Reverend G. W. Powell wrote a letter to the "New York Evening Post" stating that "many negroes are killed every day. The exact number will never be known." A company of militia from Hertford County, North Carolina, reportedly killed 40 blacks in one day and took $23 and a gold watch from the dead. Captain Solon Borland led a contingent from Murfreesboro, North Carolina, and he condemned the acts "because it was tantamount to theft from the white owners of the slaves". Blacks suspected of participating in the rebellion were beheaded by the militia and "their severed heads were mounted on poles at crossroads as a grisly form of intimidation". A section of Virginia State Route 658 remains labeled as "Blackhead Signpost Road" in reference to these events.