To get an approximate knowledge of the number, the city
government once ordered the persons thus arriving to be counted,--and
that during the progress of the trials, at a time when the negroes were
rather fearful of coming into town,--and it was found, that, even then,
there were more than five hundred visitors on a single Sunday. This
fact, then, was the essential point in the plan of insurrection. Whole
plantations were found to have been enlisted among the "candidates,"
as they were termed; and it was proved that the city negroes who lived
nearest the place of meeting had agreed to conceal these confederates in
their houses to a large extent, on the night of the proposed outbreak.
The details of the plan, however, were not rashly committed to the mass
of the confederates; they were known only to a few, and were finally to
have been announced after the evening prayer-meetings on the appointed
Sunday. But each leader had his own company enlisted, and his own work
marked out. When the clock struck twelve, all were to move. Peter Poyas
was to lead a party ordered to assemble at South Bay, and to be joined
by a force from James' Island; he was then to march up and seize the
arsenal and guard-house opposite St.
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