The assailants
were repulsed in their first attack, and several of their bravest
officers were shot down in the act of storming the fortress,
sword in hand. The assault was renewed with greater success. A
lodgment was effected. The Indians were driven from one post to
another. They disputed their ground inch by inch, fighting with
the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces,
and after a long and bloody battle, Philip and Canonchet, with a
handful of surviving warriors, retreated from the fort and took
refuge in the thickets of the surrounding forest.
The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort; the whole was
soon in a blaze; many of the old men, the women, and the children
perished in the flames. This last outrage overcame even the
stoicism of the savage. The neighboring woods resounded with the
yells of rage and despair uttered by the fugitive warriors, as
they beheld the destruction of their dwellings and heard the
agonizing cries of their wives and offspring. "The burning of the
wigwams," says a contemporary writer, "the shrieks and cries of
the women and children, and the yelling of the warriors,
exhibited a most horrible and affecting scene, so that it greatly
moved some of the soldiers.
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