The clans were gathering.

They hastened from plantation and hundred, from lowland manor-house and log cabin in the woods of the upland, well-armed housekeepers, booted and spurred, armed with good broadswords and fusils for the wars that were plainly coming.

Bacon in a little while had collected a force of nearly six hundred men.

In fact, it was not more than three or four days after his escape, before, at the head of this force, he was marching on Jamestown.
Berkeley was alarmed and dispatched messengers to York and Gloucester for the train-bands; but only about one hundred soldiers could be mustered, and before these could reach Jamestown, Bacon entered it at the head of his army, and about two o'clock in the afternoon drew up his troops, horse and foot, upon the green, not an arrow's flight from the end of the statehouse.

All the streets and roads leading into the town were guarded, the inhabitants disarmed and the boats in the harbor seized.
Jamestown was thrown into confusion.