Three men went in front of the council as an advance guard, three followed with coal oil and fire, and others guarded the rear.

The plan was to burn the whole town, but first one Negro and then another insisted on having some white man's house spared because "he is a good man." In the end no residences were burned, and a happy compromise was effected by burning the Female Academy.

Three of the leaders were afterwards lynched.
The general belief of the whites was that the ultimate object of the order was to secure political power and thus bring about on a large scale the confiscation of the property of Confederates, and meanwhile to appropriate and destroy the property of their political opponents wherever possible.

Chicken houses, pigpens, vegetable gardens, and orchards were visited by members returning from the midnight conclaves.
During the presidential campaign of 1868, the North Carolina League sent out circular instructions to the blacks advising them to drill regularly and to join the militia, for if Grant were not elected the Negroes would go back to slavery; if he were elected, the Negroes were to have farms, mules, and offices.
As soon as possible after the war the Negroes had supplied themselves with guns and dogs as badges of freedom.

They carried their guns to the League meetings, often marching in military formation, went through the drill there, marched home again along the roads, shouting, firing, and indulging in boasts and threats against persons whom they disliked.
Later, military parades in the daytime were much favored.