Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 29.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[368] without regard to age, sex, or condition, the troop, under command of Captain Randolph, marched on the instant, with full ranks, to the infected district. The Artillery Battery, Captain Richardson commanding, followed at slower gait. The Public Guard, stationed at the old armory, were deemed to be sufficient for the protection of the city. No other volunteer company than the two mentioned appears to have been in existence at the time. A cavalry company was hastily formed to take the place of the departing one. The city was said to be in its usual state of undisturbed composure. Patrollers doubtless assisted the night watch on their beats, but no mention is made of their service by the newspapers of that period.

Nothing worthy of note occurred during the march of the Richmond troops southward, save this ludicrous incident, which was told me many years ago by one of Captain Randolph's men:

Dick Gaines, the aforesaid black bugler, having gone beyond the troop as they were passing through a thick wood, fell unawares upon an ambush of patrollers, who, seeing a horseman, booted and spurred, and mistaking him for General Nat. Turner, or other black rebel, fixed their triggers to shoot him. Dick, surprised as much much as they, wheeled about face, and ducking his head below the neck of his horse, to escape a volley, dashed wildly back to the troop, who, suspecting the cause of his discomfiture, greeted him with laughter, loud, long, and uproarious. When Captain Randolph, by forced marches, arrived at Jerusalem, the rising had been quelled, the rebels killed, captured, or dispersed. Their general was in hiding, but not long, for a hunter's dog, it is said, discovered the cave in which he lay.

General Eppes was in command at Jerusalem, the centre of the disturbed district—his regiment of volunteers supported by a company of United States regulars from Fort Monroe.

The suburbs of Jerusalem swarmed with militia from the Tidewater counties of Virginia and North Carolina; patrollers watched every by-road, or were in force on every suspected plantation. The rising was not as general as the leaders expected it to be. The most of the negroes remained loyal to their masters. But had it been more formidable, the white militia of the county alone would have been able to suppress it.