, and, it is hoped, a useful lesson, as to the operations of a mind like his, endeavoring to APPENDIX I 553 grapple with things beyond its reach. How it first became bewildered and confounded, and finally corrupted and led to the conception and perpetration of the most atrocious and heartrending deeds. "If Nat's statements can be relied on, the insurrection in this county was entirely local, and his designs confided...